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Swing Analysis Videos

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Swing Analysis - Tiger Woods Stinger

Tiger Woods old 'Stinger' punch shot was his go-to shot for a period in his career. He used it on many tee shots to have a balance of accuracy and distance. To hit the stinger, he would get his hands in a position where he had a lot of shaft lean, but without lunging forward or having too much flip in his hands. This allowed him to take shallow divots with such an impact position. He set up with the ball back and used body rotation to feel "the hands leading the clubhead" well into the follow through.

Tags: Poor Contact

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In this analysis video, we're going to take a look at Tiger Woods' famous Stinger Punch Shot.

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Now, many golfers hit punch shots, but Tiger was most famous for hitting these Stinger

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Punch shots with not just long irons, but his three would off the tee.

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In this video, we're going to discuss two keys for you to hit a better punch shot.

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Now, you may not have the club that's needed to be able to pull off hitting long Stinger

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or style two irons, but having a good punch shot as a go-to shot, any time you feel like you lose your swing

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or even if you just need a little extra control, is a good shot to add to your arsenal.

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Now, Tiger has talked about his punch shot, his stinger multiple times, and he frequently describes it

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as what's going on with his hands. He's described in many interviews that he has a lot of control

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and sensitivity with what's going on in his hands. So basically, that's where he feels all this shot.

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The two things you'll hear him describe is that you need to, he's going to close the club face

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like crazy, which I'll reference another video really just helps de-loft it.

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And then, he's going to feel like he keeps his hands ahead of the club head long into the follow-through.

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Now, that's usually the challenging movement for most players trying to execute a punch shot.

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Many golfers have a lot of the speed more in the handle or in the club head where the hands are

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releasing all the energy in the club head and the body is just kind of stopped on the way through.

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So even though he's describing keeping the hands moving forward, the way he's doing it is by having

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quieter hands and having his body move the club head in the path of the hands around him through the

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follow-through. This camera view doesn't highlight it as much, but you'll want to start off by having

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the ball position a little bit back in your stance and you're going to have to make sure that you

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get a fair amount of shafly. So you can see that he has a significant amount of shafly.

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Now, even though he has a significant amount of shafly, he's not going to take a very

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steep divot because he didn't create that shafly and by lunging his upper body on top of the golf ball.

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So in order to hit the shot really well, you need to get your hands more in front of your body

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using the movement that I teach of the white movement, but basically just getting your hands more ahead,

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but not by doing so by lunging the upper body by doing so with the movement of the arms.

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You want to keep your upper body slightly behind the golf ball so that you don't take a very

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steep divot. Tiger would describe that if you have too much hand activity or if you are too steep,

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then you'll get your spin rates to go too high and the ball will take off low, but then spin up

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and it will cost you too much distance. So in order to have that shafling, but then not take a deep

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divot, you have to have more of the energy moving the hands around and less of it down in the clubhead,

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extending it down. So as you saw, he had his hands well ahead, which you can see reflected in the

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angle of the shaft, but you'll see the actual path of the clubhead is not

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significantly down. It's pretty flat on the way through. It's definitely not

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traveling straight down into the ground and taking a big divot. And he did that because his upper

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body was slightly behind the ball, even though his hands were so far ahead. And he kept the handle

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moving by not flipping his wrists or scooping or having more of the speed in the hands in the club.

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He had it more in the body moving in order to keep the hands ahead. But if you're going to do that,

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you have to close the face more with shafrothation. It's easier to see the shafrothation

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from the down-line camera view. And one thing you'll notice is when he hit a lot of these

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fingers, he would take the club away in more of a closed or strong position. But then as he

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comes back down, he would describe it as right about here. You can see that the club face is,

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you know, it's on the close side, but it's not overly closed. You'll see that down through there,

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he really closes the club face with shafrothation, which allows him to get those hands ahead.

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Now, one of the other things that this will show is many golfers trying to get the hands to keep

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moving forward and the body to continue turning will take the club path and go really outside in.

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Here you'll see that he still does a good job of controlling the swing path and swing direction.

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Even though he has a significant amount of shafrothion and a club face that is more close.

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So you're going to have to play around a little bit with using some path feedback to make sure

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you get the ball flat you want. But by getting the hands and working on keeping the handle moving

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on the way through, YouTube can have some shafrothion without taking really steep divots,

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which is one of the big keys to the stinger shot. One sign that you'll see that he's using more

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of the body continuing to rotate on the way through is compared to his normal finish. He'll have

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a significant amount more of upper body rotation in the shaft will be kind of up more like this as

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opposed to down like that. That's an indication that his arms have worked more around and his body

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had more of an intention of really turning as opposed to having those arms really extending

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out towards the target and having more of a kind of full release which would typically yield a shaft

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slightly below parallel like this. So by comparison, this is a long iron hit on a part 3.

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We don't know exactly what shot he's hitting but you can see significantly less face closing.

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He's going to take a little bit more of a divot, maybe having a bit more hand action on the way through,

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and you'll see that his finished position hits more that shaft position like this. It's a little

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less rotation of the upper body and the hands got a little bit higher in the follow through as well.

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All those are signs that during his stinger, even though he's got the shaft way forward,

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he's emphasizing the body rotation in order to keep the hands ahead of the target and not stick

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the club in the ground. So while you may not be able to hit the punch out as far as tiger,

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I highly recommend working on the skill of being able to have quieter hands through impact.

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It really helps with developing a go-to shot that you can use under pressure or when you need a

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little bit more control.

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