00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,000
In this analysis video, we're going to look at the transition.

00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:09,000
I've said many times that transition is one of the key movements to the golf swing

00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,000
and we're a lot of problems seem to start manifesting themselves.

00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:21,000
So transition is roughly going to be from when you've set the club until you get to the release.

00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:26,000
So it'll roughly be the first stage of the downswing right up until about here.

00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:32,000
Everybody's going to be a little bit different as to when they start the release.

00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:35,000
So transition timing will be a little bit different for everyone.

00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:41,000
But right around here when that right arm starts to straighten is roughly when transition ends.

00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:47,000
So it seems like it's a very short period of time, but there's a lot of key movements that are happening

00:00:47,000 --> 00:00:48,000
in this transition.

00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:55,000
In keeping with our theme, the first thing we'll talk about is what the body is doing during transition.

00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:59,000
And then the second thing we'll talk about is what the arms are doing transition.

00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:08,000
During transition, we are essentially loading the body for the release.

00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:13,000
So the first thing that we're going to look at is getting the weight into the left foot.

00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:18,000
Then we're going to look at getting that left shoulder down as well as getting the chest down.

00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:22,000
Now first let's look at getting into that left side or getting into that left foot.

00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:27,000
So here on the left we have Kegan Bradley and I'm just going to draw a line

00:01:29,000 --> 00:01:32,000
vertically up from kind of the outside of his arch.

00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:39,000
Now you'll see that the first movement that he's going to do if it's a decent camera angle is

00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:42,000
get his left hip over close to that line.

00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:47,000
Some golfers will actually get past that line, but here Kegan does a pretty good job of getting up close to.

00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:54,000
On the right here we have Zac Johnson and while the line moved a little bit just from the camera angle,

00:01:54,000 --> 00:02:03,000
you'll see that during that transition phase, he gets his left hip over on top of his left foot.

00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:08,000
Now you'll notice that as I talk about the transition phase, both Kegan and Zach and the other examples

00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:13,000
I'll show are getting their lower body up over that line.

00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:17,000
Roughly about the time the left arm is parallel to the ground.

00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:24,000
That's essentially the same thing as the step into the pitch that you would see in any good throwing motion.

00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:28,000
And so it's important that this weight shift happens relatively quickly.

00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:36,000
Now here's Justin Rose and if we look on the left we can see him with an iron and you can see

00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:42,000
there's that lateral movement as he begins to rotate and then by the time that left arm is parallel to the ground.

00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:47,000
There's a vertical line and if you remember from my finding your hip video,

00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:53,000
the hip is roughly going to be about where that first belt loop is.

00:02:53,000 --> 00:03:00,000
So you'll see in both of these examples, he is roughly getting that belt loop over the ankle

00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:07,000
early in the downswing and the key thing there is that it's happening early and then it will stabilize

00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:15,000
there as he goes into the release. Now here we have a couple of amateurs and we'll demonstrate

00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:22,000
different ways that we could have trouble with this part of the transition. So you can see the golfer on the left.

00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:27,000
Basically never really gets that belt loop on top of his ankle. He's pretty much

00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:33,000
he shifts a little bit but most of his weight stays back on that right foot and then you'll see

00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:39,000
as he comes through impact not to foreshadow but because it was way on that back foot you can see the

00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:47,000
golf will still on the screen when it should be long gone. Over here on the right you'll see a golfer

00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:52,000
who's getting more of the weight shift with his upper body you can see how his upper body and his

00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:58,000
lower body are almost right on top of each other and his lower body is getting over onto his left side

00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:05,000
relatively slowly so you can see it takes his entire downswing for his hip to get on top of the

00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:11,000
ankle where it was clear with those professionals that they were getting over there during one of the

00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:17,000
very first movements. Now the next piece that we're going to look at is getting the chest down or the

00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:25,000
left shoulder side bending during transition. So over here on the left while not a tour pro he's a very

00:04:25,000 --> 00:04:31,000
good ball striker into professional and Maryland but it's a unique camera angle so I wanted to show

00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:37,000
it so that you can clearly see that as the club starts down you can watch that left shoulder

00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:45,000
get a little bit lower. I will put a little line there just so you can see you can see during

00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:52,000
transition right there very very subtle but helps load and compress against the ground before

00:04:52,000 --> 00:04:56,000
he's going to do his powerful movements starting to release. If you're looking from the more

00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:02,000
traditional behind the golfer the way we see over here on the macro area the down the line you will

00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:08,000
see that left shoulder drop down and typically the head drop down a little bit as well. That's an

00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:13,000
indication that he's getting left side bend because we are currently looking straight at his chest.

00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:19,000
So it can feel a little weird that's why we have a handful of drills to help you understand what it

00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:23,000
really means to do this little left side bend because it's gonna feel weird because your spine

00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:31,000
is twisted when you're doing it. But it is critical for properly creating the platform to then push

00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:39,000
off of during release. Now I'll show you a couple more examples. Over here on the left we've got

00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:45,000
Tiger Woods doing a more traditional approach and you'll see clearly during that transition phase that

00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:52,000
left shoulder is dropping down. This is a left side bend and helps give the chest lower

00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:56,000
which prepares for the release. We'll talk about that in the release video. Here you've got a little

00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:03,000
less traditional backswing with Tommy Ganey but you'll still see that movement of dropping during

00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:11,000
transitioning getting that left shoulder coming down. Now here are a couple amateurs that will

00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:19,000
help us demonstrate the opposite. So here's a student here on the left and as we get to the top of

00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:26,000
the swing if you pay attention to that left shoulder you'll see that as she starts down it pretty much

00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:32,000
appears like it stays the same height or if anything it ends up going up. I can tell you from

00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:40,000
3D that it actually goes up a little bit. Right up and then over here on the right we'll look at

00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:48,000
a similar pattern. So as we go up towards the top of the swing we're watching that left shoulder in

00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:55,000
head and you'll see it move back in a way and up as opposed to going down the way that we were seeing

00:06:55,000 --> 00:07:02,000
with some of those tour pros. Now let's take a look at the arms during the transition phase. So

00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:08,000
the arms in the club or the arms in the hands have one primary role they're going to get in close

00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:15,000
close to the body kind of like a figure skater getting ready to spin so that the body can rotate

00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:20,000
and transfer the speed effectively and then the arms will be in position to release all that energy

00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:26,000
during the release or it or transfer all that energy during the release. Now there's a few movements

00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:33,000
that are going to make this a little bit easier. One the right elbow is going to bend a little

00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:41,000
bit more and work in the front of your chest. Two the left wrist is going to slightly flatten or

00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:50,000
flex and the right wrist is going to cup or extend and then three your left arm the arms are going

00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:55,000
to flatten the club and I'll talk a lot about that in the section in the video. By flattening the club

00:07:55,000 --> 00:08:01,000
I mean the left arm is going to be pronating and the right arm is going to be supernating. That

00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:06,000
means that the right arm would be rotating so that the palm would be facing up and the left arm

00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:14,000
would be rotating so that the palm would be facing down. Instead of talking about each move individually

00:08:14,000 --> 00:08:22,000
let's talk about them kind of together in a global sense. So for some reason it can be much easier to

00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:28,000
understand transition if we look at the midway point between transition and release which I refer

00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:34,000
to as the delivery position. So in this delivery position which I talk about in the delivery position

00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:40,000
drill you'll see that a few things have happened the hands are going to be pointing directly away

00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:45,000
from the chest. I mean the back of the left hand is pointing away from the chest and the palm

00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:53,000
of the right hand is pointing more or less away from the chest. Now this is different from where

00:08:53,000 --> 00:09:00,000
we would be here in the back swing. So at this point in the back swing you can see that the

00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:05,000
the palms are not parallel to the chest. The chest is at an angle kind of like this and

00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:12,000
the club is at an angle something like this. We can take a look at Tommy Ganey here. You can see that

00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:19,000
the hands in the back swing are at a different angle to the chest like so. Now as he goes up to the top

00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:24,000
of the swing you'll see things flatten out to where they get both of them pretty much in the same

00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:31,000
alignment. Now it is very very hard to see this movement on video because of a couple things.

00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:38,000
One we have this single camera view that we're looking at and two the movable structures of the

00:09:38,000 --> 00:09:45,000
left shoulder, protracting, sometimes struggling but basically they may get hard to see the true

00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:51,000
alignment of the chest. That's why with 3D we use a sensor that's on the thorax and we look at

00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:58,000
the movement of the ribcage. Now let's isolate the flattening of the club or the pronation of

00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:03,000
the left arm supination of the right arm for right hand to golfer. So here we have tiger woods

00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,000
as we go up to the top of the swing you'll see that even though the left shoulder is dropping

00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:15,000
down which should steep in the path you'll see that the club is coming down slightly flatter

00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:20,000
than it was on the backswing. Not everyone does it slightly flatter it's probably a couple examples

00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:27,000
but most of them do and the way that they're doing it is by letting those arms drop flatten or

00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:32,000
feel like they're falling which is a common phrase which tiger himself has said when he's playing

00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:40,000
well tends to feel. So there's that little drop slash flatten move. Here's loop Donald on the right

00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:51,000
and you'll see there's the angle between his hands and his chest. So there's the angle between

00:10:51,000 --> 00:11:01,000
his hands and his chest. You'll see that as he starts down there's the little flatten move and the

00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:08,000
hands are more approaching chest they will reach parallel to the chest or even inside of it when they

00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:13,000
get down or even shallower as they get down to delivery position right in there.

00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:22,000
And now let's look at a few amateurs going through this same phase. So over here on the left we have

00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:30,000
a higher handicap golfer and you'll see in this position here there's that different angle that we saw

00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:38,000
with those pro golfer as we were just looking at but as we start down you'll see that instead of

00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:44,000
shallowing that club out we will see that his hands are now vertical compared to his chest so they've

00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:52,000
actually become steeper. So he's doing the opposite motions with his forearms to what the examples

00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,000
of the tour pro is I was showing you. Now we really couldn't talk about steep and shallow without

00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:03,000
bringing in sort of Charles Barkley. So you can see he brings it away you know into this backswing

00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:12,000
position on a similar angle to what those pro's are talking about he has losses backswing posture

00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:21,000
but no big deal. As he starts down during his first pump anyway you will see that compared to his

00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:29,000
chest that shaft is practically vertical or practically perpendicular. So most pros are getting into

00:12:29,000 --> 00:12:35,000
a parallel position which would be roughly having the shaft like this compared to his chest but

00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:42,000
Charles does it his own way and eventually he does release through but he's releasing from an

00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:47,000
incredibly steep position and so he has to stand up to try to shallow it out last minute.

00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:55,000
Now here are two examples of steepening and shallowing in the wrong way. So over here on the left we have

00:12:55,000 --> 00:13:01,000
an amateur golfer. As he goes to the top of the swing you can see the difference between his chest

00:13:01,000 --> 00:13:08,000
than his wear his hands are facing you know again nothing doesn't look out of the norm that could

00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:17,000
potentially be a tour swing. But as we start down you'll see that that left shoulder tends to come up

00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:27,000
pretty quickly and the hands if you compared to where they were here in the backswing have actually

00:13:27,000 --> 00:13:34,000
reached more of a steep position. So then he has to shallow the club out very very late by doing

00:13:34,000 --> 00:13:42,000
a smaller version of the stand up move that Charles Barclay was doing. Over here on the right we have

00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:49,000
a student of mine who does a similar movement. So here he is right here you can see his chest and arms

00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:55,000
are roughly parallel with each other which is exactly what we want to see on the downswing.

00:13:56,000 --> 00:14:04,000
What he ends up doing is he steepens you can see right there that his hands have steepened compared

00:14:04,000 --> 00:14:13,000
to where they were at this position here. But the shaft has flattened he's done all of the flattening

00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:21,000
from losing that left side tilt and standing up and so his release is going to be very very steep

00:14:21,000 --> 00:14:27,000
while his body has created all the shallows. I think it's very important that the body be more steep

00:14:27,000 --> 00:14:34,000
and the hands be more shallow for the majority of full swings. Now before I get an ambush of

00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:40,000
I do want to show that there are examples of golfers who do more of a steeper movement of their

00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:44,000
arms during a transition. And I've got two of them here, one Jason Duffner and the other is Phil

00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:52,000
Nicholson. Now I would like to point out there in the vast minority and the thing that we can't see

00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:57,000
here is if one arm is primarily controlling this movement or if they're both doing it.

00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:03,000
What I mean by that is it is possible that the left arm could be trying to flatten

00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:10,000
which we could see on 3D while the right arm could be steepening. But either way I did want to show

00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:16,000
you a couple examples. So here you can see in the backswing position hands roughly parallel to the

00:15:16,000 --> 00:15:25,000
chest and then as he starts down hands are slightly steeper maybe 10-15 degrees or so. And so he ends up

00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:31,000
getting into delivery position but with a little bit steeper shaft angle.

00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:40,000
Here we have Jason Duffner again hands are roughly parallel and then as he starts down you can see them

00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:47,000
just slightly steeper than where they were in the backswing. Now as a result of having them slightly

00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:54,000
steeper you'll see during the release phase is upper body tends to drift away from the golf ball

00:15:54,000 --> 00:16:00,000
which is a shallowing out move but also a timing move. Phil kind of does the same thing. You'll see

00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:09,000
that upper body drifting slightly away but not nearly as much. Next we'll take a look at the

00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:15,000
wrist setting move. So I've got a couple examples here on the left we have Zack Johnson and on the right

00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:21,000
ran for a macroe. I'll show you an easy way that you can see it on video. So if we go

00:16:22,000 --> 00:16:28,000
through the takeaway you can take a look at the angle between the left wrist and the left forearm.

00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:34,000
All right that is looked at as left wrist extension you can see that Zack Johnson has a fair amount

00:16:34,000 --> 00:16:39,000
and I believe he's somewhere around 40 degrees or something like that. Now you can also see up at the

00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:49,000
top of the swing. There he has let's say 20 degrees or so and then as he starts down you'll see that

00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:56,000
he takes away a lot of it when he gets back in this position here if you look at his left wrist

00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:02,000
you can see that it has a lot less of that extension position and you can see that that right

00:17:02,000 --> 00:17:09,000
wrist has a fair amount of cupping. So that movement happens somewhere during this transition phase.

00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:13,000
Now if we look at right macroe we'll see

00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:20,000
fully something similar. So in this position here you can see if you drew a line from his left

00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:27,000
there is definitely an angle maybe 20 degrees something like that. As we as he let's the

00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:33,000
club go up to the top of the swing you'll start to see this movement because you can see right here he has

00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:41,000
still a little bit of cup in that left wrist and then as he starts down now that left wrist is

00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:48,000
pretty much flat. So he's done the movement I call or refer to as the motorcycle movement which is

00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:55,000
basically squaring or closing in the club face with the hands as if you're rotating a screwdriver.

00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:02,000
When we get him down to this delivery position you can see that if you drew a line straight off his

00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:09,000
forearm there's a fair amount of angle there maybe 20 degrees or so so he's gone about 40 degrees

00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:16,000
different between his takeaway position and where he is on the right hand. And now we have a

00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:24,000
couple of examples of amateurs and we'll look at the same two pieces of information. So you can see here

00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:31,000
his wrist is pretty flat and as we go up towards the top of the swing you'll see it pretty much

00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:38,000
maintains that position and as we come back down it's pretty much in that same position there.

00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:43,000
So he has done very little with setting the wrist and you can see that that right wrist is pretty

00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:50,000
straight as well. So this will be a swing the will typically lack power and typically have trouble with

00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:56,000
getting divots and downward angle attack because his wrist are kind of already in a length and position.

00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:04,000
Here we have over on the left of a very good solid amateur golfer low handicap he's got

00:19:05,000 --> 00:19:11,000
a little bit of a cup in his left wrist there and then about the same amount at the top of the swing

00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:19,000
as we come back down we can say the shaft is kind of shallowing out but you can see that the wrist

00:19:19,000 --> 00:19:26,000
is essentially in the same position we have a very limited amount of cup in that right wrist. So again

00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:34,000
he's failed to set those wrists into a powerful position and so he's going to sacrifice a lot of his

00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:39,000
body speed because the hands aren't ready for what we would want to do during the release.

00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:46,000
And here we have two more amateur examples, different handicap levels but so let's take a look at

00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:55,000
it right there. So here we have fairly straight slight little cup maybe 10, 15 degrees tops and then as we

00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:03,000
come back down to that same position you can see about the same maybe a little bit less over here on the right

00:20:04,000 --> 00:20:10,000
you'll see again slight cup maybe 10, 15 degrees as we come back down.

00:20:12,000 --> 00:20:18,000
You can see about that same 10, 15 degrees. Now anytime that you haven't done this motorcycle

00:20:18,000 --> 00:20:22,000
move where you haven't flattened the left wrist and cup the right wrist it's going to limit

00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:28,000
how much your upper body is going to be able to rotate and it's going to limit or minimize how much

00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:33,000
speed you're going to be able to create. So let's take a look at this ability to rotate

00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:39,000
so when we when we had the professionals up there you would notice that their chest was pointed at the

00:20:39,000 --> 00:20:46,000
golf ball at this same hand position. So to show you what I mean I brought Adam Scott over here on

00:20:46,000 --> 00:20:53,000
the left so you can see that when the club is roughly in the same position compared to the golf ball

00:20:53,000 --> 00:21:00,000
right if I drew a little box there you can see that his club is roughly parallel to the target

00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:05,000
and to the box so as Adam so their their clubs are in identical positions more or less.

00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:13,000
If you were to then look at their body you can see that his body is facing the golf ball

00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:19,000
chest pointed out like so where this gentleman here has chest is pointed more behind the golf

00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:28,000
so if we did nothing but turn his body that would move the club even steeper. So if you don't do

00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:35,000
this motorcycle move if you don't have this cup in the the right wrist and flattening or

00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:41,000
or flexing of the left wrist then it's going to limit how much you can turn your body which is

00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:50,000
a limitation on both power and consistency. So I know that that is a lot to think about which is why

00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:56,000
I've broken it down into these individual movements and giving you drills that you can use to practice

00:21:56,000 --> 00:22:02,000
them and train them because there's no way you can think about all this during the subtle movement

00:22:02,000 --> 00:22:08,000
as you finish your backswing and get into this delivery position but you can train it so that it

00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:14,000
happens automatically with proper repetitions and proper focus. So focus on one piece of the time

00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:20,000
as you're training this and then when you feel like you have a pretty good understanding not mastery

00:22:20,000 --> 00:22:25,000
but a pretty good understanding you can move on to adding the next piece but know that once you have

00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:31,000
all these pieces in play you'll have what it takes to be in position for a very powerful and efficient

00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:34,000
release.