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Why Start With The Motorcycle

Imagine you have a swing that produces the following situation. 

  • Club face open
  • Steep arm movements
  • Cast sequence
  • Body stalls through impact
  • Flip release

You may have a hard time deciding where to start, but if you think about what each movement does to the face and path then the answer might be easier than you think. If a golfer needs to work on shaft rotation, I almost always start with it early in the learning process.

Tags: Poor Contact, Early Extension, Chicken Wing, Cast, Transition, Concept, Intermediate

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This video is addressing why you might want to start with the motorcycle.

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So many golfers come into working on their golf swing from, let's say, a homegrown swing,

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and they've got a few issues that they've got to work on.

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Oftentimes I hear, you know, I get really steep clubs kind of like this.

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I need to work on shallowing it.

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Oftentimes I hear, I early extend, you know, hips kind of move in towards the golf

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ball.

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I work on staying down or get to impact and my right arm's too straight and my butt

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hasn't rotated.

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So I got to work on rotating my body or one of the more common ones.

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I know I've got a flip shaft is vertical just like this.

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I need to get a little bit more shaffling.

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But I rarely, rarely hear someone come in and say, you know what?

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I need to work on twisting the club and closing the face a little bit earlier.

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And here's why I might suggest that that's one of the early things that you work on.

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If you are reading the feedback and you're starting with, you know, what's my ball

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flight, what's my contact flight?

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Like very often you are going to find that you want one of those other things.

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You may want to shallow the club.

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You may want to get more body rotation.

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You may want to get more shaffling.

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Those are all really good things for helping produce a swing that has more flats by, a little

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bit more consistency, more body power, all good things.

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But they also have one thing in common.

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They all open up the club face.

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So many of the good movements that you are going to want to work on are going to create

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leg and are going to create shaffling and are going to cause a club face to go from here

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to there and point more out to the right.

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So many times I'll humor the student and we'll work on whatever it is that they want

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to work on.

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And we'll see that they'll hit the ball thin or possibly even on the heel, maybe even

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shank or they'll hit it just off to the right.

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And then what they'll usually end up doing is they'll end up scooping, standing up,

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stalling the rotation, getting steeper, all ways to re-close the club face.

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So I often help golfers work on rotating the club or working on that motorcycle early

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in the swing and early in the learning process.

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It's usually one of the first things that I'll work on because it almost always produces

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a more crisp or solid contact because it helps create some shaffling, it helps bring

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up compression or ring down spin loft.

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But the other thing it does is it gives them the skill of knowing how to rotate the club face

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clothes so that when we shallow if they hit it right I can say hey just twist it a little

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more and they know what I'm talking about.

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Or if they get better body rotation and they hit it a little right or they hit it a little

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thin I can say go ahead and close the club face.

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So having the skill that you're going to need before you need it is a great way to approach

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the learning process and many of the good body things and good arm things during the

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down swing open the club face and you really have two major options for squaring it or

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closing it.

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One is twisting the shaft that motorcycle movement and the other is the scoop, the scoop

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works well with short irons and wedges but it doesn't really work too well with the

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longer club.

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So if you're looking at it from a long-term approach it may make sense for you to work

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on the skill of closing the club face first by using the motorcycle.

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If you do so then any shot that flies pretty straight or has a little bit of a draw to

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it should be taken as a success and then you can figure out which of the pieces you may

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need in order to get it to the go less left.

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Perhaps it's more Jackson 5x is still perhaps it's more arm-shallowing perhaps it's more

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white movement but you'll at least have the tool in place to be able to use those good

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downswing movements that open the face if you already know how to rotate it closed.

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