SA002. Golf Weight Shift in the Downswing | Web Student Swing Review

Why You Need This: Have you been working on your golf weight shift in the downswing but feel like you're all "out of whack?"

In this student review, I'll compare web member Colm's swing to Jordan Spieth's.

And you'll find out how to shift to the left...

In order to get that good forward shaft lean...

And hit the ball dead solid...

Which is what it's all about, right?

One of the biggest aspects of a proper weight transfer is making sure that you don't slide too far forward.

If your left hip bumps in front of your left ankle, this can not only cause some pain in the left hip...

But it can cause you to lose lag as well.

If you shift properly, however, your weight will move to the left so that the left ankle, hip, and shoulder will all be in a straight line.

(Though, it may not look quite like you're thinking. The video will show you, though.)

This allows you to create tons of lag and still have space to release the club.

Watch the video now to perfect this move and hit more solid shots immediately!

Golf Pros Featured: Jordan Spieth    

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 12:14

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, and welcome back to Top Speed Golf. I want to thank Colm for being nice enough to send in his swing for us to take a look at.

We’re going to talk about a couple of things that he was concerned about, and how to properly shift your weight to the left to get that good forward shaft lean.

Really it all boils down to hitting the ball dead solid. We’re going to go over some good keys that are going to help you to do that.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

Al right, so to start off here, let’s talk about a couple of things that he does really well. I really like his swing, he’s got a very nice, very solid swing, a lot of things happening very well.

We’ll notice that his setup position, he gets some nice spine tilt here, and this is what we call the stable, fluid spine. The reason we call it the stable, fluid spine is because throughout the swing we want that spine angle to remain pretty constant.

So we’ll see at the top of the swing we can see his spine angle very, very similar to what it was at address, is the overall spine angle. I realize there is some curvature in the spine, but the overall tilt is very similar to what it is at address.

But it was also fluid because it allowed him to get a good, full shoulder turn which is what we call the power turn in the golf swing.

We went from address, we went to the top of the swing, spine angle very, very consistent, good shoulder turn going back, and if we go down to the bottom of the swing to impact, we’re going to see that that spine angle is still also very, very consistent as he came through the shot.

It’s going to increase a little bit, but notice how nice and consistent that is. Then even all the way into the finish, we’re going to see that that doesn’t move around a lot.

So if we look at his overall spine angle there at the finish, very, very nice there too. So he’s very, very consistent in that. I love that.

That is one of the key points, and I think really the most important fundamental for consistency, which is a question that I get a lot, “How can I be more consistent?” Well, he’s demonstrating that very well.

Also, with the power turn that we go over in the Top Speed Golf System, notice how his belt buckle in the finish is facing toward the target. Notice how his shoulders have rotated all the way on through, so they’re even facing a little bit toward the left rough.

A good key for this, and thing that can’t be overemphasized enough, is to make sure that all your weight is balanced over your left side.

So if we drew a line up through the left ankle all the way through the top of the head, we’re going to see that that’s nice and balanced, one nice, straight line. His right toe has come all the way up off the ground to allow his hips, and to allow his body to rotate through there.

One of the things that I see a lot, are people keeping instead of the right foot looking like this, the right foot is still at an angle. Too much weight is down into the ground on the right foot, and that’s causing you to keep weight on your right side.

That limits the hip rotation and the shoulder rotation, and ultimately cuts down on a lot of your distance. So that’s what I really like. Nice, consistent, stable, fluid spine, and a good turn going both back and through.

One of the things that he mentioned in his downswing that he didn’t like, and had some concerns on, is as he’s shifting to the left, you’ll notice how the upper body starts to move a little bit kind of exaggerated to the left as he starts the downswing.

He says, you know I feel like that’s contributing to me getting a little bit over the top, and I feel like that’s contributing to me losing a little bit of lag as he’s coming through.

So we’ll notice here, he’s got a little bit of a lag, not a bad casting motion or anything like that. Has decent amount of lag here, but he’s just losing that a little bit early, and he’s releasing the club a little bit early.

Those are several things that we talk about in the Top Speed Golf System, where we want to be maxing out lag here, and then not releasing that until well out in front.

You can see that when he gets about 45 past, this is a little before that, but instead of the club splitting the forearms, so the club should still be back at this angle when he’s releasing, it’s actually going past that, and he’s releasing that a little too early.

So that cuts down on his forward shaft lean, at contact we can see he’s losing that a little bit early.

That was very interesting, and something that I’ve seen that’s very similar to what Jordan Spieth does. So if we look at the first move down, as he mentioned the upper body’s going a little bit to the left, we’re also going to see something very similar when we look at Jordan Spieth.

Notice how his upper body and his lower body are shifting to the left together, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. That’s actually a nice thing to do, is to shift the upper and lower body together.

One thing that I see people doing a lot of times, when they’re trying to work on the weight shift, is to really throw this left hip out in front. I think we’ve all been told bump the hips to the left, get the left hip going significantly to start the downswing.

Often what that can do is to lead you into a bad position at contact. We come down to contact here, let’s take a look at Jordan, we’re going to notice that his hip isn’t racing out in front of his left shoulder.

If we take a look at the left shoulder, the left hip socket, and the left ankle socket, we’re going to see these are all pretty stacked on top of each other. This is what I call the compression line, when we’re in the Top Speed Golf System.

We can see that’s very slightly tilted away from the target. That’s what we’d like to have. Ideally, if we’re hitting a long iron or a driver, we’re going to be about 5° or 6° tilted away from the target.

We don’t want to get this hip way out here in front. If the hip was popped out here in front of this line, and instead of being a straight line it looked more like a V-type shape, you’d start to get a lot of pain in your left hip.

If you ever feel like you’re sore after a round of golf, and your left hip is bothering you a little bit, that could be what’s happening.

So I actually like that shift to the left, and I think that’s completely fine. If I look at his compression line as you’re coming through to impact here, very nice. I like this a lot.

So the left ankle, left hip, left shoulder, are all pretty stacked up there and slightly tilted away from the target. I don’t think that’s really the root of the issue here.

What we’re seeing with that kind of exaggerated bump to the left, is more of a backswing issue. If we go back to the beginning of the swing, let’s go ahead and draw a line up from the center of the ankle.

We’re going to see as he goes to the top of the swing, he’s just shifting a little too far to the right.

So if we go all the way to the top, notice how his head starts to poke through that line, and as he gets all the way up here, we can see that his nose is all the way over the center of his right shoe, and the outside of his head is all the way outside of his right foot.

So that’s going to lead to a little bit of a sway, or feeling like a sway, and now to get back to that good compression line, to get back to that good position at contact, he’s going to have to bump to the left a little bit exaggerated with the upper body.

It looks a little smaller, not as noticeable when Jordan’s doing that, because when he gets to the top of the swing, he hasn’t shifted as far to the right.

So even though his spine angle is very similar to what we’re seeing with Colm, very tilted away, both of them have good spine angles, if we draw a lineup from the center of the shoe with Jordan, we’re going to see that that’s still outside of the center of his right foot as he goes to the top.

So what I would recommend for you here to work on, get that stance a little bit wider. This is a little too narrow, get the stance a little bit wider so if the center of your ankle is here, go ahead and widen that up a couple inches.

What that’s going to do, is now you’re going to feel like t’s easier to put weight on the inside of your right foot as you’re going back instead of all the way to the outside of the right foot, which is more what we’re seeing here.

I want you to feel like you keep your head inside your right ankle. So if you’re drawing a vertical line up, feel like your nose is staying on the inside of that line as you’re going back.

Make sure you still keep this good spine tilt, we just don’t want as much of a lateral sway as we’re coming back. Then as you start down, that’s going to make it easier to get that good compression line, to get to that good impact line as you’re starting the downswing without having to feel like you moved around a lot.

So that’s the main thing I’d say for those of you who feel lie maybe you sway a little bit in the swing and start to move laterally a little too much, make sure you feel like that pressure is on the inside of the right ankle as you’re going back.

Then your nose is over top of that as you’re making the top of your backswing. Getting a little bit wider stance is going to make that easier.

Now the main thing that I want you to work on in the downswing, you really get a lot more compression to release that club a little bit better, get some more forward shaft lean, is the hips.

So if we pause just before impact here, notice how the hips are still very square to the ball. So your belt buckle would be facing just in front of this golf ball. We’ve got to get these hips open a little bit more.

If we go ahead and look at Jordan Spieth again, again you guys have very, very similar motions, but let’s take a look at the differences in the hips. We’ll go ahead and pause about the same position, see if we can hit he exact same one here.

I think the camera’s going to be moving too fast, but this is pretty similar, though. Notice how his belt buckle is much more open. His belt buckle is almost at 45° in front, which is what we call the straight line release.

That’s allowing him to get in the proper position with the hips to get the forward shaft lean. If we go one more frame ahead, we’re going to see how you’ve lost a lot of your forward shaft lean.

That’s causing you to lose compression, lose stability in the club as you’re coming through there, that’s mostly the hips. We’ll see where the next frame is here with Jordan, see if we can get a similar position.

See how his hands are in the exact same position your hands are in here? But he still retained – not retained – he still has a releasing of the club, but he’s still got more forward shaft lean, probably a good 10° or 12° more than what you’re seeing there.

That’s almost 100 percent hips related. What I want you to do is go ahead and stand up in your living room, and I want you to open up your hips about 45°.

Notice how now you can get more forward shaft lean on the golf ball and a better compression position, and more delofting of the golf club as you’re coming through there. That’s going to be a lot easier as you’re coming through contact.

I working on that about 100 times pausing at impact, hips 45° open, and instead of your hands being here and the club being out in front, I want to see that club angled back about like this, like we see with Jordan to really feel that good compression through impact and really delofting the club. If you do that it’s a lot easier with the hips open.

Now one last thing here before we leave that’s very, very important, a lot of times when people try to open the hips more, they think of I’m going to race and open the hips more aggressively, or I’m going to rotate the hips faster.

I don’t want you to rotate the hips any faster, I just want them to continue to open up as you’re coming down.

So don’t think about the hips racing open at all, think about the hips opening more so that we’re not controlling the speed of them, we’re just not slowing them down so that they can still continue through there.

That’s going to help you to get in a better impact position. Make sure as you’re doing this, you’re still hitting a little bit on the inside of the golf ball, hitting a nice draw, releasing the face, that kind of thing.

We don’t want to start to come over the top as I know you mentioned sometimes you have a bit of a habit of doing.

But overall, great swing, stay a little bit more stable in the backswing. Keep some pressure on the inside of the right foot, and as you’re coming to contact get those hips a little bit more open, that’s going to allow you to get more forward shaft lean, and you’re going to do great.

So good luck to you guys out there. Good luck, work hard, I’ll talk to you soon.

For those of you that are members of the Top Speed Golf System, I’ve got a video that I want you to watch in the compression line series, it’s video 1.2, so level 1, video 2.

We talk about how to properly align the hips at impact in that video, and I go into some more detail on that. I give you a drill to work through there.

Watch that video so that you guys can get the hips a little bit more open, start getting more forward shaft lean, and ultimately hit the ball really solid.

So again, work hard guys, I’ll see you all soon.