Fixing a 20 Handicap Swing with Data

⛳ Data-driven golf lessons can quickly identify and address specific swing issues for more effective improvement.

🎯 Adjusting shoulder and hip alignment at setup is key to reducing slices and achieving a more consistent ball flight.

🧑‍🎓 Simple tools like a pool noodle can help golfers practice proper alignment and swing path without expensive equipment.

📈 Small setup changes can lead to significant improvements in club path and shot distance, even after just a few swings.

🔍 Comparing amateur swings to tour players' setups reveals clear differences that can be corrected for better results.

🏌️‍♀️ Focusing on one or two changes at a time makes golf practice less overwhelming and more productive.

🚀 Practicing with alignment aids can help golfers break scoring barriers and reach new performance goals.

💡 Golf improvement doesn't require complicated fixes—targeted, data-backed adjustments can make a big impact.

00:00:00 - I've got Beth here with me today. Beth, we are going to take a deep dive into your golf swing. So, you've you've never had a data driven lesson. So, we're basically going to take a look at some of your numbers. We'll talk about why you're having some of the problems that you are with your golf game. And then we'll follow Beth along her journey as she improves and becomes a better student. So, stay tuned. This will be really cool.

00:00:26 - So, Beth, tell me a little bit about just where you're at golf-wise right now. Like, how much do you play? What struggles do you have? Just give me the give me the rundown. >> All right. So, I feel like I'm a very inconsistent golfer, so a lot of my balls have been going to the right. I don't know why. Um, it's been a while since I've had a lesson, so I'm excited to kind of have this um instruction and see kind of what I'm doing wrong with my game and hopefully hoping to improve.

00:00:50 - Okay, perfect. What uh what's typically like the scores that you shoot? >> Um anywhere between 90 and 100, I would say. >> Okay, very cool. Um what's a what's a goal for you? What are you trying to get down to? >> Probably 80. I know that's a steep goal. >> That's fair. That's totally fine. So, shoot 90s to 100. Want to get down into the into the 80s. Um I know you said directionwise you tend to curve to the right. How's how's contact generally? Do you hit it solid?

00:01:15 - >> Pretty solid, but again, very inconsistent. So, >> yes. >> Okay. more heavy shots, thin shots, combination of both. >> I don't know what that means. >> Okay, totally fair. We can we can take a look at that when you when you start hitting. That's totally fine. Um, is that curvature problem where it curves to the right the same for all of your clubs? Whether it's an iron driver, I would say >> iron's pretty straight. >> Pretty straight. >> Okay. Uh, on average, how far do you hit

00:01:39 - like a seven iron? >> I don't know. >> That's fine. If you had to guess, what would you say? 130. >> Okay, totally fine. We'll we'll we'll take a look at it when you start hitting. We can kind of get a baseline for where you're at. So, what I would like to do, I'll have you hit a few shots just to kind of warm up. You basically just showed up and now we're we're going to jump in. So, I'll have you hit some hit some balls, kind of get loose. We'll take a look at your swing,

00:02:04 - figure out why you're having a lot of the problems you talked about, and we'll jump into your lesson. Cool. >> Sounds great. [Music] See, I am hitting it behind. So, >> all right, Beth. So, you've hit a couple shots. Uh, exactly what you told me is exactly what's going on. So, that's that's a good thing. You know, kind of what's happening with your golf swing. So, that's really good. Uh, you were hitting them about anywhere from 110, 130 on the good ones. So, pretty typical

00:02:32 - of what you said. Even though you said you didn't know, you actually did know. So, nice work. Um, and then that ball, as you can see behind us, like typically was curving to the right. So, What I would like to do now, let's go over and take a look at your swing. We'll kind of talk about what we're seeing with some of the numbers and then we'll jump into what we're going to work on today. >> Perfect. >> All right, Beth. So, check this out. I've got Cory Connor's over here on the

00:02:52 - right hand side. Notice how I can see his left arm, the the forearm, the elbow area right where this arrow is. And then I can also see his lead leg. Uh tour players set up this way so that they can swing the club a little bit more into out and basically not slice. Um, so if we look over here at you, you can see how I can't see any of your lead arm. I can't see any of your lead leg. And then these numbers here represent the alignment of your shoulders and your

00:03:16 - hips. So, uh, tour players are closer to 8° open with their shoulders and 4° open with their hips. You can see how you're 23° open with your shoulders and 14. So, what that's setting you up to do is it's essentially setting you up to swing this club much more out to in uh or to the left, which is a big reason why you are seeing a lot of those balls kind of curve and slice off to the right. So, this is going to be the big focus for us today is just changing the alignment of

00:03:43 - your shoulders and your hips at setup so that you look a little bit more like a tour player. All right, Beth. So, we've seen what's going on with the swing. What we're going to do is today we're just going to focus on setup. Okay? Okay. So, I'm going to get you in a better position to start swinging the golf club more from the inside. Uh, which will help you create more of that draw pattern, which will help you hit the ball much further. Like, that's really the whole reason why we're doing

00:04:02 - it is I want you to hit the ball further. Okay. So, I've got a handy dandy pool noodle. These are super expensive and super high-tech. All right. Uh, but this is how we're going to use it. So, um, I'm going to have you do this without a golf ball first, but I'm going to show you with the ball there just so you know kind of how to set this up for your own practice. We're going to take a noodle. We'll put it just outside the golf ball and I'm going to angle it somewhat back in and sort of

00:04:23 - down the target line. So you see how it kind of has that call it 15°ish angle to it. >> Yes. >> Okay. That is going to be what I want you to essentially align your shoulders and your hips to when you address the golf ball. >> Okay. So you'll take your setup position like you normally do. And then I basically want you to point your shoulders and your hips so that they kind of line up with where that noodle is. You can't move your feet when you do it. Your feet are going to stay in the

00:04:43 - same place. You're just going to basically rotate your body. Okay? And that's gonna get you in a position where hopefully we can see a little bit more of this lead arm, even maybe a little bit of your lead thigh when you address the golf ball. Make sense? >> Yes. >> Okay. So, I want you to do this a couple times without a ball just to kind of get used to how the setup feels. So, pretend you have a ball there. Sort of walk in like you would address the golf ball.

00:05:02 - Get your shoulders and your hips aligned the right way. I'm just going to take a look to see how it looks from sort of down the line. Cool. And then I want you to just make a couple swings. And the objective here is don't hit the noodle when you swing. Okay. >> Okay. Good. And these can be small swings. You definitely don't have to go all the way back to the top of your swing. Like if you wanted to go from, you know, hip or chest high to hip or chest high, that's

00:05:23 - totally cool. Okay. But really, the main focus is in your setup, get your hips and your shoulders to turn a little bit more closed so that you basically get this club swinging more out to the right. So, what's different about that setup than what you were doing before? >> I definitely feel my right shoulder down more. >> Okay. >> And then I feel like my hands are a little bit more forward. forward towards the screen. >> Yes. >> Okay, fair enough. >> And then I can feel my left arm is a

00:05:49 - little bit more forward as well. >> Okay. Forward towards me or towards the towards the screen? >> Towards the screen. >> Okay. Oh, that's totally fine. >> And towards you a little bit. >> Okay. Fair enough. So, do this one more time without a ball. Just kind of get used to that setup change. Okay. And now what I want you to do is I'm going to have you like just chip a couple out there. So, I know you typically hit it about 130. This needs to go like 40 yards. So, super small swing, not super

00:06:13 - fast. I don't really care where it goes. I just want you to focus on what are you doing with the setup change and then make sure that you're don't you don't hit that noodle when you actually swing. >> All right, >> I'm going to get out of the way.

00:06:35 - >> I just want to make sure that you actually did what we told you to do. >> I sure hope so. I don't think you exaggerated it enough. >> Maybe you did. >> Look at that. >> Nice little push draw. >> Look at that. >> Awesome. That one should probably get us where we need to be. Sweet. So, here you go. This is your before and after. So, this is literally like what, five, six swings that you've made this new way with the noodle. So, not a whole lot of time that it took to get you

00:07:10 - here, which is really part of the cool part about using data and like being able to see the 3D pieces. So, check this out. This is where you were earlier. So, 23 degrees open, 14° open with your hips. Your club path was essentially zero. So, going this direction through impact or fairly straight. Okay. The goal was to get these numbers closer to what the tour players do and get you swinging more into out. So, check it out over here on the right. You can see how your arm is

00:07:32 - more visible, your legs more visible. Look at the difference in the numbers in the shoulder and the hip turn. So you've got nine degrees, tour average is eight. So you're super close there. Hip turn is one degree closed. Tour average is four degrees open. So that's why that's blue. You're actually doing better than the tour average, which is good. And then look at the difference in your club path. You're now swinging close to 11° into out. I'm not saying that's where I

00:07:52 - want to you live forever. But this is a really good start to getting you to swing the club in the direction that is much more beneficial for you to hit those shots more consistently. And then I think the other cool part was the distance that you saw, right? you you're not trying to hit these fast like you're not going full speed and I think you carried one of them like 132ish >> and rolled out to like 145 so added an extra 510 yards which is really really cool. So nice work that's super awesome.

00:08:17 - That's a really good start. >> Thank you. >> So Beth, really good job today. >> That was super cool. Like uh again it was super short. Like we didn't spend a ton of time really talking about a lot of super complicated stuff. I think that's a big takeaway just for everybody out there. I mean the data is important but it doesn't have to be confusing. >> Fair. >> Fair. Like I think it was fairly easy to see, fairly obvious for me as a coach to identify here's where the issue is. Um

00:08:38 - just give you one or two little things to work on. Like for you it's really just fix your setup and then as you get comfortable with that then you just add another piece to it and you add another piece to it. Doesn't have to be this super complicated like here's 12 things to go practice and let me know how it goes. Yeah, that'd be really really hard. So um really good job for you like as far as next steps for you in your journey. I think it's just when you practice make sure you're using a

00:08:59 - noodle. A head cover is fine. just something that's soft just to represent kind of where you want your shoulders and your hips to be. And then as you get used to that setup change, what you'll probably see is you'll start seeing golf balls do what the one behind us did. It'll kind of start a little bit more to the right and actually probably curve a little bit more back to the left. So, that was really cool to see you actually hit a couple of those nice little draws

00:09:19 - and like I said, you hit the ball a lot farther. So, um really really cool. Yeah, that's that's a great thing for you. So, uh stay tuned. We'll we'll check in with Beth more as we kind of go through her journey, but you're well on your way to getting those scores past that 90 threshold and into the 80s if you just practice doing some of this stuff. So, really nice job today. >> Thank you. Can't wait. [Music]