How Data Can Make You Better at Golf Instantly!

🏌️‍♂️ Small differences in shoulder and hip alignment at address can significantly impact swing direction and contribute to common issues like slicing.

🔄 Tour players often maintain some flex in their trail knee during the backswing to control the amount of turn and prevent hooking the ball.

📏 Excessive internal rotation of the trail shoulder can lead to a more vertical club position and affect shot consistency.

🦵 Tilting the shoulders more to the right during the downswing helps maintain a consistent swing path and solid contact with the ball.

🤲 The 'chicken wing' follow-through, where the lead elbow protrudes, often results from improper shoulder tilt and can be fixed by learning to tilt more right.

🎯 Moving the shoulders and hips toward the target early in the downswing helps shift the low point in front of the ball, aiding in better contact and draw shots.

🔄 Tour players bend their shoulders slightly backward at impact to lengthen the swing and keep their head stable, improving consistency and distance.

🔵 Opening the shoulders and hips more in the follow-through straightens the swing path and increases consistency, reducing hooks and errant shots.

📊 Using swing metrics and comparisons to tour averages can reveal subtle adjustments that lead to major improvements in golf performance.

00:00:00 - All right. I am here with Lexi. Lexi, today what we are going to do is we are going to take a look at your golf swing. Awesome. And we are going to compare it to tour players. Sounds good. So, we're going to use some tour average data that we have using OPTIMOTION and we'll just talk about some of the numbers and really take a deep dive into what's going on with your swing. Cool. Let's get into it. Cool.

00:00:23 - All right, Lexi. So, let's take a deeper dive into what's going on here. So, this is your address position. And I know this is something you've worked a ton on over the last uh few months just in getting into a better spot with your setup. Um but just a couple numbers that I wanted to call out. So your shoulder turn is 10° open. The tour average at this point in time is 8° open. So you're really close. Um I know this is something that you've spent a ton of time practicing and trying to get a

00:00:47 - better understanding of. So you're doing a much better job than what you were a few months ago. Um, but for a lot of the golfers at home that struggle with slicing and swinging too many degrees out to in, this is a huge reason why is just how a lot of golfers set up. They tend to have their shoulders too many degrees open. That aligns everything more to the left. Just sets your swing direction up to be more out to end. So, just something to pay attention to. It's

00:01:09 - not something that I'm super worried about for you, but just really wanted to bring attention to everybody at home. For your hip tilt, your hips are actually tilted slightly to the left. You're at one degree left. The best players in the world. So Louis stays up here, he's actually one degree to the right. And again, what that helps him do is it helps tilt his shoulders more to the right and it helps set his swing direction more into out. So for any of those golfers at home who struggle with

00:01:30 - a slice or swinging too many degrees out to in, those would be a couple things just to pay attention to to make it easier for you to fix your swing direction. Okay. Okay. So I've taken you to the top of the back swing. Louis's there as well. I wanted to just call out a couple things that I think you're doing really well that again a lot of people at home could benefit from. So, the amount of shoulder turn you have at this point in time is above the tour average. Tour players typically turn

00:01:51 - closer to 88° with their shoulders at this point. So, you're 6° more closed. So, that's really good. That's just going to help you create more speed. It's going to make your path more into out. Um, this is this is really good for you. So, one of the reasons that you're able to do that is because of how your trail knee works in the back swing. So, you've actually extended your trail knee to basically zero. There's no flex there. um that makes it easier to close

00:02:13 - your hip turn, which makes it easier to close your shoulder turn. So, this number here kind of reflects why that number is blue. Okay. Okay. What tour players do that's just slightly different than you, I'm not saying anything you're doing is wrong, they don't turn quite as much and they actually still have some flex in their trail knee. Okay. Um part of that is because again, a lot of tour players are trying not to hook the golf ball. And the more you turn, the more your path

00:02:3 - 4goes into out. So, a lot of times you'll see tour players actually maintain some flex in their trail knee anywhere in the neighborhood of like fiveish to 10 degrees depending on the player that you're looking at um just to reduce the amount of turn that they get. Not saying that's something that everybody should do. I'm not saying that's something that you should do, but there is a distinct difference there just even if you look at how your trail leg is versus Louise.

00:02:54 - Yeah. So, I have a question about my um shaft position here. I can see that his shaft is in line with this yellow line here. Sure. And mine is pretty vert like almost completely vertical. Y um is that is there anything wrong with that? Like at this position, should like your club be a certain Well, so generally the way that I would look at it, I'd almost try to like connect your elbows and the butt of the club. So like I'd draw a triangle there. Um yours is pointed I'd say

00:03:22 - slightly more to the right versus where Louise is. Okay. Um so what that tends to lead to is what you're describing like you have a little bit too much internal rotation in your trail shoulder. Okay. So when you internally rotate your trail shoulder, what that does is it moves your hands more out versus what the best players in the world do is they have more external rotation at this point in time, which would point the club more behind them. So again, it's not to say that it's

00:03:45 - right or wrong. Um there's plenty of golfers that can go from this position and hit a really good shot. Um there's plenty of golfers that can go from that position, hit a bad shot. Uh but it's just something to pay attention to. So just for you, I think a lot of your issue lies with more just in how your trail shoulder works versus like necessarily where the club's pointed. Okay. Okay. One other big distinction here. I know you're fighting a hook right now. Ball that curves too far to

00:04:06 - the left. Look at the difference of the club face position versus yours. Yeah. See how yours is pointed straight up to the sky. So that's a very very closed position at that point in time relative to where Louis is. Um so that's just one of the reasons why that ball for you tends to curve more to the left. Okay. All right. So we're at the point in the down swing where the shaft's parallel to the ground. Okay. Uh Louisazin at this point in time has his shoulders tilted

00:04:29 - 12° to the right. So what that helps him to do is it helps make sure his path is going the correct direction. So more into out. It also helps him to maintain his inclination to the ground. So you can see how his head hasn't moved outside of that circle at all. Okay. It's what the best players in the world do to make sure they hit the ground in the same spot every time. This is why you don't see tour players hitting seven irons fat or thin. Typically hit the ball pretty solid. So when we look at

00:04:53 - you, you can see how your shoulders are actually still at this point in time tilted to the left. So, what that means is for a lot of the golfers at home, anytime you have your shoulders tilted more to the left, it's going to shift your swing direction more out to in, it's going to make your angle of attack more down. Um, so when you have a really, really downward angle of attack at this point in time, you have figured out a way to solve that problem by chicken flexing your elbows, okay? And

00:05:16 - separating your elbows. So, one of the big reasons why you have that uh that too much of lead elbow flex at the position in the follow through where you can see it protruding from your body, that chicken wing that we always hear about is because of this position. If you were able to learn how to tilt more to the right, that would help you keep this uh trail elbow more flexed, which make it easier for you to keep your lead arm straight and then continue to straighten that trail arm on the way

00:05:40 - through. That would help you get your arms really straight in the follow through so that you wouldn't see that chicken wing start to pop out. Okay. Yeah, that's a huge difference. So, I didn't realize that it could lead to all those things. And you can even see just the difference of where the club head, the sweet spot is and your hands relative to those two reference lines. You're more on the outside, whereas the tour player is going to be more on the inside of those two lines. Again, that's

00:06:00 - what the best players in the world do to make sure they hit the ball really far and straight. All right, Lexi, let's play a game of picture match here. So, what is different from your swing versus Harris English's at this point in time? Um, I would say his hands are a little further up and back than mine. Yep. And it almost looks like this front shoulder here is a little bit lower than mine. Like mine kind of comes over my chin here. Okay. Uh my stance is wider. Okay.

00:06:25 - Do you notice anything about where your head is? And obvious one, my head is definitely way more outside of the circle. Yeah. So that shoulder bend number even though it's green, which typically means a good thing. Okay. Uh the tour average at this point in time is actually to have your shoulders bent 2° backwards. Okay. So the reason that tour players do this is it helps them lengthen the swing. So you mentioned the height of his hands. Yep. So you can see

00:06:46 - how his lead humorous or the top part of his lead arm is higher up into the air than yours. Yep. That's because he's bending backwards more. Okay. Okay. So that that is one thing that tour players that's one reason why they bend backwards. The second reason is to make sure that their head stays in the circle that we drew at address, which helps them control where they hit the ground. So I know you tend to struggle with a lot of contact issues from time to time.

00:07:07 - Think of it this way. If your head is always moving outside of that circle from where it started, it's going to make it less predictable as to where you're going to hit the ground. Yeah. Okay. So, two degrees backwards is really what you're trying to do. You do a pretty decent job of it, but that's why your head moves out. That's why this length of your swing isn't as long. Um, so those are two big things that could go a long way to just helping improve your consistency of contact and also

00:07:30 - help you hit the ball further. Okay. All right, Lexi. So, down swing position when your lead arm is parallel to the ground. Again, this is something that you do really, really well. That would go a long way to helping a lot of golfers at home. So, the way that your shoulder and your hip sway should work from the top of your back swing to this position, which is really not a long amount of time, but your shoulders and your hips both move towards the target.

00:07:51 - Okay? From the top of your swing to when your lead arm is parallel to the ground. Tour players are at about 2.4 in with their shoulder sway and they're at about 2.3 in with their hip sway. So, you're really close to both of those numbers, which is really good. But the thing for a lot of amateur golfers to understand, you can see Harris English does this as well. He's moved away from that reference line. His head started to move towards the target. This helps them

00:08:12 - shift the low point in front of the ball. Okay. Okay. And it also helps them keep their turns closed a little bit longer, which means that their path is going to be more into out, which means it's going to be easier for them to hit those draws. Okay? So for anybody who slices, if you're not moving your hips and your shoulders towards the target in the early part of your down swing, that could be one of the big reasons why your swing direction is too many degrees out

00:08:35 - to in why you hit a lot of those heavy and thin shots. So you're doing a really good job of this. I just wanted to call attention to that and show people at home like how this can help them with some of those problems. So really nice job. That's awesome. Okay, last one here. This is an in your follow through when your trail arm's parallel to the ground. Um, this is part of the reason why you're fighting some of those hooks right now. Okay, so you can see you got

00:08:56 - two blue numbers right there, your shoulder turn and your hip turn. Tour average at this point in time. Golfers that that play on the PJ tour have their shoulders at 71° open and their hips at 63° open. Okay, what that helps them do is it helps straighten out their swing path and it also helps them increase their angle of attack and make it more downward so they can hit those really solid, really straight, really far shots. Okay, for you when your when your turns are more closed or less open in

00:09:21 - this instance, what it's going to do is it's going to shift your swing direction more out to the right and it's going to typically make your angle of attack a little bit shallower. Okay? So, that can lead to some inconsistencies with where you hit the ground. It can have a it can have an effect on how the ball curves. So, that's why you see a lot of your shots currently that are curving too far to the left. Okay? Because your swing direction is too far out to the right.

00:09:41 - Okay? So, by opening your turns a little bit more at some point, this would help just to straighten your swing direction, make it easier for hit the ground in the same spot, and ultimately just make it so that you're a little bit more consistent. Okay. Um, could you demo what my hips are at now and like how much more I would have to turn? Yeah. So, I mean, we're not talking much. You're at 48 currently. The tour average is 63. So, you're talking 15° of change.

00:10:05 - It's not that much, but you can see how his belt buckles facing more towards the target. his right hip has rotated more around his body versus yours at this point in time. So, all that's going to do is it's just going to help move your hands and club more in and around you. Okay? Um, which would also probably make it a little bit easier for you to keep your arms a little straighter. Okay? Seeing all of this data has been super instrumental for improving my game. So,

00:10:28 - if you also want to see these metrics on your swing, head to your local golf deck and take a swing evaluation today. [Music]

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