Lydia Ko - Power and Control
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In this video, I'll show you how Lydia Ko has a perfect balance of power and control in her golf swing. I'll also show you how she stabilizes the lower body throughout the entire swing and outline a great drill to show you how to control the club face in the hitting area. If you have been lacking power and control in your golf swing, then you must check out these key moves that Lydia does so well and put them to use in your own game.
- Shift to the trail side during the takeaway and maintain the knee flex so that you can activate the glutes and stabilize the hips.
- Shift to the lead side and create a solid post in the lead leg and stabilize the hips for control and power
- Control the club face with gradual rotation. Toe up to toe up when working in a 9 to 3 drill.
This week I'm gonna focus in on the new 1.5 million dollar, 17 year old LPGA super star Lydia Ko. I'm gonna show you how she has a perfect blend of power and consistency in her golf swing. So let's go ahead and get started.
Okay, so the new 17 year old young sensation Lydia Ko gets a wonderful victory this past weekend. So congratulations to her. She is a phenomenal talent, and I think we're gonna see her around for quite a while winning a lot of big events. As I said in the opener, I'm gonna talk to you guys a little bit about this week a good blend of both power and consistency. And you know a lot of times when we do instruction we talk a lot about how important the lower body is. Not number one, for just stability and control, but it's also really critical for power. And if you learn how to use the lower body effectively it can in turn speed your golf club up drastically. And Lydia uses lower body extremely well.
She also controls the area that matters most in golf and that's the hitting area. If we think of the hitting area this time as more of like a hip high to hip high range you're gonna see something that she does really well and it's one of those common areas that we see from one professional to the next. Obviously, having a lot of control in this area is where these player are able to succeed and then also having that good blend of power. You know with golf being a sport where you need to have a lot of speed those two ingredients are absolutely pivotal for good golf.
Let's go ahead and get started here. I'm gonna show you from a couple of different angles, we're gonna focus more on the face on view first. What you're gonna see her do, I'm gonna draw what we call the right hip line here, is you're gonna see her make a good size shift to the right side. Okay, which is her trail side. You're gonna see a small shift here. So you see her shift over to that side. Not a ton of head movement. And what she's doing here is she's loading up that right side for stability. So she's loading the right side up. She's creating a post and that trail leg. When you create a post what you're trying to do is you're not trying to allow any sort of wobbling from your post. I think of it kind of like a mailbox post. You don't want your mailbox kind of wobbling all over the place. So you want to shift it over there. You want to get the weight into that right heel, right ankle, and you want to have your glute muscles really start to fire or contract. And you could use those for a lot of stability.
One of the good things that you'll notice in her golf swing here, from a down the line perspective, when she gets loaded up to the top part of her move. For you golfers at home, when you've struggled with having either over-rotation from your hips, you've struggled with hip spinning, you've struggled with, you're not having a lot of control of your golf swing. If you notice here, she's just got a very very small window between her knees. Now, with a driver swing we oftentimes, we widen our stance, we make some subtle changes. But from a stock shot format if you're looking at your golf swing and you've noticed this window opening up between your knees, chances are you've over-rotated your hips. Which can in turn, when you over-rotate your hips, can over-rotate your spine. And when you over-rotate your spine then the hands and arms can travel much further. So if you've been looking for a good solution to shorten and tighten your golf swing up, the best possible thing that you can work on is making a small shift and really getting some good awareness of your glute muscles. Not only for consistency purposes but also for power.
All right so let's continue on here. I'm gonna show from a face on perspective. So she's created that post and that trail side, big wind up, big rotation there. She gets about 95 almost 100 degrees of rotation from the shoulder line. And then what she does to start her downward move, is now she's gonna shift and unwind her hips. So you see her shifting off that right hip line and then she's unwinding those hips. So now she's creating a post in that lead side. So I'm gonna go ahead and remove this arrow for us. So she's creating this big old post in this left side and she's gonna stabilize the hips. And like I said with driver swings we do into a wider base and we do increase access tilt down in the hitting area.
But the most important part is being able to leverage the ground and be able to pull the power up out of the ground and also stabilize. And that's what she does extremely well. You're gonna see that she's created that post. If you watch that lead leg there she likes to push down into the ground and she's stalling those hips out and then she's getting ready to release the golf club and max speed down there in the hitting area. Which is awesome, awesome textbook stuff there.
Now from a consistency purpose, or a consistency standpoint for us, let me go ahead and show you some things here from a down the line perspective. Because this is where she has that good blend. I'm gonna go ahead and back her up into the take away. This is where we would see a completed take away. She's got roughly 45 degrees of shoulder turn. She's got both arms nice and straight. Clip shot this is parallel to the ground. But notice here how the club faces just a fraction on the shut side. Normally what we would be looking for is more of the toe of the club to be more to the sky. If you watch here when she gets back down into the hitting area, she gets her hands down and around the hip high range. So here we are, this next frame she's got her hands right about hip high. But notice how this toe of the club is now right up to the sky and the club face is nice and square.
I think of the hip high to hip high range when we do a lot of instruction is a toe up to toe up kind of drill. So we have that drill on the website, the nine to three. But if you focused on creating the toe of the golf club or allowing the toe of the golf club to be at the sky and the 9 o'clock position. And then through these next few frames you're gonna see that club face squaring up at impact and then back over to the hip high range here on the other side. Now you can notice that the toe up is right up to the sky there. So she's had a fair amount of gradual rotation to the club face. Which is extremely important for consistency.
So again, that's where it kind of goes back to that blend of power and consistency is being able to control this that are going on down in the hitting area. As I said obviously there can be some differences. With her right leg moving it towards her left and her right foot coming up off the ground, that's not something that we would be prone to be teaching to a lot of students. Because that can create some hip spinning issues, that can bring the hips forward. But with her move because she's able to stabilize things from the lead side of the body. Pay very close attention here to this score card that's in her back pocket. So you can see that score card or her yardage book. Now watch it right at this point. So you can see all that rotation. She's unwinding, getting seated over in that left side, she's created that post. At this point you won't see that scorecard move at all as she's releasing through the hitting area back out to that 3 o'clock position. So it actually starts right at that point where the club faces nice and square and then she's go ahead and release it on through. Right out through to the 3 o'clock position and in turn she's able to hit the golf ball 250 plus yards at 17 years old and she hits more that 80% of her fairways.
All right guys, so find that blend of power and consistency by loading up and stabilizing your lower body properly. Control the hitting area by using that good nine to three drill that we have on the website. Always, you're gonna hear me preach the Five Minutes To A Perfect Release because understanding how to control the club face and have a gradual rotation to the face, to the hitting area is ultimately how you're gonna have a lot of control.
Another great video on the website is gonna be Load Up The Right Glute. All right, Load Up The Right Glute, it'll be over here on the recommended videos on the right of your video player. It's a great video that's gonna show you if you've had any issues with stabilizing your hips, it'll show you how to get things moving and get things shorter and tighter and then ultimately be able to play a lot more consistent golf.
All right so that's our game plan. We want to obviously use that lower body for stability, we want to be able to use it for power and then in turn, turn that power into a lot of good controlled speed down in the hitting area and we'll be able to play some great golf this year. All right guys I look forward to working more with you guys in the future. I hope everybody has a great day and a great rest of the week. We'll talk to you soon.
THOMAS
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
john
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)
Loyd
Chris (Certified RST Instructor)