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Downhill Lies
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In this video, I'll show you how to play those tricky downhill shots on the course with ease.
- Roll the lead ankle in slightly to help stabilize the lower body.
- Move the ball position slightly forward.
- Keep axis tilt just inside the lead knee
- Work to keep the lead shoulder down in the hitting area.
Hey guys, I'm Rotary swing instructor Chris Tyler and I know that we've all faced some of those really tricky lies on the golf course.
Uphill, downhill, side hill lies, fairway bunkers.
In this new series of videos, we're going to show and demonstrate some of those shots you may be faced with.
And we're going to lay out a really detailed list of checkpoints for you to look for.
So when you're on the golf course, you have a very clear picture of what you're trying to achieve.
And if you have any requests on a particular shot that you may have been faced with, Go ahead and post that up in the video comments below the video and try our best to get those produced right away.
Now let's go ahead and get started.
Okay rotary swing golfers, Today, we're going to be facing that tricky downhill lie, and much like the uphill lie video that we just released, We're going to devise a very simple checklist of things to look for at your address position.
That's going to help you manage these golf shots on the golf course with ease every single time.
Now one of the things that I look for in my checklist, this is going to be a three -part checklist for you guys at home, is lower body stability.
Now, that's going to be really critical for a lot of the specialty shots that you'll see here.
But lower body stability and stabilizing your lead side is going to be extremely important when we start to work on downhill lies.
And the reason being is is that when we start our downward move, our tendency is to get everything kind of out past.
Neutral joint alignment, which can put a lot of pressure on the outside part of your knee, and also can put a lot of pressure on the outside part of your hip girdle.
So if we look for a good checkpoint here for lower body stability, what I do is I try to roll my lead ankle in just slightly.
I'll start to feel some contraction up in those glute muscles.
I'll start to feel a little bit of contraction up here in the upper part of the thigh.
So the first thing that you're going to try to do is make sure that your lower body is rock solid, stable to the ground.
So roll that lead ankle in just slightly.
Second checkpoint for you guys is going to be ball position.
Now there's been a lot of talk where is ball position supposed to be.
Instructions kind of gone back and forth on it.
And if we look at it from a subjective standpoint, most of golfers, most amateur golfers and even professionals.
The tendency is.
When we have all that momentum and all that inertia, pulling us down the slope is to get everything out in front of the golf shot.
And that can cause a lot of thin shots.
It can cause you to top the golf ball and we don't want to blade it over the green I can assure you.
So what we're going to do to counterbalance that is, we're going to adjust the ball position forward just slightly.
And when I say slightly a quarter of a ball to half a ball that's fine.
You can play around with it when you're practicing these at home.
But for this shot today we're going to move it forward about a quarter of a ball.
Normally it'd be off the left ear just a fraction forward now.
Third checkpoint is going to be axis tilt.
Now what have we heard in the way of golf instruction in the past? We've always heard tilt your shoulders down the slope.
That'll allow the club to swing down the plane.
Now, if we look just like ball position, if we look at this from a more subjective standpoint, what are we trying to achieve here? We're trying to we're trying to control the bottom of the swing arc.
We're trying to hit the ball crisply.
And when I take my setup here, my lead side is much lower than my trail side, so my pelvis, my hips have already adjusted down the slope.
So if we keep things much like a stock shot format, where we would have the spine just inside the left knee or that just inside that lead knee at address.
That's going to allow us to keep our golf swing exactly the same as we designed it to do.
Now there's one thing when we start getting into go mode that we're going to be looking to do to help get the club head moving down the down the the plane here.
And that's going to be trying to hold that lead shoulder down so we don't increase secondary axis tilt.
And what do I mean there? What I mean there is our tendency is to get a lot of trail side push.
Okay, so when we start to push really hard from that trail side, our spine actually starts to lean away.
So the spine starts to lean away, and that's what that's going to do.
Is either A cause you to bounce the club off the ground into the ball, or B? It's going to start a very ascending blow at the golf ball and cause you to hit a thin shot as well, rather than a descending blow.
So what I'm going to try to do when I start to make my golf swing here is I'm going to try to hold my lead shoulder down in the hitting area.
That'll eliminate any sort of drastic increase in secondary axis tilt.
So that's a good swing thought for you guys at home to be able to control the bottom of the swing arc and hit these golf shots solid every single time.
So again our checklist lower body stability roll that lead ankle in just a fraction.
Ball position is going to be forward about a quarter of a ball.
Normally, I'd have it off my left ear and then axis tilt is going to be just inside my lead knee.
And then when I start down, I'm going to try to hold that lead shoulder down in the hitting area.
To help the club work down the plane.
So this is what it looks like.
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