Jason Day vs. Gerina Piller
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Jason Day is now the #1 player in the world. In this video, I'll show you how Jason Day and LPGA tour sensation Gerina Piller get into really great backswing positions.
- Imagine a thin plane of glass resting in front of your hands at address
- Shift your weight and rotate to get the club moving into the takeaway.
- Add a slight amount of elevation during the takeaway and backswing.
Hey, what's up, everyone?
This is Rotary Swing Instructor Chris Tyler, and we are back with this week's tour analysis on two very young, bright, shining stars from this past weekend.
Jason Day picking up his next victory on the PGA Tour and now becoming the number one player in the world, so congratulations to Jason.
And also over at the Solheim Cup this past weekend, we saw lots of drama, but we also saw some great play from Jarena Piller.
So this week, we're going to be focusing in on backswing.
Right foot and get into a really good, solid backswing position, just like the tour pros.
Let's go ahead and get started.
Okay, so we are going to be short, sweet, and to the point this week.
We are going to be focusing in on one of the really common mistakes that we see from a lot of amateur golfers, either on the website or even in private instruction.
And that's where we start to try to get elevation added into the swing too early.
Now elevation, just simply put, is just a small upward movement of the arms.
We've often described it as shoulder elevation, but we've also described it as arm elevation.
But this would be just the slight about of upward movement of the hands and the arms.
That happens gradually throughout the takeaway and gradually throughout the backswing.
And one of the common mistakes that we see is that amateur golfers try as a band-aid approach in order to not have that inside takeaway.
What they try to do is they try to push the hands away from their body at the starting point.
What that does is it gets you disconnected.
And when you're disconnected, then it's hard to keep things lined up.
It's hard to keep things in sync.
And now you're adding a timing variable to the golf swing.
And we do not want to have a timed golf swing.
We want to have a golf swing that works the same way every single day.
So with that said, what we want to do, we want to have our focus be primarily on rotation first.
Okay, so I'm going to mark the front of the hands here on both Jarena.
I'm going to mark the front of the hands on Jason.
And I'm just going to show you guys a couple of good checkpoints that you can use for your own swings when you're doing some self-analysis.
All right, so now watch the position of the hands here as I work through the takeaway.
Okay, let's do Jarena first here.
So now we get to a completed part of the takeaway.
And you can notice here that our hands never went out through that line.
Okay, so think of that line as kind of like a thin plane of glass.
Notice how they never went out through there.
A very similar looking move here to Jason.
So you can see how his hands never popped through that glass.
Okay, so what has moved the golf club into this position?
The primary movement is rotation.
Always think of the primary movement of load and rotation to build a good backswing.
Arm movements are just a very subtle upward movement of the arms.
And you can notice here now that the completed part of the takeaway is that the hands are right around the base of the pocket.
Okay, so very similar to Jason Day right at the base of the pocket here.
All right, so you can see that they both have added this little bit of elevation here.
And in turn, they're going to still continue to increase the elevation as they work to the top of the swing.
So let's look at Jarena here as she starts to work into the vertical plane.
You can see now she gets into a really good looking backswing position here.
Okay, So what we look for from an RST standpoint is we want to have the base of the elbow here, right at the base of the chest.
And she's gotten to a pretty high elevation point here, but it's a beautiful looking backswing position here.
So you can see how the elevation itself didn't start the golf swing.
It just gradually worked its way into the takeaway, and then gradually worked its way into the backswing.
And that's the big mistake that we see from a lot of golfers is that they're so fixated on a hand and arm position at the top of their swing.
And in turn, What that's doing is it's getting your brain off the focus or not focused on the more important things, which is load and rotation.
All right, so let's look at Jason here and finish.
Okay, right up to the top.
So you can see his right elbow is right about the base of his chest here.
Good elevation standpoint here.
Really good looking body positions from both players.
They've been able to keep their hips back.
They've been able to rotate around their spine properly.
And they never really started the golf swing off with their hands and arms, which in turn, again, is the big mistake from a lot of amateurs.
Because when we start to use our arms very early on in the swing, we're starting to load those muscle groups up first.
They're going to want to fire first on your downswing sequence.
So what I want you guys to try out is just think of a small, thin plane of glass in front of your hands.
You don't ever want to look at it, breathe on it, touch it, whatever it may be.
And you want to focus on rotation.
And that in turn is going to start getting your golf swing moving.
It's going to help get a lot of width established.
And then in turn, What you're going to be looking for is to add some subtle elevation to the later part of the takeaway.
And then a subtle amount to the backswing.
And you'll be in a perfect backswing position every single time you play golf.
A couple of videos I want you guys to check out this week.
Pool noodle shoulder elevation video.
Five minutes to a perfect backswing.
And checkpoints for five minutes to a perfect backswing.
I want you guys to focus on those areas.
That'll help you get in a good couple of checkpoints for elevation.
And then use this little thin plane of glass tool.
And you're going to be well on your way to building a tour -like backswing position every single time.
All right, everyone.
I hope everyone has a great week.
Now let's make it a great day and play some great golf.
wolfgang
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
wolfgang
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
joseph
Steven (Certified RST Instructor)
Sean
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)