Clinic - Follow Through

The move that is only useful for two things in the golf swing!

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The whole purpose of the follow-through is to what?

It's to safely decelerate the golf club.

That's it.

It serves no other purpose.

However, if you're working on your golf swing, you can use it as a diagnostic tool.

So if I make a follow-through and I see you guys looking like this out there, what did I do wrong?

How do you know?

You guys see that?

How does he know I didn't shift my weight enough?

That's right.

Look at my right shoe.

See how the toe box on my shoe is creased here?

There's too much weight back there.

This shoe won't crease unless there's too much weight back here.

So now watch what happens when I shift all the way over.

My weight comes all the way up onto my toe.

It's nice and light.

There's only 10 % of my weight back here.

So I use this as a diagnostic tool to see if you've shifted enough.

You do the same.

Every single time you're working on your swing, you should always hold your follow-through, even if it's a little half follow-through.

What were we checking yesterday with our right foot?

That the heel doesn't come up, right?

Because that's going to show us we're pushing off this right side on such a short swing, we definitely don't want to do that.

We don't want to lose our posture.

So we wanted to see that the outside of the right foot rolls in a little bit.

How come I want to see that?

That's right.

If I'm perfectly flat-footed, there's not enough weight over on this left side.

And that's going to tend to you hitting it fat on those drills we were doing yesterday.

You'll hit behind the ball.

So all I've got to get you to do is shift that extra inch and a half, and you'll see that right foot starts to roll in a little bit.

If you go back and look at all those slides, the tiger at impact and the release, you see the outside of his shoe just starting to roll up a little bit.

That's keeping that right foot down, but not keeping a lot of weight back there.

So he's not pushing off the right side, but he's also not spinning his hips open.

So even here, long into the follow-through, look how low his right heel is.

It's just getting pulled in by his hip turn, which is being dominated by the left side of his body.

If he was pushing off the right side of his body, he'd look like this, right?

His right knee'd be kicked in like saw a lot of this yesterday and the right heel way up in the air.

There's no reason for this whatsoever.

In fact, it actually serves as a detriment to your swing apart from losing your posture.

When your right heel comes up in the air, what would that allow your hips to do?

Open more, right?

If I keep my right heel on the ground, how far can my hips turn?

They pretty much turn exactly where I want them to go at impact and they can't go any further.

So it acts as a break so that you can get into a perfect impact position every single time.

As soon as I lift my heel, what's going to happen to my hips?

Spin them open right away.

If I spin my hips open, I can't decelerate.

I can't release the club fully.

So it's a great diagnostic tool, but other than that, it's useless.

The body follows the release of the golf club.

You never try to get into a full follow-through position.

It happens as a result of the momentum of the club pulling you to that follow-through.

Does that make sense?

So your body, once you're at impact, you're done.

Game over, swing's done.

The club has just still got too much momentum.

You're not going to be able to stop it safely.

So you just want to let it keep pulling you up to this nice, relaxed follow -through.

Maintain your spine angle after impact.

This is a huge one for me.

Look at Tiger's eyes here.

The ball's 100 yards down the fairway.

Where is he looking?

His head is still over his right shoulder.

Yesterday, we were hitting balls 15 yards, and we're looking down the fairway to go see it.

And when you do that, what tended to happen?

The instructor comes over and kicks you.

That's right.

You tend to hit it thin.

Because wherever your eyes go, your head goes.

Wherever your head goes, your shoulders will go.

So every time you do this, You're taking your left shoulder inadvertently, without realizing it and pulling it away from the ball.

So somebody was asking earlier about, oh, I tend to hit it off the toe.

What's causing that?

Well, grab my salt shaker here.

At impact, this is where I want to be, to hit that right in the center of the face.

Now, what happens if I open my shoulders?

What did I do?

How come that happened?

What am I moving?

Yeah.

Moving this left shoulder, which is my primary pivot point for the club at impact.

Because the rest of my body is not moving, but my shoulders are allowing the club to release.

So I'm using this as a reference point to get my club where I want it to be at impact.

But as soon as I turn my left shoulder, it physically pulls the club away from the ball.

Because I started here at address, and I move it here at impact, how would I not hit it off the toe?

Does that make sense?

So of course you're going to hit it off the toe, if you open your shoulders.

Because you're moving your pivot points.

So we want those shoulders to be what at impact?

Square.

And do we keep turning them after that?

Do you keep turning your shoulders after impact?

You do?

You guys agree with that?

That's right.

You do not turn your shoulders.

Your shoulders get turned.

You, after impact, are done.

End of story.

So anything after that is solely you trying to safely decelerate the golf club and not hurt yourself.

And that's it.

Maintaining your spine angle after impact, that's why I don't want you guys to look up and go see the ball.

It's not that pretty yet anyway.

So there's no point in going to go look at it.

They're just dribbling along the ground.

We're just hitting little short shots to get our brain comfortable with having that little white demon in the way, right?

Which we saw was a big transition from just doing our drills to hitting a ball 15 feet.

Everything kind of goes haywire.

That's normal.

But when we're doing that, we really want to keep our eyes down at the ground.

Stay looking down here.

Let the club release.

And forget about where the ball goes.

Your checkpoint is not the ball anyway.

Your checkpoint is, did I move correctly?

Did I shift my weight?

Is my belt buckle open?

Is my shoulders square?

Did I release the club?

Notice I didn't say anything about the golf ball.

I don't care where the golf ball goes when you're doing these drills.

It's 100% about the mechanics of your body movement.

So by staying looking down at the ground, it helps you maintain your spine angle.

The forearms are rotated over.

Why?

Look at Tiger's position here.

How do we know his forearms are rotated over?

Now remember earlier, if you probably don't remember this, I've used this same sequence of sly swings, and we talked about how he was out in front of the ball, and I said he's hitting a low cut.

He's hitting a low cut, and look at his hands.

Most of us wouldn't do that if we were trying to hit a draw, right?

Because we want to hold the club face open and do all this nonsense and don't release it, right?

When he's hitting a cut, if he's releasing it that much, that should tell you something.

If you want speed, you want that club face to rotate over, and that's how much it's got to happen.

So you've got to release the club face in order to get free speed.

It doesn't take any effort to do this.

And we go back to the whole concept of turning your chest, which is called kind of a body release.

It's become really common and in vogue these days.

To take your chest and turn it to the ball versus letting your forearms just do this.

Obviously, one looks like it's taking a lot more work to do than the other.

One's hurting my back already.

This doesn't hurt at all.

But more importantly, which one do you think you can do faster?

This or this?

But isn't that called flipping?

Flipping is if you actively tried to do it.

If you took your hands and tried to make the club face flip over, nobody can time that consistently.

Sir Isaac Newton can.

So if you just let the club rotate over the way it's designed to do it, you'll never flip it.

So yeah, that's called a pro flip.

The amateur thing is cupping it.

But if you take your hands and you take your right hand and try to push it over, that would be a flip.

And then you are going to hook it and do all kinds of stuff.

But if you learn through the five minutes of the perfect release video, to let your hand just naturally do this, which is what that whole video is showing you how to do, And you start feeling it and you get these little checkpoints of where the club should be at each phase, you're not going to flip it.

Your head swivels to see the ball.

Again, this goes back to maintaining your spine angle.

Never pick your head up to go see the ball because you'll see it dribbling along the ground.

Stay down, keep looking down, keep down, and then the club will eventually pull you up to a follow-through and pull your head up.

If you stay down, you'll actually have something pretty to look at in the sky.

But if you look up to go see it, you won't see anything up there.

So keep your head down, let it swivel to see the ball.

Your weight, you can see with Tiger's case here, way on that left side.

90% of that weight's already on the left side.

We have to shift our weight, which we spent all day working on yesterday.

And we just talked about this one.

The toe box of your right shoe should not be creased.

If it's creased, what does that mean?

There's too much weight back there.

That's it.

Get all the way off.

So every single swing that you make while you're working on something, you hold your follow -through and you go through this checkpoint.

Today, our checkpoints are going to be number one.

What's the number one priority?

Number one priority.

Number one priority.

First video in the RST five-step stuff.

Thank you.

Weight shift.

Our number one priority.

Nothing works.

Nothing works without weight shift.

What does weight shift do for us?

It creates some momentum, right?

What does it do during the transition?

Creates lag.

What's your number one priority?

Creating, maintaining, and releasing lag, right?

So weight shift's kind of important.

If you want to sequence a golf swing properly, the first thing you're going to check is weight shift.

So if I look at you and you're like this, what do you think I'm going to say?

I don't care about the rest of this stuff yet because this isn't working correctly, which means none of this can work correctly.

So I'm going to say, hey, get your left hip in neutral.

Simple way to do that, shift over until that right foot rolls to the inside a little bit.

Open our hips.

Now, the second thing, after I know if I'm shifted right, what's the second thing I'm going to check in my follow -through every single time?

Second video on RST5 step is what?

That's right.

So not only did I shift, but what else am I going to check?

Hint, hint.

That's right, my belt buckle.

Because if I turn my belt buckle, what is that going to turn?

And it's going to turn.

That's right.

My shoulders are closed.

I can't hit the ball from here.

So how do I get the club back to the ball?

Rotate what?

That's right.

I weight shift.

And if I turn my hips, what's going to happen to the club and my shoulders?

That's right.

It's going to be right back out in front of me.

I don't have to do anything with my arms and shoulders.

All I have to do is focus on this one simple thing.

Shift my weight, turn my belt buckle.

Boom.

Done.

Now, what can I check?

Then we can look at our release and our shoulders and so on.

But this is the number one priority.

Every single swing that you make, if you're not holding your follow-through and looking at this, you're wasting your time.

Because how do you know if you shifted your weight enough?

You don't.

If you're just up there machine gunning balls and looking at the ball, why bother?

You need to stop every single swing, look at it, even if you did it wrong and you're like this, I didn't shift enough.

Well, don't rake another ball over.

Train your brain what it feels like to be there.

So shift over even while you're holding your follow -through.

Ah, ingrain that feeling.

Push that left ankle into the ground.

That's what it's supposed to feel like.

Oh, my shoulders are open.

Don't rake over another ball yet.

Correct what you did.

Bring your shoulders back.

Let your forearms rotate more.

this is what it's supposed to feel like.

Every single shot.

You're going to have to make corrections like this because you're not going to do it right yet.

But how are you ever going to do it right if you don't correct it when you do it wrong?

You're not going to magically get it right on the next one.

You've got to tell your brain what it's supposed to feel like if you're doing this inside, what it's supposed to look like in front of a mirror.

You should know if this is right or wrong.

How do I know if this is right or wrong if I'm looking in the mirror?

How would I check this?

Yeah, if I'm looking in the mirror, what do I.

My chest should be at the mirror.

That's right.

Where's my chest pointing?

My chest is open.

If I look in the mirror and I see my chest, I just take a little shark fin here and I see it pointing over there.

There's a problem.

It needs to be pointing right at the mirror.

That's why we've got to do these little half swings at first because we can stop and keep everything oriented right where it was supposed to be.

And then check it and be like, oh, that's right or that's wrong.

Any other questions on the follow -through?

It's incredibly complicated.

Just don't do anything.

Just let the club go and just stay down.

That's your only job.

It's so simple.