The GOAT Drill
The GOAT Drill is like the DEAD Drill for The GOAT Code. If you wanted a simple way to understand Tiger's swing and exercises to help you do it more powerfully, you're in the right place.
Today is the day.
A day that I have literally been dreaming of for more years than I can possibly count.
I've always had a dream that I could take somebody and give them one simple feel, one overall hierarchy of movement that would give you the feeling of how to make a proper golf swing.
When I say a proper golf swing, I mean swinging like the goat, like tiger.
I wanted to be able to create a drill that would teach you everything you need to know about the golf swing in one simple movement and one simple drill.
And that day is today.
This is more than three and a half decades of studying the golf swing and more than two decades of deeply diving into tiger's swing.
I don't know how many thousands, if not tens of thousands of hours I've spent studying his swing.
And what I'm going to share with you today is going to feel pretty wild at first, but it's going to also feel amazingly powerful.
And you're finally going to have control.
You will today have shaffling an impact like you never thought possible.
I'm going to teach you exactly how to do it.
You're going to swing on plane.
You're going to stop casting the club, stop flipping the club, stop hitting the ball all over the place.
You're going to have complete club face control.
And I'm going to teach you this drill.
I call it the goat drill because it is in my opinion, after all these years of studying, it is how tiger swings the club.
And it is the drill, the one drill that will teach you how to do it exactly.
And it's not complicated.
It's not complicated at all.
In fact, it's really quite simple, but I'm going to teach it to you in steps.
And the first thing you've got to understand is that this movement does not feel like any other movement in any other sport that I've ever done.
And for those of you that have known me for a long time, I've done just about everything.
So from professional snowboard, mountaineer, jumping, dirt bikes, ice climbing, rock climbing, playing basketball, football, soccer, tennis, everything, I've played them all.
And this movement, while it definitely has similarities to lots of different sports, the golf swing is unique.
It is the only one that has the exact set of circumstances that it does with a very light stick, a long lever, got to use our body, got to use our hands.
All of this stuff has to work together in a very specific way.
And that's what we're going to talk about first.
So the first thing is don't try to relate this movement to some other sport that you might have played.
Again, there are similarities and there are things you can borrow from.
But the one discovery that I feel very confident in is that this is a pretty unique movement that is unique to the golf swing.
For a lot of different reasons that we will talk about.
The second thing is how you load in the backswing is your golf swing.
How you produce power is your golf swing.
Power is everything in the swing.
Now I'm not saying needing to hit the ball 400 yards is everything in the swing.
I'm saying the way that your body, The way that your brain and your body work together to generate what you feel is power and speed in the swing dictates everything that happens in your golf swing.
Everything.
So I can say that beyond a shadow of a doubt after more than God, you know, we've done over 100,000 swing reviews.
And the way that somebody produces power in their lessons, we know exactly how they're going to swing and every single byproduct is going to be a result of that.
So what we've got to do first is we've got to understand how to load correctly.
And in a lead side pattern and a trail side pattern, they're very different.
They're wildly disparate.
So what we're going to do first is I'm going to teach you how to load because it's very unique.
It's very unique to the golf swing and it's Tiger does it different than everybody else, in my opinion, to a large degree, but it's way simpler.
It's way more powerful.
It's actually easier on the body than anything I've ever done in my golf swing.
And I'm going to show you that right now to understand and visualize how you're supposed to load in the golf swing.
There's a couple of things I'm going to show you.
I'm going to use some surgical bands, little elastic workout bands.
You notice I'm doing this video in the gym.
The reason is that there's a mirror directly in front of me and I'm going to be looking in this mirror, pointing out things that I want you to see when you're practicing in front of a mirror.
And please, for the love of God, practice in front of a mirror.
Do not rely on your feel, your feel and real until they're trained are not the same.
So we're going to be practicing from a mirror.
So I'm going to, I'm going to show you how to use these bands.
You do not have to do this.
This is a visualization as much as anything, but if you pick up some metal, some elastic bands or you, you know, have them at your local gym, they'll help you start to feel this a little bit better.
So the first thing you've understand is that the golf swing, when you're loading up in the backswing, it's not really much of a turn.
And I think this is something that is very unique to how Tiger swings the club and the way that the golf swing has always been explained.
We think of the golf swing as being rotational and it certainly is, but not in the way that I think people think and tend to apply.
Most golfers, when they try to rotate, they try and twist their body like this or turn their shoulders this way.
And this will eventually move your head off the ball.
So then if you start trying to turn to make a golf swing, then you're going to lift your arms up really early to avoid moving your head off the ball.
And then you're going to have a very narrow collapse swing.
And it's not what we want at all.
It's not what Tiger does.
Tiger uses his core to power the swing.
And it was really when I began to study these fascial lines in the body that I really began to understand.
How.
He was able to produce so much effortless power throughout his career and do it safely on his body.
Because of course, we know that Tiger had back problems later in his career, but he had no back problems until he made a dreadful swing change that wrecked his career and his back at the same time.
Up until that point, his back was just fine.
And I'm going to, you're going to start to feel and understand why I'm going to walk you through this piece by piece, why this is safer on the body than any other way to swing the club that I've ever found.
So first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to put this underneath my lead foot.
Now, the reason this is important is because there is a fascial line and I'm not going to go into this in depth because I did a long webinar on this.
Go check out that webinar video if you want to understand this further, But there's a fascial line that's called the spiral fascial line, running from your foot up through your core.
And it spirals across the body and crisscrosses up to the other side.
This is what allows us to create rotation very efficiently in the swing.
Now, the trick is I don't want you to think of rotation as turning.
I want you to think of it as twisting.
And this is a very important distinction because turning, like I said, will move your head eventually off the ball and then you'll start to pick up your arms to avoid that.
And then we've got all sorts of problems.
Instead, what I want you to do, and for those of you who've been with me for a long time, remember my old right shoulder blade glide drill.
This is going to bring up some fond memories of that drill because I know a lot of you loved that drill.
We just saw people start to overdo it and misinterpret it.
This is an updated version of that.
So what I'm going to do is hold this cape, the elastic band up against my right shoulder.
And this will help you visualize this spiral line.
Now, of course, it goes through my core and around to the back and so on.
So this is not exact.
But if this is a visualization and a feel.
Now, if I told you to create as much tension in these bands as possible, what would you do?
Well, what you want to do is take your right shoulder, your trail shoulder, and start moving it up and back.
Now, You've seen my backswing videos where I was talking about how the body moves into extension to load the core in the backswing when you were under the Goat theory videos.
And that's exactly what I'm doing here.
So I am starting to move this right shoulder up and back to stretch this fascial line as much as possible, as much as I need to for power in the swing.
And as a result of this, my head stays perfectly centered, Which is why I did the whole right shoulder blade glide drill 20 years ago.
In the first place is because people would push from the lead side and move really flat and move off the ball.
If I pull my right shoulder up and back, this moves my spine into extension, which is extremely important for the next part of the swing.
And, and really the key to the goat drill is that we have to open up this trail side of our body, the trail side of our rib cage, our core from here to here, from your shoulder to your hip, I want you to create space.
So what I'm doing, if I wasn't, you know, turning a little bit, as I'm basically moving into side bend, that I'm doing this to open up the trail side of my body.
And you'll see that this gets my shoulders nice and steep so I can get the club back down to the ground.
Most golfers turn way too flat.
So what I'm trying to do is open up this thing.
And I feel like it's like a zipper effect.
Like I'm unzipping the side of my body, opening up this trail side of my rib cage, all these muscles in my core so that I can fire them on the way down, which we're going to talk about more in just a moment.
But the first key is understanding how to turn or twist is how I think of it now in the backswing.
So I am twisting my spine and opening up my core by moving into extension and getting this right shoulder up and back.
And I'll do this from down the line and you'll see a little bit different perspective.
Again, if I did it incorrectly and I turned really flat like most people and you have these elastic bands, you'll feel that there's no real tension being created here because my shoulder has got to go toward the target up and back.
So now if I hold this up here and I do this, Now I can feel way more tension on these bands because my right shoulder is stretching that spiral fascial line through my core all the way down to my foot.
And as I do this, this is what I'm opening up to be able to fire in the downswing, which we'll talk about again in just a moment.
So this is the first key is opening up.
Now I'm not saying shrug your shoulder up.
That's the exact opposite of what we want to do.
I'm talking about moving this part of your body to open up, unzip this part of your body to load it so that you're moving into side bend and extension at the same time.
As you're doing this, you're going to start to feel this part of your body open up and you'll notice that my trail leg is going to straighten a little bit as I do this.
This is going to allow me to create more space as we move into the trail side fascial line.
There are multiple fascial lines in the body.
I think there's about 11 that have been documented.
And so we know that there's more than one way to do things.
And what you want to think about in the body is that we want to move everything integrated as much as possible.
It's not just your trail hand or your trail arm or your trail leg or lead arm or lead hip or any of those things.
The body needs to work as one.
And using these fascial lines allows us to work the body as one muscle instead of hundreds of different muscles trying to coordinate at the same time.
That's very, very difficult to do.
And it's not what we're going to do.
We want to load fascial lines and use that as like a highway system to coordinate all these muscles together for us.
So the other fascial line that I want you to focus on is the one on the trail side of the body.
I'm going to hold this up against my shoulder like this.
And I want to feel the same thing.
So as I go up and back with this trail shoulder.
Now, as I'm doing this, I'm not standing up because you'll see as I start stretching these muscles, my head's actually going to go even if even though this leg is going straightening a little bit and the shoulders going up and back, my head is actually going to go down just a little bit during the backswing because I'm moving into side bend.
And also these muscles are being moved.
So they're shortening in one side and lengthening in the other.
And that's actually going to move my head down.
But what I want to feel next is getting this shoulder up and back to load this side of my body even more powerfully.
To get this fascial line ready to snap back down this way in the downswing.
So these elastic bands will help you start to visualize and even feel how to load in the swing.
So again, it's your shoulder.
And again, I don't want to say I hate to use the word shoulder because I mean people are going to start actually shrugging their shoulder.
It's almost like, you know, the area underneath your shoulder.
It's opening up this rib cage that you're trying to get as much of this opened up as possible.
And you'll see, you know, most tour pros, one, they have very steep shoulders when viewed down the line in the backswing.
Most amateurs are very flat.
And two, they stay very centered.
Now it's okay to have lateral movement.
Of course, Tiger used to have a lot of lateral movement, introduces more timing and rhythm into the swing.
Nothing wrong with that.
He's changed that as he's gotten older, where he stays much, much more centered now.
But certainly with the driver, he still moves off into the right side quite a bit.
And his head moves off the ball and stays back behind the ball.
The amount of lateral movement that you want to have in your swing, there's, it's a variable.
There's lots of different ways to do it.
But what I want you to be able to focus on first is to stay very centered by opening up, twisting and opening up this side of your body from here all the way through to that shoulder to really feel this getting high and open.
And I like to feel it with my right arm, kind of using that to help stretch this even more.
Exaggerate opening up this part of my body, the trail side of my body, so that it's naturally going to want to step down in the downswing.
So now that you've got the idea of opening up this fascial line, getting into side bend, lengthening this trail side of your body so it's ready to fire, I want to give you a drill to do with the club that really is kind of the essence of the go drill.
Once you kind of go through this video and you've had time to kind of feel and practice these movements, this is going to be your go-to move on the course when you're getting ready to warm up, you're getting ready to hit a shot, you just want to re-groove that feeling, here's how you're going to do it.
So the first key is preset in GDP.
So the goat delivery position, left elbow out, back of my hand out, palm out, elbow pit out, very, very important.
Left arm straight, right arm slightly bent, wrists are set.
Club face should be toed in slightly.
This is very important.
If you don't have a proper grip, this isn't going to work.
I'm going to show you why in just a moment.
So once I'm here, this is basically where the whole golf swing happens or doesn't happen.
Now, do not move your arms from this goat delivery position.
Just try and maintain them exactly like they are here.
As you go back, this right arm is going to bend a little bit more.
Do not let your left arm bend.
Keep the right arm as straight as you can without keeping it rigid, but think about your arms not as ropes as they've kind of typically been described in an old school swing.
That's not how tiger's arms work at all.
Tiger's arms are like spokes on a, on a, on a wheel.
They have to be relatively firm, not toe tight because they'll break, but they need to be stiff enough to be able to maintain width in the swing.
In the moment, I'm going to give you an exercise and a drill that you can do in a gym to help you feel this a lot more completely.
But what I want you to feel at first is that your arms are just basically locked in that GDP position, not rigid, but they're, they're firm.
You're holding this with some muscular tension to hold this position.
So now once I'm here, All I want you to do is focus on moving that right shoulder up and back to lengthen this trail side of your body.
Like you just saw and felt with the elastic band.
So watch what happens.
I'm just going to take this right shoulder, knock and move my arms and move that right shoulder up.
I'm in a perfect spot at the top.
I started at GDP and I just lengthened this fascial line.
This is all I'm trying to do here back down GDP, GDP, all the way through.
That's all you need to feel to understand the golf swing.
The way that Tiger does it is really just understanding this goat delivery position and understanding how to move your body so that you don't have to move your arms.
This is where everybody goes wrong is that they start moving their arms all over the place.
And why wouldn't you?
The club's light.
We just want to fling our arms all over the place.
They're going to move all over.
Your arms are getting moved by your core.
That's why I like describing the arms as like spokes on a wheel.
On a wheel, all the power is being driven to the hub and the spokes have to be firm enough to transmit the energy to the outer part of the wheel of the tire.
And that's what your arms are basically doing effectively in the golf swing is that they're just spokes on a wheel, and the hub is right here, moving your arms.
And you can see even with my messed up spine and fused neck, I can stay very centered and have a nice big turn, but I'm not turning, right?
I'm not doing this.
I'm taking this shoulder up and back to lengthen this trail side.
That gets me more of a twisted feel, if you will.
And now from here, how would I bring that club back down?
Well, what I lengthened in the backswing is what I want to unload in the downswing.
And this is why I said at the beginning that the way that you try to create power in the backswing, the way that you load or create power in the golf swing, the way that you load in the backswing is your golf swing.
Everything that you do in the backswing, you're going to basically take out in the downswing more or less.
And so when you think about it that way, if I'm just opening up this trail side, well, that's what I'm going to use to bring the club down.
So now you'll start to see that as I open up this side and close it down, that's where my speed and power is.
My arms are transmitting energy.
They are storing energy.
They are not producing power in the swing.
My core is the primary power producer.
When you look at this from down the line, you're going to see a few distinguishable things that you've seen in Tiger Swing for years that he used to be highly criticized for.
And I always said they were the most powerful parts of his swing and they were what made it so simple.
But you're going to see these things happen now.
So let me first, again, GDP, right?
So you can see the club is, it needs to be towed in slightly at this point.
As I go up, my right shoulder is going up and back.
And now I'm firing that down.
Now what happens to my head as I do that?
One thing that's always been criticized of Tiger Swing is that his head would go down.
Well, how would his head go down?
People used to think, oh, he's just squatting down.
That's not what's happening at all.
He's lengthening and then contracting this core.
His right shoulder is going as far away from your right hip as it can, and then getting as close to it as he can.
That moves the arms with tremendous speed.
And because it's moving basically in a diagonal pattern, I don't know a better way to describe it at this point yet.
But when we think of the shoulders as kind of turning back and turning back, that's not what they do at all in Tiger Swing.
They tilt and spiral and twist the spine in this extension position, which is totally safe and relaxed for your spine.
And then it fires down.
As he crunches down, the harder he contracts the side of his body, it pulls the hip up because these same muscles that you're lengthening, the obliques and other muscles attach in the pelvis.
So as he fires aggressively down with his shoulder, it pulls his hip up, which pulls him up onto his toe.
And he used to get criticized for this all the time.
Oh, he gets up on his toe too quick.
Mo Norman said that was a terrible move.
It wasn't at all.
It's a powerful move from the core.
The faster you do this, of course my leg is going to get pulled up, but I'm not squatting.
But when you look at it from down the line, it looks like I'm squatting and driving off my hips.
I'm not.
I'm purely taking that fascial line and then closing it down as fast as humanly possible.
And I've got an awesome exercise I want to share with you that if you go to the gym, you can feel this.
And understand how all of this works together immediately.
If you were to ask me, what is the one exercise that I should do for my golf swing?
This would be it.
All I have is a basic pulley and a bar here that, you know, just a little straight handle on it.
It's kind of like a grip, golf grip and a pulley up above my head and very little weight.
I'm only, I'm only going to use 10 pounds for this.
What I want you to understand with this exercise is that it's going to teach you how to feel everything that happens in tiger swing, exactly how he creates power, exactly how you're going to do it, exactly what your arms should move, how your arms should move and how your body should move.
So what you're going to do is take one of these handles and put it.
So if I'm, I'm a right handed golfer, obviously.
So the handle starts on my left side and I set my arms basically setting them in GDP, right?
So I'm in this great, powerful impact position.
My right arm is pushing down on this to help hold the weight as is my left arm.
And now how do I take this back?
This is the most important key because again, how we load in the backswing is how we're going to find the downswing.
So I'm not going to do this.
How weak is that?
That's how most people swing.
What I'm going to do is create this wide arc to keep tension on this cable as long as I can so that it opens up my rib cage, opens up my core so that then once I'm here, those muscles are now what I'm firing.
That, that is how you create power in the swing.
I am keeping my arms wide as I go back because it helps me stretch and lengthen this core even more.
And then once it's fully moved and I'm into extension and that's why I like using the cable, it helps pull my weight, my body, my spine into extension so that then I can pull down.
Now, if you were doing, as you do this, and I recommend if you go to a gym, try this exercise out because as you're going back, you'll feel that if you let your arms collapse, this thing's going to whack you in the head.
It's not going to feel right.
You will feel how you want to keep your arms wide and basically stiff like spokes on a wheel to open up this part of your body as much as possible.
And then once you feel that it's open, it's natural to then fire them on the way down.
And once you have that feeling of how to fire and engage your core, you'll do this for literally 30 seconds.
And this part of your body will be burning.
And if you're doing it with even a slightest amount of weight, you don't even have to do it with weight just by contracting your spine.
You can see how quickly I move up onto my toe, which allows my hips to pivot more quickly.
I'm pulling my core down, which moves my arms very fast into GDP.
And it helps me maintain that GDP.
You've known that the biggest part of my theory on tiger swing is he's just resisting pronation of this trail arm longer than everybody else.
That's what made him the greatest long iron player in history.
So that face was so stable and so quiet.
And the only way to do that is to fire your core correctly.
So let's take a little bit closer look at that.
But trust me, give this exercise a try.
And one of the most important parts of getting this goat drill done correctly is sequencing.
Sequencing the off swing correctly is everything.
It's where all the magic lies.
It's where all the power, the effortless power is versus powerless effort.
Powerless effort comes from firing your arms too soon, which basically just forces your entire swing out of sequence.
What you're going to learn is that your arms and club and hands aren't going to fully release until way out here, way past the ball, which we're going to talk about the release and in just a moment.
But we first have to understand the sequence of how do we fire our core correctly?
This is the key.
You need to unzip and then rezip from the top down.
And what I mean by that is a lot of times golf instruction is taught, you know, go to the top and then fire your hips as fast as you can.
And that's going to give you speed.
That's going to give you back problems is what that's going to give you.
You do not want to torque and twist your spine by pushing hard off your hips immediately from the top of the backswing.
It's the worst freaking thing you can do for your back.
Trust me.
I have tried it many times.
It's devastating.
What you want is for your spine and your core and your pelvis and everything to move as one when the greatest amount of load is on the body.
When we're at the highest risk for injury, nobody's gonna get hurt during the backswing, right?
I've never seen anybody have a takeaway blowout.
You know, oh my God, my knee went out during my takeaway.
If you're doing that, you really need lessons really bad.
Most people get hurt in the downswing or in the follow through.
And so what you've got to understand, you know that most tour pros all have their hips really, really open at impact.
But how are they just really flexible?
Are they just naturally gifted athletes?
What are they doing that allows them to do that?
It's sequencing because that's what allows them to do it safely and correctly.
And most amateurs have no idea how to move their hips and their hips are actually dead square at impact or some are even closed.
What you're going to learn now is how to get your hips wide open at impact, crazy open, further open than you probably thought you even could.
But I've got to tell you some things that are going to wildly contradict everything that you hear in golf instruction today.
So bear with me.
This is going to take just a brief moment to explain how the sequencing works.
But once you feel it, you're going to understand it.
I want you to watch yourself in the mirror as you do this.
So as we're going back, my first initiation off the ball, you know, I shift into this trail hip to get loaded into it.
But I'm immediately trying to feel this right shoulder opening up my core to going up and back to open up the side of my body.
That's the first thing I'm trying to do.
And because of that, and because it's moving the most, apart from my hands and arms, but as far as my body goes, my shoulders moving the greatest distance above anything else, I want to then start that as the first key, not this starting with your hips and destroy your back, starting with your core to pull your arms back down into this GDP position is the correct sequence.
So you're opening that trail side of your body and then firing it down.
I'm taking my right shoulder and moving it down towards my right hip.
And as I'm doing that, that's getting me reconnected.
Think about throwing a punch.
I like to use the heavy bag a lot.
You don't punch like this, right?
There's no power there.
And you don't punch like this.
There's no power there either.
You work to get them all to fire together as one.
And that's exactly what I believe Tiger's doing.
What you're feeling is this trail shoulder firing down, it moves my arms back into position.
And once my arms have gotten back connected to my body, it started to work back in front of my body and my core, upper part of my core starting to close down, it's reconnecting me with my, with my pelvis.
And once they're all connected together, then I can drive really hard and push hard off my foot and off my glute to fire everything together as one.
And that is that squish the bug drill that I showed you of Tiger doing this, what seemed like a really strange video where he's basically trying to pivot and he's waiting, he's working on a sequence.
He's trying to get the feeling of how everything works together.
And that's what allows you to get your hips very open at impact.
You'll see that if I go to the top and just try and turn, I'm eventually going to run out of right leg.
There's nothing else for me to push with.
So I've kind of expended my energy too soon.
My core is way back here.
So I'm putting a ton of torque on my spine, which is brutally painful.
Instead, if I wait to get everything back down here, my elbows now like into my side, I feel that my whole right side of my body is now connected.
And then I can then drive it through.
And so now you can see my hips, the heck my, I got as many spine problems as anybody, my hips are 80 degrees open here.
And I feel zero pain, zero stress because this is all moving together as one, not this, not this, not this.
Those are all back destroyers.
You want to get this down in here, get it nice and connected.
And then you can drive everything together as one unit, because that's what you're trying to do.
You're trying to drive this power package, this goat arm and this GDP position as far forward as you possibly can to release the club fully as late as you can, because that is what gives you club face control to hit the ball.
Absolutely consistently dead straight requires that you avoid pronation of the trail arm as long as humanly possible.
In order to do that, you must not run out of right arm is kind of the saying in the golf industry.
What does running out of right arm really mean?
Well, obviously, once your right arm begins to extend and the wrist begins to release and the shoulder begins to pronate or internally rotate, there's only so much that can happen that can move there.
And eventually, once you get down to the club or get the club down to the ball, and you've kind of just thrown your arms at it and you've slapped at the ball, you've ran out of right arm, you have nothing left to hit with, you've got rid of all these angles.
What I'm asking you to do is to avoid that at all costs.
And the only way to avoid running out of right arm is to use your core in the way that I'm showing you.
Once you get your arms reconnected, your arms, Tiger described it as his arms falling because his arms are not producing power in the golf swing per se.
Of course, they're moving fast and they're doing their part.
But you're not really going to feel that you're going to focus on firing this the faster you can fire this to take this and compress it down.
And once you do that, you're protecting your spine because you're engaging all the muscles that are there to protect your spine.
So not only are you no longer twisting your hips, which is like the worst freaking thing that's ever been brought to golf instruction, you are pulling this down.
And now everything's connected and you'll actually find that you actually will hold your breath for just a split second.
That's why you see Tiger when he's hitting a really hard shot.
You look like a chipmunk.
His cheeks are blown out.
And that's also why he can stop his downswing so quick because his arms aren't firing.
Once you start firing the arms, you're no longer in control of that golf club.
So you'll see Tiger's cheeks blown out because he's firing his core, holding it.
It's protecting his spine.
It's holding everything tight.
And then it's allowing him as this trail shoulder moves closer to the right hip, and the right hip moves up.
As this whole side of your body is contracting.
Then it's allowing me to maintain this arm, the right arm, not run out of right arm, way longer than I really need to.
The further I move this, I can get my hands this far ahead, but my arms and hands haven't done anything.
They have truly been moved by my core contracting, going down, and then moving forward.
Now, the key to this is to move forward without moving forward.
What I mean by that, and this is another thing in golf.
It's very common now, works well for a lead side pattern.
You want to do the exact opposite in a trail side pattern.
You do not want to try and shift forward onto the lead side.
It's the last thing on earth you want to do for a couple of reasons.
One, it takes time to go from here at the top of my backswing to here.
That's borrowed a tenth of a second.
Well, the whole downswing only happens in two tenths of a second.
So I don't have time to get here and then rotate or use my core.
The rotation word is, it's not just twisting and turning.
It's getting down here and connecting.
I'm pulling my abs together and my core, the trail side of my core together.
And then once I'm there, then I can pivot, but then I am pushing off my right glute.
That's what's allowing me to drive this harm even further forward.
So if I wanted to, I could have my hands this far forward at impact without having to do anything with my hands.
For those of you who've been flipping and scooping, you are definitely not doing this.
You are just firing the arms and hands too soon and then scooping and flipping with your hands because you've run out of right arm.
So the club's going to take over.
I'm going to keep by doing this.
You're going to get here and never run out of right arm because you're not using your right arm.
You're simply using this to transport the club back down and stay back.
And that allows you to maintain all, take all the loft off the club face and get that proper shaft lane.
But as I mentioned, the last thing you'd want to do is try to get onto that lead side.
You actually want to stay back and pivot off your right big toe.
Again, I realize this is very contradictory to what most golf instruction, there's little, all sorts of little drills and training aids now that teach you to get on that left side.
If you do that, it's going to slow your rotation that happens at that last part of the swing way down.
Because once you've got weight on here, if you've moved mass over here, not just pressure, pressure and weight are very different.
If you're moving weight over here, like these little training aids that tell you to stomp on that side.
Well, now my glute and hamstring and quad all engage.
And now I can't move my hip very fast.
If I do, it's going to hurt.
But if I, so if I'm over here, I've got a lot of weight.
I try to turn my hip.
It doesn't feel very good.
If this foot is light, this hip is light.
I don't have my, my mass over there, my, my upper body.
And I stay back on my back foot.
Watch what happens to my left hip.
Look at that.
My hips are 80 degrees open.
I felt nothing.
Staying back the old squish the bug drill.
Once I'm here that you see my right shoulder going down into my rib cage, contracting, that's pulling my hip up, which unweights my right foot, which allows my hips to then move forward faster, which allows me to drive my goat arm further forward, allows me to maintain that shaft lean, and then finally release the club.
You want to make sure that as you go back and you're loading this line, as you start down, you are trying to pivot off your big toe, not push off your foot to move your hips forward.
That video that I showed earlier of Tiger doing that, what a lot of people thought was a very bizarre drill.
It is exactly what I'm telling you to do here.
And then here's another clip of Tiger drilling and telling himself, oh, don't, don't move forward on that lead side.
Stay back and pivot off of that right big toe.
So when you think about your swing and a trail side pattern to swing like the goat, it's not shift over here, then shift over here, and then turn.
That does not work.
It's open up this trail side, contract this trail side.
It pulls me up onto my toe, and then everything together drives it forward.
And then I can hit as hard as I darn well please.
The final step, the final piece of the puzzle, the release.
The release of the golf club is everything.
It's where all of the speed really comes from at the last instant.
And understanding how to release the club correctly has been completely misunderstood for eons.
And what I'm going to share with you today is going to help you understand how to release the club properly.
And create that whip effect where you hear that big boost of speed, that swoosh at the bottom that happens actually more after the ball as much as anything.
And that's really key.
Now, of course it's happening before that.
That's what you hear because the club slows down quite a bit after you actually strike the ball.
But what you're going to feel and what you're going to focus on is releasing the club as late as possible.
Now, wait a second.
Wait a second.
You said throw the club from the top.
I'm going to explain how all this works together in just a moment.
But the first thing I've got to get you to understand is how to move your body to get your arms as far forward as humanly possible.
And I want to reiterate here that you must have a proper grip or this will not work.
A proper grip is going to make your ball striking a thousand times more consistent.
And when I say that you really need to feel that your hands are almost to the side of the right side of the club, rather than being on top of it.
If you're on top of it and you do what I'm about to show you, you're going to slice the ball off the planet.
You have to have a stronger than neutral grip, just like the goat does.
And you can see those fingernails are up on top of the club.
I'm at that two o'clock point with 1000 the knuckles that I talked about in the 1001 grip video.
What I'm trying to feel here 1002 is that if I'm de-lofting the club 1003 properly, and I'm avoiding running out of 1004 right arm by moving the trail side of my 1005 body forward toward the target, you can 1006 see that my six iron that I have here is 1007 now about like a two iron.
And this is 1008 why, guys my size, we can hit the ball so 1009 far with so little effort.
One of the 1010 reasons, apart from the proper release 1011 and the speed, is that we're de-lofting 1012 the heck out of the club.
If I de-loft 1013 the club like this with a weak grip, well 1014 that's where the club face is pointing.
1015 I'm going to hit this ball off the planet 1016 to the right.
1017 Because you're going to be able to swing 1018 way faster than you ever have before, 1019 because you now know how to contract 1020 these really powerful muscles that can 1021 move everything very quickly, move your 1022 arms in that go delivery position right 1023 down into impact very quickly.
You're 1024 going to want to take timing out of your 1025 hands as much as humanly possible, and 1026 the stronger grip helps with that.
If you 1027 find that you've got this grip like you 1028 see, I'll move up here a little bit 1029 closer so you can see, I kind of feel 1030 like my hands are sitting to the right 1031 side of the club for me, so that when I 1032 get here, that club face is still square.
1033 In order to do that, I need to drive my 1034 body through.
If I quit with my body and 1035 I start to pronate, and this arm starts 1036 to release, the ball is going to go left.
1037 So if you find that you've got a proper 1038 grip, and you're hitting the ball, 1039 everything left, you're releasing way too 1040 early, and you need to go back and focus 1041 on your body movements, your arms are 1042 doing way too much way too soon.
Your 1043 arms are going to be spokes on a wheel.
1044 This is the hub, this is the engine, 1045 driving everything forward.
So if I can 1046 drive this GDP position forward, then 1047 I've got all the shaft lean and all the 1048 leverage I need in my swing.
Now as you 1049 start to throw it, which we'll talk about 1050 more in a moment, you're still going to 1051 have all this leverage late in the swing.
1052 Perhaps it will be a little bit less 1053 depending on your throw, but you're still 1054 going to have a ton.
The big key is you 1055 don't want to release the rest of this 1056 until this side of the ball.
1057 This is the most important piece, because 1058 this is not just about power, it's about 1059 consistency and control.
1060 My obsession is hitting the ball dead 1061 straight.
Now I know most people say, oh 1062 that's the hardest shot in the world to 1063 hit.
If you guys have followed me on 1064 Instagram, that's all I hit.
I do not put 1065 curvature on the ball.
If I do, it's like 1066 a yard or two.
And the reason I'm able to 1067 hit the ball so consistent and so 1068 straight is because I'm only releasing 1069 the club into the ball that much.
1070 See that?
1071 That's my whole release.
1072 That's all I'm doing.
And all of this 1073 happens after the ball is long gone.
1074 So once you understand how this release 1075 works and how your body is working with 1076 it, you're going to realize that your 1077 hands are only releasing a tiny bit of 1078 energy into the back of the ball.
Now of 1079 course it's adding a lot of speed, but 1080 the movement of your wrist from here to 1081 here is not very much.
And that's again, 1082 why the clubface needs to be squared up 1083 early and you can't have a weak grip 1084 because I'm set up like this with a 1085 square face, but I'm hitting it like 1086 this.
So if I don't have a strong grip, 1087 that clubface is going to be again, wide 1088 open because I haven't fully released the 1089 club.
The more you release the club, the 1090 more it squares up, the more it closes 1091 down because I'm only hitting with a tiny 1092 bit of my release.
1093 That's not how you can't grip the club 1094 with a weak grip like that.
Now, why am I 1095 only hitting with such a tiny bit of 1096 release?
Aren't I leaving a ton of speed 1097 on the table?
Yeah.
But I still swing at 1098 125 miles an hour.
So the speed that 1099 you're giving up, unless you're wanting 1100 to be a long drive champion, you want to 1101 maintain control by only releasing it a 1102 little bit, but you have the added 1103 benefit of putting, in my opinion, more 1104 force into the back of the ball.
Now, 1105 what does that mean exactly?
1106 Now, One of the things that happens all 1107 the time when I'm hitting balls is people 1108 stare at me.
Because the ball sounds 1109 different when it comes off the face from 1110 a good ball striker.
There's a crack when 1111 you hit the ball and there's a hiss 1112 through the air.
Even though I may look 1113 like I'm not swinging very hard, I'm 1114 putting a lot of force into the back of 1115 the ball.
That force is, I want you to 1116 think of it in the actual physics 1117 definition of it.
What is force?
It's 1118 mass times acceleration.
1119 Now, mass, of course, is fixed.
That's 1120 our club, Ed.
We can't change that.
1121 That's what's going to actually strike 1122 the ball.
But what we can change is 1123 acceleration.
1124 Now, acceleration is a really, really 1125 critical part, if not the most important 1126 part, of being a truly great iron player.
1127 And I mean like world-class iron player.
1128 These guys who are the greatest of the 1129 greats, Tigers, Hogan's, Nicholas's, et 1130 cetera, they had a lot of acceleration 1131 still going into the club.
And so they 1132 had what was typically called a late hit 1133 where they didn't look like they were 1134 fully releasing until right at the last 1135 second.
But you know there's a lot more 1136 speed left in the bag if they fully 1137 release it.
But they don't need it 1138 because they're compressing the ball very 1139 hard.
Because when you're creating more 1140 force, the ball is going to compress 1141 more.
That means it's going to have a 1142 greater ball speed.
There's people who 1143 swing really fast, but the ball just kind 1144 of comes off the face kind of dead and 1145 kind of clunky.
It doesn't hiss.
It 1146 doesn't sound right.
And there's guys who 1147 look like they hardly release the club at 1148 all and the ball rockets off the face.
1149 That's force.
1150 Now, understanding this, you know, 1151 I'm certain there's somebody out there 1152 that can probably physics-wise prove that 1153 this is incorrect, but I'm going to tell 1154 you anecdotally what it feels like for 1155 me, what I believe Tiger's doing.
I can 1156 show you tons of evidence of what Tiger's 1157 doing, but also what you're going to feel 1158 in your swing.
As I mentioned, I feel 1159 like I'm only releasing the club like 1160 that to hit the ball.
That's it.
And then 1161 everything else is happening way out 1162 here.
But because I want to put more 1163 force into the ball, I want to take 1164 advantage of the greatest part of 1165 acceleration in my stroke.
And in my 1166 opinion, what it feels like is that when 1167 my wrist starts to release, that's where 1168 the bulk of the acceleration is because 1169 this fascia is loaded up and it's 1170 starting to unload very rapidly.
And then 1171 once I get further into the release 1172 stroke, the acceleration begins to slow 1173 down.
And so as you come into the ball, 1174 you see most people who are like this, 1175 the club is actually starting to 1176 decelerate, right?
So understanding this 1177 acceleration phase of the swing.
And 1178 again, I don't have any physics proof of 1179 this.
Again, it's what I feel in my swing 1180 and what I believe is happening, that 1181 because this is the most loaded position 1182 and I'm driving it forward with my core, 1183 that once it starts to release, I'm 1184 getting that initial acceleration.
That's 1185 far greater than somebody who's starting 1186 to hit the ball and release the club down 1187 here because there's just not as much to 1188 release.
And the acceleration is slower 1189 at that point in the swing.
And again, 1190 force is mass times acceleration.
1191 I want acceleration into the ball, not 1192 the club being dragged through the ball.
1193 And that's what allows me to hit the ball 1194 really freaking hard without trying hard 1195 to do it.
Because again, I'm only doing 1196 this.
The other key is that because I'm 1197 only doing this, I don't have to really 1198 do a lot to square the face.
The more 1199 this wrist starts to release, the more 1200 the club face is rotating through the 1201 strike.
And so it just introduces an 1202 element of timing than your swing that 1203 you just don't want if you want to hit 1204 the ball very straight, very 1205 consistently.
So how do we get this?
1206 Here's what you're going to feel.
1207 Start preset and GDP.
Again, make sure 1208 your grip is strong enough.
When I have 1209 my like this thumb and four finger line, 1210 like straight up, that's what my club 1211 face looks like to me.
And on a clock, 1212 that would be noon, 11, 10, nine o'clock.
1213 I feel like my toe of my club face is at 1214 about 11 o'clock when my thumb and 1215 forefinger like straight up and down.
So 1216 that's how strong my grip feels to me 1217 once I take my proper grip.
And then as I 1218 set it in GDP, now all I got to do, load 1219 the right side, fire the right side.
And 1220 now as I, I don't want to get over here.
1221 It's a bad habit of mine.
It hurts my 1222 hip.
I stay back.
1223 Because the more you stay back and pivot, 1224 the more you can drive these hands 1225 further forward.
1226 And doing that without running out of any 1227 right arm.
So you're preserving that 1228 initial beautiful part of that 1229 acceleration in the stroke that is a part 1230 of what's commonly called the late hit.
1231 You're preserving that longer, the more 1232 you drive this through.
And so as you're 1233 doing this, all I need to do now is let 1234 that go.
But you can see that the club 1235 face is already square.
It's already 1236 delofted.
It's barely rotating.
I'm just 1237 using this to hit with, and then it's 1238 going to snap.
And when you snap it, your 1239 hands, you want them to release as fast 1240 as humanly possible.
This is important.
1241 This is why you don't want to pull with 1242 your left hand at all.
You're going to 1243 drag the club head through the strike.
1244 You don't want to do that with your right 1245 hand.
You don't want to keep pushing 1246 forever, because then you're going to 1247 lose that endless conveyor belt feel that 1248 I talked about in these other videos, 1249 where your hands kind of have to slow 1250 down and snap release.
The release should 1251 feel like this with your left hand.
You 1252 see how you can't even see how fast my 1253 left hand is moving?
It's moving from 1254 flexion to extension.
1255 That's very quick.
And my right hand is 1256 doing the same thing.
1257 So you can't really see how fast my 1258 hand's moving.
1259 That's where all the final burst of speed 1260 is happening, that I need my big muscles 1261 to drive that power package down so that 1262 when this does release, it's happening at 1263 the right time.
If you start doing this 1264 too soon, of course, you're not going to 1265 have any speed.
So let's look at this at 1266 a little bit of speed, and I'm going to 1267 describe to you what's happening here.
So 1268 I'm going to set myself in GDP.
1269 I'm going to go to the top, and I'm going 1270 to pump down.
I'm going to do this a 1271 couple times, stay back, get the right 1272 feel, driving my right side of my body 1273 forward.
You can see how it's getting my 1274 club, my hands way further forward.
And 1275 then what I want to feel on the release 1276 is that all the speed, the whoosh, is 1277 happening out here.
That's the goal.
1278 Okay, this is preset GDP, back, and 1279 through.
Try it a couple times.
1280 So you can see, 1281 I have a lot of speed, but it's happening 1282 very late.
Most of the swoosh sound 1283 is happening more out here.
That's what 1284 you want to feel.
1285 Now, again, you can still throw this as 1286 long as your sequencing is good.
As I get 1287 to the top, I start to move my hands to 1288 give the club a little head start to get 1289 back out in front of my body.
1290 At first, when you're practicing this, 1291 don't try and throw initially.
1292 Get the feeling of driving your hands 1293 forward with your body, because what will 1294 happen for a lot of people, they won't 1295 realize they'll throw with their arms and 1296 hands, and they won't move their body at 1297 all.
When you're throwing, you've got to 1298 be moving your body.
When you're doing 1299 this with your hand, your hips and core, 1300 it better be moving forward, or you will 1301 cast it.
And that's what Nicholas said.
1302 His exact words were something equivalent 1303 of, as long as you're moving left, you 1304 can throw the club as hard as you want 1305 from the top.
And where people got off 1306 with this throwing motion is they would 1307 throw and didn't know how to move their 1308 bodies.
And that's what this whole 1309 section, this is what this goat drill is 1310 all about, is teaching you how to move 1311 your body, move your power package 1312 forward, and then release at the right 1313 time.
So as you're moving into full 1314 swings, Now, everything that you've been 1315 doing in the GoAt code up until this 1316 point has been teaching you to control 1317 the club.
Face with your trail, arm and 1318 hand inside of your body.
To start 1319 understanding how to maintain this GDP as 1320 long as possible, so that we only get 1321 that initial acceleration phase of the 1322 release into the ball, because that's 1323 what it allows us to square the face so 1324 consistently.
The longer I can move this 1325 shoulder and core down and together, the 1326 more quiet the club faces and the longer 1327 it stays square.
When you look up the 1328 line, my club face is staying square 1329 forever.
The moment that my arm begins to 1330 release is when the club face shuts down.
1331 Now of course we want that to happen, but 1332 again not till after the ball.
So what 1333 you're going to focus on as you start 1334 moving into bigger swings with these 1335 bigger wedge shots and full iron shots?
1336 Is that you're really trying to maintain 1337 supination or this goat arm using your 1338 body, your trail side of your body.
And 1339 you'll see as I go, I go from extension 1340 to in my spine to flexion 1341 back to extension.
1342 That's what your body, your core, your 1343 spine has to do.
And your hips have to 1344 work with that.
You can see, as I go into 1345 extension in the backswing, my hips are 1346 going to open up this front of my part 1347 from front part of my abdominal wall is 1348 going to open up and then I'm going to 1349 compress it down.
This moves me back into 1350 flexion.
I'm holding my breath for just a 1351 second, because it's compressing and I'm 1352 holding, it's protecting my spine.
And 1353 then as I drive through right at the last 1354 second, I'm still got that goat arm.
I've 1355 still got the elbow pit facing out away 1356 from me, which means I, and my palm is 1357 facing out away from me, which means I 1358 still have control of that club face.
The 1359 moment this starts to happen, the moment 1360 I start to pronate, my arm separates from 1361 my body and starts going this way, I'm 1362 losing control of the face.
So practice 1363 working on little shots and you can even 1364 start kind of GDP, right shoulder back, 1365 fire the core and then start working on 1366 holding that face off so that you're 1367 driving that GDP position through as long 1368 as possible.
Now, of course, in a full 1369 swing, we don't want this.
We want to 1370 start releasing it because that's where 1371 the speed is.
But when you're hitting 40 1372 yard shots and 20 yard shots, that's 1373 basically exactly what we're doing 1374 because we don't want that club face to 1375 change.
I want it pointing down the 1376 target line as long as possible.
And 1377 that's why when you've seen like the 40 1378 yard shots drill, how much precision that 1379 I'm asking of you, where I'm hitting, you 1380 know, 40 yard shots, I'm hitting the 1381 flagstick, I'm hitting it in a six foot 1382 circle.
That's not because I'm especially 1383 talented.
It's because I'm just holding 1384 the face as long as possible and using 1385 the trail side of my body in the most 1386 efficient, powerful and safe way to get 1387 through the ball so that that club face 1388 is always staying square and quiet.
And 1389 that my friends is the goat drill.
Jonathan
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