GOAT Backswing

Once you've completed the wedge shots and mastered that technique, you are ready to make a full backswing and arrive at the exact same position as the GOATs at the top of the swing.

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As you move into the backswing, I want you to start filming yourself from the rear view.

This is not a common view that most golfers look at, but it is perhaps the most telling and one of the most important.

And since you've already been focusing on face on and down the line with the 80 yard swings, 80 yard shots, now as we move into full iron swings, I want you to start videoing yourself from the rear.

And I'm going to give you some very, very important things to understand how to look at what's happening in the golf swing.

So the first thing that you're going to notice is that both Tiger and myself, we work hard to get that trail shoulder behind the head.

And this is extremely important because without getting that trail shoulder blade loaded up, you can see mine kind of bulging out here.

You can see Tiger's doing the same.

We're never going to be able to transmit power efficiently from the entire body, from the core.

And that's really what the goal is in the golf swing.

We need to be able to get everything to happen in the right sequence and to do it efficiently.

And in order to do that there's a couple things that have to happen.

I'm going to start drawing some simple lines that are going to help you start to visualize this.

And then I'm going to introduce you to my friend Bob, that's going to show you what's really happening here.

So the first thing I'm going to do is draw just a little line along my back and you'll see.

There's a little curve there.

And then it kind of goes up and then it kind of bulges back around this way.

This is a visual representation of the 3D motion of what's kind of happening in your spine.

And this lower curve here is what we call lordosis.

Now, a lot of times, golfers have too much lordosis at setup and their back is really arched and so they're not engaged in their core.

But as you go into the backswing and you start going into lateral flexion, or side bend and extension through the spine, you have to have this lordosis because it's going to help you get more mobility.

One of the things that people love to argue about is, oh my students aren't flexible enough to make a full shoulder turn.

If you're trying to turn your shoulders, you're right.

You're probably not flexible enough to make a full shoulder turn, but you can see that my shoulders directly behind my head here, just as it is a Tigers.

But neither one of us are turning our shoulders.

What we are doing is entering lateral flexion or side bend and extension rather than trying to turn.

And so when we do this, I'm going to show you with Bob in just a second what this really means.

But this is the visual that you want to see.

First of all, you can see both of our trail legs are angled in.

This is going to make it a lot easier to shift our pressure back to the lead side.

If that trail leg gets really vertical during the backswing, it's going to be very easy for you to kind of get stuck and have to push really hard off the trail side.

We don't want to do that, of course.

So what you're working on here is making sure that you're first of all set up correctly, because if you're not set up correctly.

With this leg kind of angled in here, Hogan used to talk about putting an umbrella up against his leg, but that leg angle shouldn't really change, you can see from setup.

We're both at 140 to 104 degrees, and as we go to the top of the swing, we're 104 degrees.

That leg angle doesn't really change.

The way that it can't, that it won't change, is if you move your spine correctly and you'll see this is.

Another good understanding of what's happening is it looks like my spine is pretty straight.

both tiger's spine and my spine are relatively pretty straight here.

But that's going to change during the swing dramatically.

And you have to understand how the swing is happening in a 3D effect, how the spine is moving in a 3D motion.

Because once you understand that, then you're going to start to understand how to be able to get yourself into the right position.

So that it's very easy to make a quote unquote.

Full shoulder turn rather than what you're trying to do right now, which is twist your spine into a way it's not designed to move.

So from this angle, you want to make sure that you're set up with a the trail leg angled in.

And it's going to make it very easy as you go back to get your spine to start to fall into this lateral flexion so you can see, look where my spine is at, setup this line here, and then where the spine appears to move here.

And you can see the same thing on Tiger Swing right here, the same motion, this is lateral flexion and extension.

I'm not trying to turn my shoulders, I'm trying to get them to move the way that my spine was designed to move.

And that's where our buddy Bob is going to help you understand that.

And then we'll talk about the downswing video or downswing in a separate video, but you'll start to understand that the way that your spine's got to move is very, very simple, but it has to be done in an exact way.

Let's take a look at what the spine's really doing.

And let me introduce you to my buddy, Bob.

All right, everybody, this is Bob.

Now, Bob is going to be very, very helpful for helping us understand how to move our spine correctly in the golf swing.

Because what a lot of golfers try and do is actually put themselves at risk at injury.

And so if you've got back pain, you definitely want to pay close attention to this.

But this is also going to help you understand how to move efficiently and powerfully in the golf swing.

Now, it's Bob's first time on camera, so be kind to him.

He's a little nervous.

So we're going to kind of work on maneuvering him around.

For those of you who are interested in how I broke my neck, this is the bone I broke right here.

C1, not a good place to break it.

Anyway, so here's what most golfers do in the golf swing.

They get kind of slouchy.

They start like this.

They start with their head kind of bending forward.

That rounds their upper back and then their lower back.

And does this look like anybody you know, perhaps yourself on the golf course?

Heads all rounded forward.

And all of this stuff is, of course, connected, not just physically through the bones, but all the connective tissue and fascia.

And so it you bend up here from your neck, you're going to pull on all of this, it's going to pull everything out of position.

So now the only way that Bob can move in the golf swing, to quote unquote, turn his shoulders is his head has got to move off the ball.

You know anybody that swings like this?

This is very, very common.

The head's obviously moving all over the place.

He's trying to turn his shoulders and then he's trying to turn his shoulders this way.

And there's just no way to stay centered and generate any power.

But also, you can see these little facet joints that sit in between each vertebrae.

As I start to slouch forward, this allows me to create a lot more mobility than what I really want.

Because now, as I really bend forward, I can put myself into a position where these safety stops, these facet joints.

I can start to kind of put them in a point where if I put enough force on it, I can put myself out of position, really hurt the disc and risk myself a serious injury.

So depending on how hard you swing and how often you practice, this puts you in you in a very bad position compared to now.

Watch what happens as soon as I go into extension, so as I extend Bob's back.

So now he's just getting back into that normal.

Lordosis.

That curvature of the spine, obviously upper back should Thoracic should just bend back the other way.

This is a great shock absorber for the body as well from walking and just dealing with gravity.

But this is where we want to feel at setup.

Not all slouched forward.

And you can see now, as I arch my back back, move into extension, that those facet joints are now all locked nicely in place.

This is what you're.

They're designed to do to protect your spine from moving into a point where you can get yourself injured.

Now the trick to the golf swing, if I move myself into extension and then lateral flexion, now take a look at Bob's golf swing.

He's no longer moving all over the place.

As he moves into extension and side bend, Bob, keep your head on the ball there.

Stay down there.

There you go.

Now you can see that he looks like a tour player.

I'm going to take him off this for just a second.

He doesn't have his golf spikes on today, so he's a little bit slippery, But you'll start to see how this all works together.

In order to keep my head down, my spine down, my trail leg is going to go into extension, and my lead leg is going to go into flexion.

That's going to tilt my pelvis, which allows me to get my spine and my head and down to the ball to steepen my shoulder.

Plane.

And now I look like a tour plow.

I'm nice and centered, but what I've done is not trying to turn.

I'm extending my spine and going into lateral flexion and allowing this leg to bend to tilt the pelvis, and now I'm staying nice and centered over the ball.

Bring my arms up.

And now I'm in a great position to be able to hit this ball without my head moving all over the place.

And at the same point, this is how your spine is designed to move safely.

I've locked these facet joints in place.

And that's why, as you saw in the first clip, where a lot of times we think we want to rotate around our spine, but that's not what's happening.

I'm rotating around my center of gravity, which is down here where this little metal piece is.

And as I'm rotating around my center of gravity, my spine is moving toward the target.

I'm not rotating around my spine as an axis.

That simply doesn't happen.

My spine is moving into extension and side bend.

And this is what's keeping me centered over the ball.

And this is what you see in all high level players.

Let's take a look at some of them.

You've probably heard of this guy, Scotty Scheffler.

Let's take a look at what he does with his body, with his spine during the swing.

Now our spine sets up pretty neutral, Which is what allows us to then dynamically move throughout the swing to get into the proper position.

So we don't start out in an extension, we have to move into it.

And you can see that from this angle of Scotty, where you can clearly see his lower back going into a lordosis.

This is where a lot our mobility in the backswing actually comes from.

The lumbar spine, the thoracic spine, of course, is moving as well, which you can see.

Just how much lordosis, this little curvature, this bump, that's happening in the lumbar part of Scotty's swing, which allows him to make a huge, huge turn.

Quote unquote turn.

I don't really like that turns, more rotation, but either way, however you want to think about it, whatever word you want to use.

The spine is integral to this and this is what allows him to generate a lot of power, even though he doesn't have a ton of wrist set.

You can see his wrist angle is pretty wide here, but his body, his core, his spine is very, very loaded up, and that's what it should look like at the top.

Obviously, everybody's going to do it to a different ability depending on how much mobility you have, but this is what you're looking for, and we're going to learn how to do this in just a moment.

Let's look at another tour player first.

What about Young Altered's Pock Eater?

He obviously just shot a 61 course record at the Mexico Open and was pummeling the ball 350, 360 yards off the tee.

How is he doing it?

You're going to see the exact same motion.

Note the lordosis and then the curvature of the spine moving back into extension and side bend.

This is what's allowing him to make this huge turn, but you'll watch his head.

It really doesn't ever move off the ball like so many amateurs do.

I would say probably 80, 90% of all amateur golfers, Their head sways off the ball because they're trying to make this full shoulder turn instead of understanding how the spine actually works.

And you can see he increases that lordosis in the downswing or during the transition.

And then his head is going to actually start to move back.

We'll talk about that in the downswing video, but this motion is critical for setting up a powerful downswing motion.

Your spine has to move the correct way.

Let's take a look at a little bit more of an extreme example.

This is, here's the fastest swinger in the world.

Here's a guy whose average club head speed is as faster than the average ball speed on tour.

Seb Twaddell, and you're going to see everything done kind of to the nth degree here, But it's great to look at some of these long drive guys because they really take everything and max it out to the point where it's extreme, but you can see the exact same motion.

Look at Seb's lower back here.

He is in lordosis.

He's got curvature there.

Most amateurs are still in flexion at this point, where their lower back is curved like this, and that moves their head way over here.

Seb is doing this again to an extreme amount, but that's what you got to do if you want extreme power.

That's his job.

So you'll see the same thing.

His spine has got this concave look to it.

This is extension of the upper back, lordosis of the lower back.

That is how we create power in the golf swing and use our spine correctly to stay centered over the ball.

Now let's take a look at the goat himself.

Let's take a look at tiger.

From this angle, this is another wonderful angle to look at the golf swing.

I really, really prefer quarter angles.

I don't like looking at everything just straight on one way or the other.

The quarter angles are much more telling to what's really happening.

And in this angle of Tiger with the driver, you're going to be able to see the same motion.

Of the lordosis of the lower back.

You can clearly see this arching in the lower back, which facilitates extension, which it facilitates locking those facet joints in place.

And gets the body and the spine primed and loaded to be able to deliver a ton of power in the downswing.

This is the moment where you're going to start to understand why you can't be consistent, why you can't consistently hit the ball solidly.

While you're hitting it all over the place, you hit behind the ball nine times out of ten, your spine is not moving correctly.

And that's what we're going to start going to understand how to do next.

Once you've made it through the 2040 80 yard shots, you're moving into full swing.

You really have to start understanding how to glue this goat arm, position, this GDP to extension all together.

And if you've done the program and you follow it through step by step, you should have a really good sensation of how to control that face and how to rotate your body.

And today, you're gonna see exactly what it looks like and what it feels like in your golf swing.

So obviously I have this goofy looking shirt on.

It's gonna help you start to visualize what's happening with your spine, both at setup and throughout the backswing motion.

And I'm gonna touch on the downswing stuff again, I'm gonna do a separate downswing video, but I'm gonna touch on that.

So you start to understand why you're doing these things and the backs and the way you are.

The first thing I'm going to do is show you from behind, like the view that we started with, to help you start to understand what your body and your shoulder blade is doing.

So what most golfers tend to do, they tend to kind of let their head roll forward.

You'll see that's going to kind of get my upper back slouched forward, my lower back kind of flattened out.

And so you'll see from behind that I look kind of like this.

And you'll see that from here.

It's very hard for me to start moving into extension when I'm so deep into flexion.

So the tendency is going to be for the head to move off the ball.

A simple way to start triggering your backswing and get a good feel for it is understanding how to move.

This trail shoulder blade The trail shoulder blade at setup needs to have to be set up.

If you're a little slouch forward and your arms are really drooped forward, it's going to be very hard for you to get that trail shoulder blade all the way back up against the spine.

That's very, very important for transmitting power from your core.

So what you need to make sure you do is at least be in neutral posture, and you can even have your shoulders elevated slightly.

But this is important to understand the difference between shrugging your shoulders from your trap muscles and moving your shoulder blade up.

There's a big difference between this and this.

Right now, I've moved my shoulder blade, And so from behind, you can see the shoulder blade representation here.

It's of course not exactly where my shoulder blade is, but it gives you an idea.

If I shrug my shoulder up, you can see how high my trap is up towards my ear.

But if I'm moving my shoulder blade, instead of just shrugging my shoulder up, I'm using the subscap muscles, the muscles underneath the scap and back muscles.

And this is what I want to feel.

So you need to kind of get a feel for moving your shoulder blade up without shrugging your shoulder up to your ear like this.

What this is going to do, if my shoulders, my shoulder blades are elevated a little bit, specifically the trail shoulder blade, but of course the left one, lead side, is going to have to do that as well, it gives my shoulder blade some place to go.

And what I mean by that is the shoulder blade is basically kind of doing this during the downswing.

It's got to move in towards the spine, And then it's got to have some place to go down, to stay locked in as the arm starts dropping back down into the body to get ready for GDP.

But if your shoulders are already slouched forward and your shoulder blades are low like this, once that you're starting the downswing, there's no place for the shoulder blade to go, and thus the arm.

So everything just goes out.

But you'll see if my shoulder blade, like I talk about in the Goat drill, how your shoulder is going up and back.

Now.

That allows my arm to elevate a little bit, which gives me a little more leverage.

But it also gives me the ability for my shoulder blade to now start to move down, and what you'll see is I start moving the shoulder blade down.

What you're going to notice in my spine is it's going to naturally start setting me into that lordosis, which is going to lock those facet joints together and allow me to start moving my whole body as one.

Whereas instead, if my shoulder's elevated like this on the way back, or it's already down and has nowhere else to go.

Then I'm going to start immediately going out and you'll see how that changes my spine back into flexion.

And then I have this move coming through the ball instead of.

So, I'm going to start with my shoulder elevated, I'm going to feel like my shoulder's going up.

Not shrugging my shoulder, but my shoulder blade moving up to toward the top of my spine.

Staying locked in.

And now, as I start to go down, you'll see as the club shallows, it's natural for my spine to go into that Lordosis move.

And when we look at this, the whole top, the the whole view.

I want you to watch how the the spine changes during this backstroke.

So as I start to go back, I'm going to start moving into lateral flexion or side bend and extension, and watch what you happen.

In the lumbar area of my spine.

You see how it changed, and now watch from here, you see how the upper part of my thoracic looks like.

It's kind of curved like this toward the target.

That motion is getting me set up to be able to throw very powerfully with my trail hand.

So what you want to start to focus on and feel is a little lateral flexion and extension.

With your shoulder blade going back, you don't have to shrug it up again, you can move it up a little bit, depends on where you set up at, But you definitely don't want it going down immediately to start because that's going to turn your shoulders really flat.

If you feel like it's going up, that's going to naturally, the shoulder blade going up naturally puts my spine into the side bend and extension.

So when we look at this from this view, when you're watching yourself in the mirror, my shoulders elevated a little bit, taking that up, this side's going down, Obviously the sides work in opposites, and then as I start down now, this arm is cocked and loaded, I'm in GDP and ready to hit from down the line.

You'll see what most tour players do, really high level players.

You'll see the club start to go this way to start the downswing.

And most amateurs do the opposite.

You have to have again some place to go, so if I go up, then I can go down and you'll see how these motions all work together.

And the easiest way to see this is from the shadow view, which is what we're going to look at next.

From the shadow view, there's a couple things I'm going to have you do.

The first one is to put a shaft or something basically around the center of your pelvis, where your center of gravity would be.

So like my belly button's up here, so a few inches below that, right about in here is where my center of gravity is.

The reason this is important is because a lot of times if we sway way off the center of gravity, Then everything changes and your body's out of balance and so you're really struggling to maintain balance.

You can't focus on producing power.

But if my center of gravity and I'm going to have you watch this as I go back, notice.

You can almost imagine a spot in the center of my body that I'm rotating around.

You see that.

So, my spine right now is here, but it's going to end up over here in my back.

That's why I'm not rotating around my spine.

If I rotate around my spine, it was fixed, I would end up over here.

I'm rotating around my CG, my center of gravity.

So you can see that as I go back, my center of gravity doesn't really change.

I'm kind of like a pig on a spigot.

I'm spinning around like a rotisserie.

That's the feeling of keeping me really centered.

And now I'm perfectly balanced.

And so you'll see in order to do that, My spine must go into side bend and extension, and now you'll see that my head, if I move this shaft further up, you'll see that.

If I put this on the center of my body, so right in the center of my body all the way up, I stay perfectly centered.

The only way to do that is what you've just learned side bend and extension.

And now I'm perfectly centered.

I'm perfectly balanced and I can start applying force without worrying about, oh, I got to get my head back to the ball.

Or, you know, anything that you do, staying in flexion is going to move you like this.

But when you start setting up, understanding that, you're trying to rotate around your center of gravity, and your spine must move into side bend and extension.

In order for that to happen, then back swing becomes really simple, so this is what you should be looking at once you're set up.

So again, if you're used to having your shoulders really slumped forward and a really rounded back, this is going to feel a lot different.

You're going to stand up a lot taller, your shoulders are going to be elevated just slightly and this will get you so that that trail arm shoulder blade has a place to drop down into.

And this is what I want to show you next.

When you're looking at this from your shadow view, as you're getting ready for the downswing, what you should feel?

First of all, watch the club.

That's supination of my trail hand, right?

So that's part of what's starting it.

My shoulder blade is going down and back, really locked into my spine, and you'll see my spine changing from the view.

I just showed you how it kind of looks like a reverse C from the back.

So I'm going from extension this way, and now I'm getting ready to go into extension this way.

And as my body's, my spine's moving to extension, That gives me a thrust to throw the club and use my whole body to act like a cantilever to throw the ball, throw the club like that.

So this is the first key, is making sure that as you're turning, again, a little bit of movement's perfectly fine, but if you're somebody who's used to staying in flexion, their heads moving all the place you don't hit the ball solid very often get the ball fat a lot or thin a lot start practicing with your shadow with a shaft there to start understanding how your spine has to move in order to stay nice and centered over that ball