Q-n-A Webinar 3: May 21
Q-n-A with Craig Morrow, third webinar, May 21st 2025
All right.
Welcome to session or webinar three.
Can everybody hear me? Give me a thumbs up or a hello in the chat.
Yes, yes.
All right.
Okay.
Everybody's popping in right now.
All right.
Howdy, everybody.
I hope everybody's doing well on this lovely Wednesday evening.
It'll be your same humble swing guide, Craig, today.
How are we doing today? Let's see.
All right.
I'm going to start this as the same as I usually do.
I'm going to kind of give a couple minutes to let everybody kind of pile in right here, kind of take a look at the screen.
Say hello to everybody joining me on their evening.
All right.
Hey, Johnny, how are you doing today? Anthony, my fellow RST instructor right there.
Everybody say hello to Anthony.
Miles, Dennis.
All right.
Well, fantastic.
Well, thank you again for stopping by today.
I think we got a few good topics.
I kind of lumped a couple in together.
because there was kind of a little bit of a repetitive theme on some of the topics, so I'm going to kind of lump them in together, but I'm going to make sure that those people that did ask those questions know that's the answer to their question.
And other than that, I hope everybody has some good Memorial Day weekend plans if you live in the States.
Hopefully you get some time off or maybe.
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Out in the sun, I know down here in the south, we're actually going to get a nice little cooling and a little bit of break in humidity.
So we will enjoy that.
Maybe everybody can get out, play some golf, test some of the stuff that I'm talking about right here, we've been talking about.
Everybody should have this mastered by now.
I mean, by session three, everybody should be swinging like the goat.
So hopefully everybody will be enjoying it.
uh come in here because i'm i'm watching my ticker right here and i can still see it kind of popping up right now for those of you that don't know uh other than when i'm locked in you know my office every now and then getting thrown sides of beef as i'm doing swing reviews and stuff when i'm not doing golf stuff uh what do i like to do uh i actually i like to cook and i like to work outside i like doing landscaping i like doing gardening those are the two things if i'm not doing my job that's probably going to be what you find me doing and that's that's kind of where i get my peace and so i was thinking about this the other day i was watching a recipe and it was uh chef marco pierre and i thought that this was a very telling statement to how we build the goat coder to how you build a golf swing in general And I liked what he said is that perfection is the little things done well.
If you can't fry an onion, how are you going to make a sauce? How are you going to make a soup? It's all about these little perfections.
This is how we get there.
The method is where the flavor comes from.
And I thought about that for a second.
And I was like, you know what? That's exactly.
kind of how we build this process with the golf swing with our putting and then our chipping and then our pitching it's all the little things done well that's how we add it up and it's kind of like when you start putting together your favorite recipe i i love that if you can't fry onion how are you going to make a sauce get these little things that we talk about correct i can tell you you will advance much faster than everybody else trying to jump to the end we also had a great comment in the forum board this week that said the exact same thing is that the player was jumping around thinking they could just get it all at once and then when they finally took the step back and they started to work on the chipping and they started to work on getting the grip and feeling the core kind of move how things rapidly started to fall into place because it's all about getting these little things right so not to get philosophical with you on a Wednesday night but that's what us We do.
Chuck and I and other professionals, what we do really well is we eat our vegetables.
Now, I know it doesn't look like I eat vegetables, but when we practice and we're working on our swing, we eat our vegetables.
I can tell you a quick little story right before we get started here.
When I was working on my rotary swing with Chuck a long, long time ago, almost two decades ago now, one of my big problems, I'm a lead side swinger.
and one of my big problems was shifting weight and so i had to really i was out there on the range and the only thing i cared about i didn't care about what my club was doing i didn't care about how far i was hitting the ball i didn't care about my release all i cared about was getting this glute activated getting this weight and i did it over and over and over again that was the only thing i did my whole goal for the day was just to get that And I came back out the next day and did it again and did it again.
But I can tell you what, I haven't thought about my weight transfer in two decades.
I own it now.
I don't have to think about this.
I can remember the next day when I got up in my hotel room, I was like, why is my butt so sore? Because I never used that muscle before.
And I was like, ah, I'm kind of starting to make a change right here.
So as you're going through this, really put some hyper focus on this.
I've had coaches tell me, leave the range.
Stop working on the same thing.
Stop doing that one exact.
I want to get it down.
I want to move on.
I want to enjoy life.
So as you're going through this, don't get lost in the weeds.
Take the little things, the little nooks and crannies of things that we're talking about with getting the setup, or even if it's just getting your grip right or getting your elbow pit out.
If you struggle with kind of getting internally rotated and your elbow stays this way and you're like, then just spend your whole session.
I'm just going to get my goat arm today.
I'm going to make sure that every time this is just automatic because it's these little things is where we find the perfection.
Just my two cents.
I'm a little bit tired today for those that live in the South.
We had some major storms come through last night.
So we had some tornado watches and all sorts of things.
And if you have dogs and that happens, I think maybe I got about 30 minutes of sleep.
Steve, yes, you can rewatch the previous sessions.
All right.
They are all on the site.
And this one will be posted on the site when we finish with it today.
Once we get the replay on.
All right.
And I think Anthony got you right there.
And it's on the main page where you can see most recent videos.
But there's also a section for the webinars in your nav.
Neil, I would like for you to use the impact bag and demonstrate how you get.
from gdp to impact i don't have my impact bag with me but i will put that on the list all right i'll bring it with me next time but with that being said all right y 'all didn't come here to hear me ramble on and talk about life and philosophy even though that's kind of what golf is i mean i really think to this point i don't teach golf anymore I think literally I'm a psychologist.
I think they could give me a degree.
99 % of the problems that I have with my students is all mental.
It's not that they can't do it or anything.
It's literally just getting through to their brain or getting them to get out of their own way.
So I saw one pop up.
All right.
So without further ado, we're just going to keep this list going.
And I'm not picking any particular order.
The way that you guys and gals post it on the site, that's how I have it right here.
I literally, I just copy, paste it and print it out.
You can see my notes right here.
There's no notes.
I'm just literally taking the post.
So there are no particular orders.
So the more that you, the faster you get your question in, the faster you get it answered here.
So I know this first question.
And I'm going to start with this just to reemphasize it because it's going to tie into the follow-up.
The first question that I got to start with or that we left with last time was talk about moving pressure to the lead side on the downswing, not weight.
Now, I know that we talked about that and we discussed a little bit of the difference of pressure and weight last time.
Weight is going to be my mass, okay? Pressure is going to be what I'm getting from the ground.
The difference in pressure and the difference in mass.
But the reason why I think that this topic keeps coming up, if I go to the next page, I'm going to go all the way over here because I circled.
Would you please talk about lateral movement and the downswing and specifically how does it relate to other movements, including weight shift? Can you please go over squish the bug timing and mechanics? Can you please explain how squish the bug and weight shift and pressure work? Are they synonymous? I'm not sure if this is the right place to post between weight shift and pressure.
Maybe you've already covered it.
Okay, so with that being said, since tonight's question list had four things to deal with weight shift and pressure, and in my head, what I'm thinking is that what is confusing everybody with this is squish the bug.
So let's talk a little bit about squish the bug.
So we can go ahead and get that out of the way because I think I've had like eight topics on it.
Now, the only thing I've had is somebody saying, you know, can you explain squish the bug in further detail, lateral motion, weight, just as we talk about right there.
Squish the bug.
Don't overthink this, right? That's the first thing.
Squish the bug is literally just about adding more rotational speed to your swing, all right? When you think of.
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What happens in the downswing? We got a combination of lateral motion, rotational motion, and vertical motion.
Those are the three kind of things that happen in the downswing, all right? And squish the bug is putting the priority on rotational motion, okay? Now, if you've been with rotary for a long, long time, when we talked about the backswing and we talked about rotation, elevation, and flexion, Those things have to happen.
But it was an option of how much you want to put in.
And what I mean by that, if you couldn't rotate, if you had a really bad back and a really bad hip and you truly couldn't get a big rotation, you could take a little bit less elevation, take a little bit less rotation, and you could put more leverage in your swing for power.
If you like the kind of high, wide hands of a Davis Love, you could add a little bit more whip.
but you would have to start to take away a little bit of wrist set.
If you're a little bit more like Sergio, you can't have high arms and hands if you want to have your wrist supremely super loaded because you're just never going to have the time to get that thing to snap down at the ball.
Well, that's the same premise with the squish the bug, okay? The squish the bug is mainly saying that as you start to come down, if you want to add more rotational speed, to your swing from your hips, then all you're trying to do is pivot off that big toe, okay, to try to get the big toe, the knee, the leg, the hip to fire faster to add that speed to the swing, okay? If you move a lot laterally, You cannot add a ton of rotational force.
So if I get up to the top and I take my pressure and move to the lead side, and now that my pressure is starting to move to the lead side and I start to dump all my mass, my weight to the lead side, as I'm moving laterally, I have nothing to really add from this side, nor can I add it because I'm never going to be able to get.
that speed i'm never going to be able to get that snap with my legs so when we think about the squish the bug the sole purpose is if you want to add more rotational speed and it's taking the knee or the big toe the knee the leg and the hip to drive for more speed and that's why when chuck's doing the demonstrations he's like okay hey let's get over here let's really load up get torqued right here and then as you start to come down Squish the bug because that motion is going to be how you add that speed that way.
You can't do that if this lead leg gets heavy.
If you move a ton laterally, it's not going to work.
But we have some players that want to be able to add force.
Some players are big, strong, strong cores, strong glutes, strong legs.
I've got two baseball players in my unlimited group that are really big and strong and fast.
And so this gives the player the ability, if you think like a Min Louie or something like that, or even a little bit of like a Justin Thomas, if you want to add a ton of rotational speed, you can.
But you have to start to take away from other aspects.
That is just one way of doing it.
I want you to think about Tiger's swing.
If you've watched the Squish the Bug video, you can really see it.
If you watch the Squish the Bug video, you'll see a really, really young Tiger.
You'll see him get up here towards the top.
As he starts to come down, you can see him like this.
I don't know if anybody knows, but back in the day when he was in his youth, his swing speed was ridiculous for what it was.
But do you see him doing that today? Now, I know his leg's a little bit banged up, but let's just say even five years ago.
Well, he doesn't go to the top and get like that.
Not as much anymore.
Because that is an option.
If you want to add more rotation, you want to add more force, that is a way to get speed.
Because what happens with that if you're going to use more rotation as your speed? When I get to here and I do that, what's that going to do? My hips pivoting faster is going to do what to my hands? That's going to drive my hands faster down so I can sling it more at the ball.
So I'm using my hip speed to speed up my hands to speed up my snap.
But that's if you want to use rotation as your main driving force.
Now that doesn't mean.
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that we want you, if you're going to use that as kind of one of your big main drivers, to hang back.
Technically, you can hang back and try to bomb it all day long off your back foot if you want, but that doesn't mean that when we get up here and we're working on that drill and then we're pivoting it this way, that doesn't mean I want you to just stay on this leg.
What we're saying, your pressure is still going to start to move, but you can't move a ton laterally because you're never going to be able to pivot with this hip and add that torque from there.
Okay? This has to stay light because this leg has to pivot quick out of the way.
You've got to get that vertical post.
You've got to get that done if you're going to have time to be able to snap the club.
Okay? You don't have to drive that hard.
You don't have to go that crazily with it.
But that is an option if you want to be able to put force.
So hopefully, I don't know, hopefully that kind of clarifies.
the squish the bug aspect that all it is is it's teaching you how to add more hip speed to get your hand speed to increase to snap it down here harder if you want to add more rotational speed to your swing if you're just that animal out there that wants to use a little bit more of you me not really my cup of tea i'm kind of a little bit more laid back you know maybe me I kind of go a little bit more along with kind of the J release, but the J release kind of goes with this too.
And we'll talk about that a little bit further.
But that motion, hopefully it's not about hanging back.
You're still going to move.
It's just about not getting a heavy lead leg so that you can pivot to get these hips faster, to increase the hands, to increase the snap down at the ball if you want to add that speed.
All right.
So hopefully that clarifies and kind of.
straightens everybody out on that topic.
And you can watch and you can see players that add a ton of it, that don't add a ton of it.
There's things in the golf swing.
There's some players that have a lot more lateral motion because they just, I mean, I don't want you to start swinging like Rocco Mediate.
But you can see Rocco working.
He does the Jimmy Ballard where he's got a whole lot of lateral motion.
That's one way to swing the club.
But you can see he doesn't hit it very far because a whole lot of that excessive lateral motion isn't going to be that powerful.
If you're getting speed from your wrist, you're getting a little speed from that rotation and that vertical force, that's going to be a little bit better combo than all this lateral motion.
So hopefully that helps answer that question.
Two, will jumbo grips affect my speed specifically with driver? Now as just food for thought with it, I would never advise anybody to get jumbo grips unless they had some arthritic problems.
Like if you have massive arthritis in your hands and it's like, look, Craig, I can't get any, I need something a little bit bigger.
You know, I've got a, this isn't even my putter right here with the super stroke.
I don't, I don't even know how that got in there.
But if you, if you need that, because that's the only way you can grip the club, that's the only way you can get enough pressure because you've got a lot of arthritis.
I'm not going to yell at you at all about that.
Me personally.
I'm never going to recommend a jumbo grip.
What are the couple downfalls of having big grips? Okay, well, let's think of the couple downfalls.
Well, the first thing is going to be, to me, feedback.
All right, the thicker the grip, the bigger the pad, the bigger everything that's going on right here, the less feedback you're getting in your hands.
And I'm a big feedback guy.
Going back kind of like to my cooking analogy, I hold my hand here.
This is kind of how I gauge.
like the temperature i don't know this is how i go oh five seconds oh eight seconds like this is where i need to put my meat to kind of let it get up to 10.
so i'm a big feedback guy i want to be able to feel that kind of pivot off my middle finger if i'm working on goat but i want to be able to have kind of ultimate control and so the bigger the grip gets the more it numbs your sensation okay because as you start to grip it kind of tighter especially like with one of those they're kind of foamy You just don't get as much feedback from it.
I always want to know where my club face is.
I always want to know having control of that club face.
It's how I get away with a lot of golf is because I always know like where my face is open, whether it's closed.
I know like, oh, I got to hang on to it or I've got to get that toe rotating over.
It's hanging back open.
But I can't get that with a larger grip.
Now, secondly, when you think of the larger grip, what is that going to start to delete? The bigger the grip gets, the less my wrists work, right? It's kind of part of the reason for that grip.
It's not only just for players that yip, but the bigger the grip, it starts to lessen wrist, so it kind of takes the hands out of the equation.
Going back to my previous point, I don't want to take my hands out.
What is the only thing touching this golf club? My hands.
It's the only thing.
My feet are touching the ground.
I've got feedback on what's going on with earth.
But this is the only thing touching the club.
And I want to know what this club is doing at all point in time.
All right.
If you can attain great clubface awareness, hence why in chipping and pitching and the starting line drill and everything, if you can attain great clubface awareness, boy, you're going to be so far ahead of the curve.
Because that's kind of what it's all about.
If I know what that club is doing and where it is.
So the bigger the grip, it starts to delete the wrist.
So I don't get a whole lot of speed from trying to use my wrist, which my wrist are going to be two -thirds of my club head speed.
Two -thirds.
Comes solely just from your wrist.
That isn't just something that we made up.
Been around for a while.
Two thirds of your speed is solely coming from your wrist.
So the more I start to delete wrist, the more I'm going to have to do what to get that ball out there.
The more I'm going to have to motor myself.
I don't want to motor myself.
I want my swing to be easy, laid back.
Like, hey, Craig, how'd you hit that so far without doing anything? I don't know.
RST.
So it used to drive one of my roommates nuts.
My roommate was 6 '3".
back in my playing days he's like craig i don't understand why you hit your irons two irons further than me and you know i'm five nine and back then i was a lot skinnier he's like i don't understand and you look like you're not even swinging and that's for the same premise is because i'm not trying to do it with my brute force i'm doing it with my wrist and so the bigger the grip you delete the feedback you delete a little bit of wrist so i would only do that if you need to Number three, I'm pretty diligent about warming up before a round.
I start with small sand wedges and work my way through the irons, onto the woods, and then to pitching and finish off with putting.
Thinking about GOAT code program, would it make more sense to reverse that sequence and start with putter and then work through chipping, pitching, and then all the way to the driver? I could see the.
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advantage in reinforcing the focus on the trail hand particularly putting and chipping warm-ups i think it's a fantastic idea now if you're five minutes you know if your tee time's in five minutes you just pulled into the golf course that's one thing but i think that's a fantastic idea It kind of goes back to my little cooking analogy earlier.
If you start, even if you just go over to the putting room for like five minutes, you're like, all right, I'm just going to, I'm just going to awaken this up.
I'm going to get this feel.
I'm going to get my core going, kind of get a little bit of connection.
And I'm going to start kind of doing some chicken and kind of work for my bag.
What I like to do is I actually like to kind of start with that and then finish with it.
I don't need to do like my whole putting routine and all that.
I just do that to kind of get things going.
I mean, think about how most people warm up.
They step up to the driving range.
Hopefully they don't pull out driver, but they step up to the driving range.
And what's the first thing you usually do? You grab your lob wedge or you grab your sand wedge and you just make these little guys just, just start chipping them out there.
All right.
It's the same thing.
You're just taking it a step further back and really starting to get kind of this finite awareness.
You don't need to go through your whole routine, but I think that's a great way.
start back with this, kind of get it going a little bit, then do the chipping, work your way up to the driver, and then maybe stop at the putting green and put in a couple reps before you go to the first tee.
Some players, you know, playing professionals, they're like, oh, they want to hit their, they want to hit the last shot on the driving range as being their first shot.
on the first tee so they have that mental image in their head and they have that big feel others are like i want to go you know i want five minutes to putt because i want to make 10 five footers in a row to give myself confidence everybody's got their own little you know idiosyncrasies but i think that's a great way to kind of work through it just to kind of get things going so good question during the takeaway is the trail hand on top of the club no Please provide detail on how the trail hand moves the club from the end of the takeaway to the top.
So I know we covered a little bit of that last time, so I'll just do this very quickly.
The trail hand is not on top of the club, okay? So as I'm going back in my takeaway right here, and I start to get my core going, and I start to get my weight and all that fun stuff, and I'm in this position, my club face is matching a little bit more of my spine angle.
but my trail hand is not on top of the club.
If my trail hand were to be on top of the club, what would be the two main things that would happen? Well, number one, if I started to go back and my trail hand was on top of the club, it would be overly shut compared to my spine.
Now, what's going to typically be the tendency from here? I'd answer this question today on YouTube.
Is that if I get to this position and my trail hand's too much on top of the club in a full swing, I'm going to start to excessively hinge with my trail wrist.
And I'm more than likely going to start getting across the line.
Now, that is kind of a little bit of a cheat to get up there.
If you're a big laid off person, you start adding a lot of hinge and go up.
You can get that club going that way.
But the trail hand isn't on top of the club.
So I moved it here.
My club face is matching the spine.
Not on top.
Okay.
This one.
I'm a little bit confused about when I wrote my numbers.
So you'll kind of see, I don't know if you can see it on camera, but you can see like, I just write the numbers so I don't lose my place, like two, three, four, five.
And so when I wrote five on this, I don't have a proper feel or proper understanding of my rotation, clubhead path, and wrist action hands at the top position.
My confusion began with the chipping and short pitch videos.
Understanding that the club head needs to be outside the hands, okay? Watching the goat code videos, I see the club come under the shaft plane initially at 7 o 'clock, but then elevate to above the plane at the 9 o 'clock position where the club is indeed outside.
The wrist movement to obtain is not translating to an intuitive position at the top to start the transition from.
So I hope you can smarten me up on this.
Well, it kind of depends on where you're going with this question.
Because see, this is a little bit loaded because when you think of how your wrists are going to actually work in a, we'll just use pitch in a full swing.
As I'm working in a pitch, I don't want all that extra wrist action in a full swing because in a full swing, if you do a little bit more of a j release i want a little bit more width and my wrists are going to set a little bit later i don't want all this kind of early motion but as i'm setting up here to make a pitching motion i've got this motion where i'm going to have my hinge but i've got to get this club to set up because what happens during the pitch as i start to get my core back and i start to rotate my trail wrist is going to start to hinge a little bit back on itself but i'm still going to have to have a little bit of that vertical cocking to get that club up and i'm not going to really kind of preset that much in the golf swing all right now you're if i'm reading correctly you're saying that it's going under how does it get up well the wrist motion creates some vertical motion but there's still a tiny bit of elevation in it there's not a whole bunch of what's going on with the arms but there's still a tiny bit of elevation in this as i'm rotating if i just rotated super flat this is where the club would go.
Like if I just stood here, I've got my shoulder playing, and all of a sudden I just rotate flat, where's the club going? So as my lead shoulder's going down and my arms and hands are going back behind me, this downward motion creating my plane is forcing now my arms and club to work up this way.
I'm going down to get it to go up, just like a golf swing.
You hit down on it, all right? Get the ball to go up.
As I'm going this way, this going up is a blend of my trail wrist going back and vertical set.
And as I'm doing this, my arms, as I'm rotating with my shoulder going down, my arms and everything, it works up.
So going down is getting this to work up.
You don't have to try to sit here and add like a lot of elevation to get these up.
But as I start to push down, the natural thing is to get the club.
to work up and because i'm hinging back the club's staying a little bit square or pointed out the golf ball because my club is being a little bit set by my lead hand right here vertically like this that's what keeps the club out in front of me so don't kind of conflate the motion of the pitch which exactly with exactly what you want to do in the full swing all right not sure if that answers it but i think that's what you're going for number six Craig, need to understand the release better.
I hear you say that you snap the wrist, and I understand this happens automatically as you keep the right wrist and supination.
Well, the right wrist is going to supinate, deviate, rotate.
Just how far do you keep the trail wrist and supination? Can you show this? Is it like driving the butt of the club down the line, leading.
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With your trail little finger curled as possible, and then it automatically snaps.
Which drill should I focus on to get this to happen, or do I have this all wrong? Well, it still comes back to the same thing where a lot of things kind of happen naturally.
I don't want you to try to.
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How do I say this? When you think of your supination, all right? You're not going to get all the way like this.
Now, you may feel like you're going to get like this, but at some point in time, as you're starting to come down, the supination is going to start turning into deviation and then turning to rotation because the clubface has to square.
So just how far do you keep it in supination? Well, as I'm working from here and I start to make my pivot around and I start to supinate, I'm going to be supinating all the way into this kind of GDP position.
I'm still going to be in some supination as I'm getting into the deviation.
And then I have just this little motion right here as I'm starting to release it.
Because I'm not trying to make the club go like this.
And I think that's the big thing.
I'm just feeling I'm staying in supination deviation and then I let it snap.
So let's talk about the snapping.
Let's kind of work backwards in this question.
Because as I'm up here talking, I'm like, maybe it'll make a little more sense this way.
If I grip the club like this and I kind of just choke down.
to the grip edge right here, and I'll let the button in the club right here kind of be on my forearm right here.
When I start to just let my wrist move back and forth or just go into extension and go into flexion, that would be a very powerful motion.
So that would be a very powerful motion to make.
And then all I'm trying to do is once I have this feeling of, you know, I kind of call it kind of like the little swat right here.
Once I have this feeling, all I'm trying to do is let my button in the club miss my forearm as you can see i'm going from this little bit of supination into the deviation into the rotation and letting it snap so my feeling is like this and then now i'm just letting it miss and you can see how fast that is i mean i can literally sit here and have a conversation i'm just letting it pivot right around that middle finger And that's what's creating the snap is the fact that I'm feeling this and then letting it snap.
So as I'm starting to work down from supination, pivoting around, I'm still in supination right now, still in supination.
And right at the end, as I start to do this, this deviation and rotation happen insanely fast.
So it's going to be kind of hard to say, well, how long should I maintain on it? Well, you're maintaining it kind of all the way down here into GDP and then you're letting it snap.
If you don't want to stay just in supination, because look at my face right now.
At some point in time, something's got to give.
All right.
So if you're trying to figure out how to kind of not think about this, I would go this way.
And then I'd get the feel of letting it snap.
Because I'm keeping that same feeling, but with this button not hitting me.
And as I start to work through this.
You can see how that's just whipping down there.
Not really a whole lot going on right here.
There's not a whole lot of muscular effort right here, but this club is really snapping that position.
So the supination, I'm supinating, supinating, supinating, supinating, getting into deviation, and then right here at the end, snap.
All right? You don't need to manually muscle it.
over to get it to snap.
That's kind of the opposite.
The snapping is the opposite direction.
And it will feel, just to answer your other question, it will feel more like it's going down the line.
Now that doesn't mean that it does, but the feeling, because you're not trying to get this to go big left, it's going to feel just as I was showing you right here.
Like it's going down the line and then it snaps.
Okay.
All right.
So seven was lumped in with the weight shift, so let's go to eight.
Please cover your thoughts on the terminology of throwing from the top and how it relates to pulling from the lead side in the downswing.
Is there any pull to the lead side in the throwing motion, or is that only for a lead side dominant swing? Well, both sides have a job to do, but only one ring can rule them all, so to speak.
All right.
As you start to come down, let's just take the throwing one first.
Okay.
So the throwing terminology is I'm literally taking the arm and hand and club.
All right.
and throwing it into impact.
And that throw starts from here, okay? It doesn't start from down here.
It doesn't start from right here.
This throw starts from the top, okay? So as I'm starting to throw it, I'm not casting.
That's a cast, okay? I know I have to keep telling people this, but that's a cast.
I'm throwing, so I'm getting.
.
.
into the supination deviation and snap so the throwing motion is moving through those supination deviation points now the pull side of this even in a lead side dominant swing yours truly i don't get up to the top and pull my lead arm down okay i don't do that if i got up to the top and I pulled my lead arm down, my club would never release.
All right? Think about it.
If I'm just pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling, what's the club staying right here? I'm just pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling and pulling.
The club is never going to rotate right now.
All right? So in a lead side dominant, am I using my lead side muscles and my lead leg and all that? Yes.
A trail side dominant swing.
Is my lead leg working? Is my core, my abdominals, even some lead side? Absolutely.
But in the lead side, as I get to here, what I'm trying to feel is how my lead arm starts to go down the chest and my lats right here are going to be very responsible for pulling my arm and hand and club into position.
And then as I get to this position, I need this to snap.
So what I have to do is I have to add a lot more rotation from my hip to get this to snap over because I got to decel.
I got to do something.
I got to get some power from here.
But I've also got to get this to decill the snap.
So technically, I'm not really pulling that hard in a lead side swing.
Well, on the trail side, as I'm throwing from the top, I'm still moving to my lead side.
My lead hip is still posting right here.
All I'm focusing on is getting that snap of the club down at the ball.
Okay, so.
.
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I know everybody's trying to like draw this line in the sand.
Okay, lead sides only pull, trail sides only push.
Has anybody ever heard me say start pushing the club? As in like get up here to the top and start pushing? If I get up here to the top and I start pushing with my shoulder or pushing with my arm or pushing with my hand, I don't care what swing theory you're working.
It's not going to work.
All right.
The difference in terminology or the difference in motions is both sides are still doing something.
In a lead side swing, I'm kind of a little bit more laid back.
I'm going to use a little bit more of this leverage for my wrist, a little bit more of the rotation for my hip to help kind of power this.
It's just kind of the more like if you want to just kind of be really lazy with the swing right here, you don't want to do anything.
It's just not going to be the most powerful compared to a trail side.
Now you can still hit the ball.
But in the trail side, I'm going to be just a little bit more active.
I'm going to be a little bit more active throwing and letting my body kind of respond to the fact that I'm being active with my throw.
Lead side, I'm just kind of over here chilling out.
Like, well, let this club rotate.
Okay, maybe I'll just add some hip to it to speed it up.
Trail side, I'm getting here and I'm trying to throw this club.
I'm actively trying to do that.
and i'm letting my body respond i use this terminology almost daily of the skipping the stone almost daily is that if i had a stone in my hand and i was going to skip it five times all right here we go five skips all right five skips i'm snapping my wrist skipping it five times now what happens if i want to skip it 20 times Do I get here? Then all of a sudden, no, I don't do that.
I snap my wrist harder.
This, my body reacts a lot firmer with the post, but all of a sudden, I didn't race my hips open.
I didn't rotate like a banshee.
All right, I let my body kind of react to my throat.
The harder I want to throw it, I'm letting my body react to the fact that it's got to move through its progressions a little bit faster.
It's got to post up.
And if you see my foot dragging right there, does that look a little bit familiar? I'm not doing that, by the way.
I'm not that talented.
You see that? We talk about the counter torque.
Maybe some guy that won a tournament the other day.
I don't watch golf, but I heard this guy won a tournament that kind of has a little bit of right footwork that's a little similar to that.
So the throw is active.
Lead side, they're just kind of chilling out to each their own.
It doesn't really matter.
Let's see.
Here we go.
Perfect.
Next question.
Please demonstrate the J release of the hands and wrists and how to set them during the takeaway or backswing properly to release them through the downswing.
Also, how does the conveyor belt move playing into the J release? How does it not move into that? So all these things are kind of one of the same, just the way that you look at it.
So a perfect segue into this question.
So demonstrate the J release with the hands and wrists and how to set them during the takeaway.
Well, remember, as I'm trying to make a full swing and I get into my goat grip and goat position and all that, my wrist.
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If you think of our hack motion videos and what I talked about, I think it was in the first session, the wrists aren't really doing a whole lot here.
And as I'm going back, my trail wrist really isn't doing a whole lot.
Then it's going to work into a little bit of extension and then start to set.
Okay.
And let me kind of go from this view.
So I'm rotating, I'm moving laterally, rotating my core, not doing a whole bunch.
And then it's going to start to move in a little to extension and then start to rotate and set up.
Now, the easiest way to kind of think about this is if you just kind of let yourself kind of helicopter it across the line, which is just an excessive version of it.
You don't need that much risk and just kind of let yourself come back.
Now, you'll see that when I do that, I create that same kind of J.
If I'm going from here and not doing anything, I kind of just let it kind of cross the line like that.
You can see I'm just that's just too much to a bigger degree of what we need.
Okay.
I'll make sure.
All right.
Too much to a bigger degree of what we need.
But as I'm starting to go back in a J release, my trail wrist isn't really doing a whole lot.
I'm working up here towards the top.
It starts to work back into a little bit of extension and then it starts to set up.
And as long as I'm moving me, okay, as long as I'm rotating with my core and loading this way, as I go that way, I'm going to be set right on playing.
Most players are afraid like, oh, I'm going to end up like Freddy Couples and all that.
Well, not really the worst thing in the world.
But if you end up like Freddy Couples, then what do you have to do? You got to wait on that puppy.
All right.
This kind of keeps everything in sync.
So going back to this, how does the conveyor belt work, move and play into the J release? well what is the conveyor belt that's that's the the chainsaw demonstration right so chuck has the little flags and the chainsaw whip whip that's this motion right here whip whip well all this is right here is just the undoing of my j release as i go to here all this is is just the undoing of that motion That's why I think it's really easy if you just stand right here and you just start doing this.
That's the easiest way to get the feel for it.
You don't need to add any body.
You don't need to add anything to it.
And what Chuck starts to talk about with this J release is how if you understand with two -thirds of the club head speed coming from the wrist and stuff, that you start to let your body react.
All right? Now here.
is where everybody starts yelling at me.
Craig, I'm supposed to squish the bug.
So wait a minute.
You're telling me that I'm supposed to let the club get up here, wind, and let the body react to me releasing the club.
No, no, wait.
I got to get back here and hang back on this side and I got to squish the bug as I'm doing.
Remember what I talked about, how there's a little bit of give and take in these things.
It's an option slash combo of how much you add.
I kind of like the lazy swing, all right? I want it to look like I'm doing nothing.
So if two-thirds of my club head speed is coming from my wrist, I can make my backswing right here, make my little J -release motion, and actively throw the club at the ball and just kind of let my body react, and I can sit here and hit it for days, all right? If you think of the GOAT release where Chuck's got, you know, that, I don't know if it's a 7-iron or 6 -iron, he's just sitting there hitting balls just over and over again, all right? All that is is just letting the body react to that.
And some players, as they make this J release, what happens? My hip's going to move laterally.
I'm going to start to move into side bend.
And I'm going to snap my wrist down here.
That's all that you really need.
The problem is, okay, if I'm going to do it like that, okay, that's where I'm making my swing from.
That's where I'm getting my effortless power from and letting my body kind of react.
Go back to like Tiger early, early 2000s.
If I want to add more rotational speed to it, I can.
But you're going to be putting a lot more effort into it.
Okay.
It's an option whether you want to be driving this hard and snapping this because you can work on that.
You can get here and take the J release and get the feel for this.
And then you can start.
to be like all right i'm going to kind of squish the bug with it a little bit more now what happens is i start to squish the bug a little bit more of kind of what you've heard i can throw it as hard as i can from the top and i never have to worry about flipping down here scooping or adding loft or anything like that because if i start to add a little bit of my squish the bug with this and i'm letting it go with that j release i can add a ton of power problem is i don't need that But if you want to kind of be all you can be, yeah, you can add a little bit more of that rotational speed to that.
But there's give and take to everything in life.
If you want that kind of chilled out, I'm just going to kind of take this swing, let it wind up with a J and snap, kind of let my body react.
You're going to hit it great.
You're going to hit it far.
All right.
You can start to add a little bit more pivot to that to speed up the hand motion, to speed it up.
But like I said, you've got your rotational movement or you've got your lateral movement, your rotational movement, your vertical movement.
You've got to put those together kind of as the combo is what you want.
If you want to add more body, you can add more body, but you're going to have to throw harder because these have to go with this motion.
So hopefully that answers that.
Maybe not.
Well, let's do it this way.
What time is it? Okay, let's do it this way.
I'm going to go off script right now for the people that are in the room, okay? Not that I don't like talking about JRelease or Squish the Bug, but I get it 1 ,700 times a day.
Are there any more questions on JRelease or Squish the Bug while I'm right here? Let's go ahead because I've got it down on my list a million times, so I wouldn't normally do this.
Normally, I would stay to the script.
But are there any more questions? If you have them, put them up there.
I'm going to go ahead and get rid of this one while I'm here.
All right? Because the next question is going to start talking about some things that need more conversation than 10 minutes.
Right hip spin out versus using more hip.
Not quite sure what you mean by that.
You're not trying to spin out.
You're pivoting off this side.
So you're not going to get here and then just spin out of the shot.
You're using the trail leg, trail hip, and trail foot to drive this hip more out of the way right here on that pivot.
So it's not really a spin out.
David, which is better? I can't tell you.
What do you like? Are you a player that wants to add a ton more of your muscle into the swing? Are you a big guy with a really good back and all the above and you want to? Well, you can.
Or you can take the kind of chuck swing, which you see all the time, where it's just like, okay, I'm going to get this core and wound up torque, and I'm just going to throw and make my J release and then let my body kind of react just as you saw me skipping the stone.
If you want to add more rotational speed, you can.
It is a very powerful motion.
Hence, look at baseball.
You're going to see baseball players do that.
Hence, go back or look at Tiger back in the day.
I mean, even Jake Knapp, you can see it.
But you can see that Jake, players, the more lateral you move, the less you can squish the buck.
So if you watch, if you go back to that video, you'll watch.
I forgot who it was.
I can picture him in the white shirt and pink pants right now.
It's so long ago.
But you can see, or even like a mid-loop, the less lateral I move, the more I can pivot with this, if you like that feeling.
But the more lateral I get back, the less I can add from this.
Okay.
Is the J created with rotating the wrist or cocking the wrist? Both.
So the J is created from the fact that you're hinging back.
All right.
And as you hinge back, you start to rotate.
Well, that's going to start to create just a little bit of vertical set right here.
Do we activate our downswing by undoing the J release quickly at the top? Or do our hands start to drop first before we undo the J? If you get up to the top.
and you let your hands drop and you haven't done anything, well, first, the majority of the hand speed is going to be up here.
I need the hands to get going so that that club can accelerate down here.
If my hands are still accelerating, so if I get up here and I just wait on it, wait on it, wait on it, okay, now try to J -release.
That's going to be slow.
That club's not going to release until way out here.
So as soon as I start to move back, this has to be coming down.
Just like the skipping of the stone.
If I was going to skip the stone, I'm moving into this position.
This has to be active.
I can't just sit here, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Okay, now do it.
It's never going to release in time.
It's going to slow you up.
Okay, everybody's coming in here now.
Does the arm have to stay in front if I use more hips? 100%.
Arms got to stay in front, period.
If I use a ton of hips, I don't want to get here and then have my hips back here and my arm back this way, all right? So the arm in the golf swing, because you got two of them right here, as I'm making that pivot, what's my elbow, arm, and hand doing? I'm really getting that side bend so I get into this position.
I don't want to drive my hips hard and have my arm be trapped behind me.
So yeah, the arms are staying in front.
You're still making this same motion.
You're still making the sideman motion right here.
The J part, i .
e.
lay down of the shaft, I lose control of the face.
Is that just getting used to it? Well, one, I would check your grip.
Make sure you have enough pressure in there.
Two, as this starts to lay down, I start to supinate and I start to get into the throw.
If you're losing the control of the face, and this starts to get this way, what you're more than likely doing is you're just doing it with your arm and hand.
And you're trying to guide this to supination and then throw it from here.
Remember, as I start to do this, I've got to let my body react.
Supination alone is pointless.
Do you contract the right ribs as per the goat drill just before you squish the bug? Well, on both versions, as I go from here, I'm crunching.
When I start to move into GDP, even if I'm throwing this, I'm still crunching right here.
I'm going from this elongated position to the crunch.
So my core is still involved.
When I recently started focusing.
.
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On emphasizing the J release, the ball started heading left, then drawing more.
I wonder if this is a common occurrence.
What should I do to straighten it out? Well, John, the same thing that I just talked about.
The first thing I would do is I would work on doing that release, how I talked about earlier with this, and starting to let it snap.
And then the second thing is, you might be sitting back here throwing, actually staying back here, versus letting yourself move back a little bit laterally right here.
I'm still keeping my head behind the ball as I'm increasing tilt, still helping out with my hands, but you may not be pivoting to move this point up before it's releasing earlier.
You still have to let your body move, and that still goes back into squish the bug or core drills and all that.
You can't just solely do it with your arm.
The body has to react to this motion.
You still are going to have to pivot right here and pose to get this to snap.
I think everyone needs to be reminded that this move is from the top and is not led by the arms, but from the core and legs.
Well, exactly, Ron.
Even when I'm doing this, as I'm going from here, my core is winding up, and I'm getting into this position.
Think about if I was going to throw.
What's going to be the first thing I'm going to do? I'm not just going to stay back here and go like that.
The first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to be here.
My core, my side bend, is crunching as this motion is happening.
Everybody's going together like this.
As I start to supinate and I start to throw hard from the top, my core, you can see where my belly button's pointing right now.
As I start to do that, I'm moving to side bend.
My body's leading it before I throw it.
If I wasn't doing that, that would just solely be me using my arm.
Craig, is the right hip load similar or the same as the Pete Cowan spiral concept? Can't tell you, Charles.
my apologies i can tell you how we do it and by the way mountain dew uh unofficial sponsor i'm not so i can't tell you that one sure but the right hip load i love the kind of preset to get this feeling where you kind of get this start right here and then you get the whoosh of the core connecting up here towards the top and you can really see how i get this kind of internal femur rotation right here That's why I have this bend right here.
I get this or this crease of my pants to get this internal femur rotation.
I can feel my glute.
I can really feel my obliques kind of stretching this back.
I don't want to get here and get this.
That's not loading.
To me, it feels like my knee is still going this way towards the target as I get internal femur rotation.
Now I can really feel that.
And now I've got a spring I can really use right here.
Can we please talk about the right? shoulder, arms, and hands to work down correctly from the top.
I think this addresses the J-release.
I feel this is a big issue.
What's the question, Steve? As I'm going from here, my hand starts to make my J-release motion, my trail shoulder starts to, so I'm going from here, my trail shoulder starts to depress that shoulder blade glide.
This starts to drop as my trail shoulder works down.
My trail arm and hand and elbow are working into a little bit more of external rotation right here as I'm starting to supinate, not spinning my shoulders, not pushing with them.
This is dropping as I'm moving back to move me into GDP, which is the same feeling of this combined with the underhanded softball or the sidearm pitch.
You don't really, and I think maybe that's the way I'm going to phrase it, you don't throw your arm from the top.
Get the arm out of the equation, all right? As Chuck always says, what are the arms? The spokes on the wheel, all right? Here's the hub of the wheel.
These are the spokes, all right? These are the important guys.
You're not trying to power or motor or throw your arm in all this.
Your arm is connected to your hub.
As your wrist and your body and spine are moving into side bend, all right? I'm not trying to do it with my arm, okay? Throw it, let the body rack work for me in the practice swing, but put a ball down.
I lose hip rotation.
Just get arm swing.
Is that the ball position or do I just another one of your psych sessions? Probably a psych session, but here's the thing, all right? Why do we have the program built the way it is? I can tell you, there was another discussion on the community this week where a student really loves, as soon as he started understanding the J release and the kind of swatting and all that, everything came into picture.
But like with Gerald right here, as he starts doing that, his body's not reacting when he gets in front of a golf ball.
Something's going on.
Something's not firing.
That's why we start with the chipping, the pitching, the wedge play, and all that, to start to get the feel of how all this moves.
Because some players are going to get that, oh, no, there's a golf ball there.
And everything kind of all bets are out the window.
But that's why, rounding off tonight's session back to my cooking finale, we do the little things.
So by the time you get the little things there, they're not so big for you.
I would recommend Joe to a lot of right arm only hitting balls.
All right, so we've got three more questions.
I'm going to answer those, and then I'm going to get out of here.
It's time for a single mold.
Actually, I'm probably going to do reviews.
David, GDP, how much extension should be in the right wrist at GDP? Well, if I'm moving from here and you think about.
.
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The J release right here as I'm moving from here to here, all right? I'm moving to this position into GDP.
I'm not maxed out, which would be there, but I'm pretty full.
I'm not maxed, all right? Like I'm not like Dustin Johnson holding back a tray maxed out hinge, all right? Because my J release is just doing a little bit.
All right.
It's a little bit of both.
A little bit of the hinge, a little bit of that.
And as I start to come down, I work into here.
I've got a fair amount of extension right here in my ribs.
But I'm not so much where I'm like this.
Like where my club face is facing the ground.
From down the line to the hands moving straight down the path.
That's the feel, David.
The feel is that as you're going this way, the feel is that.
.
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you're throwing it straight down the path because more often than not, players hear swing left, go left, all that.
So they swing left this way, and that's going to get you to start to push and rotate your body too much, which is going to go against the J release.
So the feel as I'm starting to go from here and let this snap is that I'm throwing it down the line.
Does the J combined with side bend feel like the trail arm is going diagonal to the golf ball or to the ball? Does it feel like it's going diagonal? Feels a little relative, Dennis.
But as I'm making this, I could see how you would get that.
I'm going to be honest with you.
To me, it doesn't feel that diagonal because my arms feel like they just go up and down.
Like as I'm doing this, like I literally just feel like my arm's working down.
Like because my body is doing everything, so I don't really feel like I'm aiming my arms.
But some players, if they're so used to having internal rotation in the downswing that now they're getting external and they're getting to this position, it's probably going to feel like their arms like leading like this to the golf ball like crazy.
All right.
That's more than likely going to happen because you're so used to powering it this way.
But for me.
I mean, if you take a look at the top of my backswing, I've been there for 20 years.
So to me, it literally just feels like it's going down.
All right.
Should I think about right hip pivot or left hip back and high? Well, they both are going to do it, Alexander.
As I start to pivot with this, what's my left hip going to do? So as I start to pivot with my trail hip, my left hip is going to react this way.
Question answered by your demonstration.
All right.
Thank you, Charles.
All right, Steve.
Thank you very much.
Okay.
Chuck did an Instagram short mastering the 45 degree angle.
Okay.
All right.
Well, no more questions on it.
Fantastic.
That means that we can put squish the bug and Jay released the bed, right? Now, I know that's not going to be the case.
I guarantee you tomorrow I'm going to have three more questions on it.
And that's okay.
We're doing this for two months, people.
If I didn't answer something, let me know.
It's okay.
Now, if you're still confused, take a live lesson, right? Get in my unlimited group.
Do something.
I'll help you out with it, all right? It's on the screen right now if you want to join in.
Half off for these guys and gals in this group right now, all right? If you want to get yelled at, I'll yell at you.
But.
.
.
If you have more questions and it didn't do it, put it up there.
I'll still answer it, but I hope that starts to help people kind of see the forest of the trees with what's going on with that.
Richard, thank you.
Charles, thank you.
Ron, thanks, Chuck.
Craig, Chuck, same thing.
Start with C.
Let's see.
Steve, thank you.
I appreciate that.
David, how do you sign up? It's on the screen right now for Half Off URG.
Bob, I appreciate it.
Michael, thank you.
Thank you.
Best session yet.
Wow.
Appreciate that one.
No problem, Ron.
Thanks, Chuck.
Pour yourself a Balvini.
I'm still Craig.
Dennis, you're in my unlimited group.
You should know what my name is.
A Balvini would be very nice, though.
Mitchell, thank you.
Thank you.
Paul, Scott, appreciated.
Bob, thanks, Craig.
Jumped in halfway through.
Well, Bob, you got a lot of catching up on.
But it'll be there on replay.
David, great stuff.
Thank you.
Thank you.
All right.
Well, I'm going to leave this be.
I know that one of our RST instructors was in the service.
And, Anthony, I want to thank you for your service.
If anybody wants to give a shout-out to them, we're coming up on Memorial Day weekend, especially if you live in the States.
It's a privilege to be here.
So, Anthony, thank you for that.
Thank a veteran.
It's something that's kind of near and dear to my heart.
Enjoy your holiday.
Work on some golf swings.
See you next Wednesday.
Jim
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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