Golfers learning the Rotary Swing 1 (RS1) swing will often "over cook" certain aspects of the swing as they try and develop the new sensations of the movement.
One common "miss" occurs when the golfer hits the ball fat — when the ground is struck before the ball. One of the most common causes of hitting it fat is when the arms release too early in the swing and the body stops its rotation through the shot. An AI swing analyzer can instantly identify this early-release pattern in your own swing.
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As you have learned, as soon as the body stops or slows its rotation, the passive arms have the opportunity to "catch up" to the body and release off the chest. If the body has not properly cleared through to give the arms room to swing through, the club will be slung down too steeply toward the ground, producing a fat shot and robbing you of all power and control.
It is critical for the body to keep rotating through while keeping the arms passive to avoid this common miss. It is also very critical that the golfer never try and actively use the arms to generate clubhead speed, as this will cause the arms to release from the body too early in the downswing and result in hitting behind the ball.
Golfers who are very focused on maintaining their spine angle throughout the swing can also have tendencies to hit the ball fat, as they tend to stop rotating the body out of the way or increase the spine angle too much during the downswing.
Even elite players who significantly increase their spine angle on the downswing will, on occasion, hit shots fat at inopportune moments. When the spine angle increases during the downswing, the golfer is forced to decrease it through impact — in essence, somewhat coming out of the shot — or else they would hit the ball fat on every shot.
Keep your spine angle constant and your arms passive to start making solid contact and hitting the ball pure. For a structured practice approach, the GOAT Drill system will train your body to maintain proper rotation and keep your arms passive through impact. You can also use the "Broom Golf Swing Drill" to get a feel for how to properly release the club in the swing.
Video Transcription: Hitting Fat Golf Shots
Another common miss in the Rotary Swing 1 (RS1) is for golfers to hit fat golf shots, or hit the ground before they hit the ball. Of course, they can't make solid contact. They lose all their power, they have no control over the shot at that point.
Body stops & arms release early
In the golf swing it's very important that you make ball-first contact, hitting the golf ball first before you hit the ground so that you can control trajectory, control spin, control the golf shot, compress the ball properly, and all these things.
In the one plane swing, golfers who tend to hit fat golf shots usually will do everything very well with their body. They'll tend to stay down through the shot, their spine angle will stay constant, they won't slide. They'll usually keep everything pretty solid.
What generally happens with the students that I teach who hit it fat is that their arms start to release very early in the downswing because they're trying to hit the ball with power with their arms rather than using their body to keep rotating through the shot. Using an AI swing analyzer can reveal exactly how early your arms are releasing compared to elite-level benchmarks.
What that looks like is this.
Keep the arms passive
Everything in my golf swing was pretty good there, but what happened is I started from the top, kept my spine angle constant, but released my arms very hard. I stopped the body rotation and my arms just kind of died through the shot, producing a fat shot with the divot well behind the ball.
It's very, very important that you continue to rotate through the shot while keeping your arms passive so that they won't come down and release down into the ground — because of course if your body stops rotating and you release your arms, you could hit the ground this far back and completely miss the ball. The GOAT Drill system is specifically designed to groove this lead-side rotation pattern so your body never stalls through impact.
It's important that you rotate all the way through the shot and rotate through into impact. Keep the arms passive and the trail arm following the lead arm through the strike, and it will look like this.
There you go.
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Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
