Golf Lesson – How To Swing Your Driver Over 100 mph (2022)
You learn different when you’re seeing somebody make the same mistake you do.
Right.
Versus me demonstrating it. Let me just watch you hit a couple and we’re going to video them.
I’ll just hit them. I won’t try to think of anything.
Yeah.
Perfect. Pretty representative. I’m sure my ass came forward on that one.
Yeah. I saw what’s going on.
My cheeks are sore because I’ll show you a demo when we get down of how I’m going up and down 100 flight of stairs a day.
All right. Let’s take a quick gander at these.
My head moved.
The head movement is not bad. Just a little bit. The big thing, like you said, is your hip movement.
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
From there we’ve got a lot of movement that we’ve got to unwind pretty quick and you don’t have time to do it. What I look at here during the transition is a ratio of movement of your legs versus your hands.
In other words, how much do your hips shift and rotate versus how far your hands travel? What you’ll notice is that your hand has moved already a foot. Your hips have barely moved at all. You see that?
Yeah. That’s tell tale, isn’t it?
Yeah. Exactly. At this point, it’s obvious that the arms and hands are doing all the work, which is why you say you’re hanging back, which is totally normal. You’ve got a great lag. No dynamicism in your swing. Your lower body is 85% of the issue here. This is where all your club head speed is going wrong. The lower body just can’t do anything to help out. It’s just there.
What I want to do is I want to wake up your trunk. Two things that happen in a swing. You can either use your lower body to start moving the club down or you can use your upper body. It’s one of the other two is going to happen. It’s always the same, right?
When you make a big hip turn, as you know, and let’s just say that it’s 65 degrees in rotation. I’d say it’s 20 or 30 more than we need. Well, that hip rotation then needs to wind 20 degrees but in a quarter of a second. There’s just physically not enough time, right?
The less we move our hips within reason the easier it is to get into a proper impact position and sequence for the down swing. The more we move, the more we’ve got to try and unwind. To make things simple, the hip movement, what you really need to think about is loading your right hip, your right glute.
That’s the most important thing that you’re going to feel today is instead of turning … What you do when you turn is the muscles you need to load for power you actually do the exact opposite. They have to link then in order to rotate. You’re going to learn to feel the exact opposite of what you’re used to.
You’re going to feel a lot of tension in this right glute because we’re going to overdo it a little bit and exaggerate it. You feel like, “Man, I can actually use my legs.” Right now your swing is pretty. You’ve got a pretty golf swing but pretty doesn’t produce power.
Right.
You’ve got a classic looking swing with the big hip turn with no muscle fiber recruitment. At the end of the day, nothing matters more than the muscle fibers that you recruit and the sequence that you unload them in.
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
You need to recruit about 32 pounds of muscle. You don’t have it in your arms and shoulders but if you use your back, legs, and trunk you’ve got all the muscle power you need.
First things first is we have to fix what’s happening going back. Once you feel this load in your glute and more muscle recruitment in your core … Because you have none right now. Your obliques aren’t doing anything, your trunk isn’t doing anything because you’re moving them so much together. You don’t get any separation.
You’re going to feel that that load is what’s going to make it easier for you to make a proper down swing but it’s going to feel like you’re so bound up compared to what you’re used to with your body that your body needs to unwind very quickly. That’s the whole point. It’s going to do it automatically for you.
Throw the club down for a second. We don’t need that. I want you to just put your arms across your chest and go ahead and rotate back. Then I’m going to start making little tweaks here. Okay. Tell me right now what your perception is of your weight. Where is it between your right and left?
Probably 75/25. Maybe 70/30.
Okay. When I look at it, when you first did that turn, you did what most golfers do when they make this rotation move. Instead of shifting to the right and rotating, you just turn. You would move away from this line of address. What it feels like is that you have more weight over here than you really do.
Because your hips are actually moving away from this right hip line you’re actually counterbalancing and shifting more weight to your left than you realize. I’m going to hold this here for a second. Your right hip as you go back should never move away from this. That felt a little different, didn’t it?
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Now how much weight do you feel over there? That’s a true 70%.
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Now do it the way you did before. Just turn. Now look at the difference. There’s a two and a half inch gap here, right? [inaudible 00:05:33] back in the day talked about … This is one of the accurate things he actually wrote about in his book that he did instead of just felt like he did.
Right.
This is one of the drills he had, right? He had the old umbrella up against his hip and he said, “I just don’t want this to move either way.” Most golfers do this and they get into this reverse hip shift, this weight, move away from this.
Think about any athletic movement in the world. If you’re throwing a ball this doesn’t make sense, right? You’ve got to move into your side and load up. Everybody gets so freaking terrified of sliding and their head moving all over the place that they just end up trying to stay in a barrel and it actually creates the problems they’re trying to get rid of.
Don’t be afraid to shift into the right and load. You’re going to feel lateral movement to the right. When you look at it on camera because you’re shifting this way while turning, it’ll just have the appearance that your hip never moved at all. You need to see this or put a stick in the ground, an extra shaft or something, and just hold it there so you can see … There you go.
Now as you do this increase the knee flex slightly. Now you feel it right back here, right?
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
That’s all you’re thinking about on the backswing from this point forward is that. You want to feel that same amount of recruitment so that you can powerfully turn into that side. You’re trying to get to load these muscles in your trunk. If you’re doing this you’ll feel nothing.
As soon as you feel like you’re moving into this right side, in this glute, like a pitcher is able to help you move back to the left that is the whole key to what you’re trying to feel is loading that right leg going back to help you get back to the left. There you go.
Feel like that right leg is coiled up. Now you should start to feel stretching and loading here that you’re not used to as well because your hips aren’t turning … You’ve taken out 30 degrees of rotation. They’re still turning 45 degrees, which is fine. There you go. It’s a great, big full turn.
Now load up and I want you to use the muscles that you feel tension in to help you get back to the left. There you go. Good. Don’t turn your chest.
Yeah. I’m trying to …
Yeah. Your chest is done at impact. It’s square.
That’s the other thing I’m trying to … Instead of doing this …
Yeah. You do a really good job. You’re not really using your shoulders. You’re using your arms to swing the club. I’m trying to get you to use your legs. At least you don’t have the shoulder problem because that one is harder to fix. It takes more time.
Good. Now come back. Good. There you go. Feel your glutes for the first time in your golf swing.
From here, what do you use to get the weight to the left side?
Starting out you’re going to use the left side. Here’s the easiest way to think about it.
It’s the push/pull thing you were talking about?
Exactly.
With the truck and everything?
Exactly. You’ve got to use the left side to get everything working to your back.
You do this … See, I’ve been practicing wrong obviously because of the start but the squat to get down … I can tell I’m not using the ground for anything.
For sure. You might as well be sitting on top of an ice skating rink.
Right.
You want to leave an indentation in the ground of where your feet were. Nobody should every wonder where you just hit a ball from.
Even your swing or the little guys smaller than us that are hitting it 340 and you go, “They’re jumping off the ground.”
Literally, right?
Yeah.
You have to create leverage there but when you’re just sitting on top and just turning you need to have this vertical movement that’s missing in your swing. You’ve got great rotation but too much. You need leverage. Leverage is the most powerful multiplier you’ve got in a swing, right?
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
If you’re just doing this there’s no leverage available to you whatsoever. There you go. Without turning your shoulders go back again. I want you just to focus on your trunk … There you go. Now you’re done. All swing is done from there. You just release the club. Perfect.
You’re having to focus on this right now, right? That’s where your brain is going to go. Next time your wife says, “Get your head out of your ass” just say, “No, I’m working on my golf swing.” That’s where your brain needs to be focusing is everything right here so that you start to feel what it feels like to dig your feet into the ground and grow roots and be able to push off the ground to post up and release the club. That’s the whole thing you need to think about.
Well, the interesting thing is I’m doing Pilates twice a week. It’s another neighbor. She focuses on using this for what I’m doing. She says, “Take that tension out of your neck and your shoulders.”
Exactly.
It’s the same as the golf swing.
She’s a smart Pilates instructor. It’s all about the core and the trunk. All movement in all sports, any powerful sport, the movement emanates from the core. The whole golf swing is from here to here when you think about it.
The box you called it.
The box. Exactly. When you start getting your brain in there and that’s where all of your focus goes when you start worrying about the club at the top or what the club is doing and you start worrying about what your body is doing, that’s when it starts working. The club starts going where you want. Most people take the opposite approach. They’re worried about what the stupid ball is doing all the time.
Well, reference my earlier question then. If I do this and do that and I go back … I used to do this all the time. Make sure I got a feel of where I should be and I do this … That’s going to make this happen instead of this.
Exactly.
I mean, we’re talking 20, 30 degrees difference.
It’s huge.
Which means if I’m in a bunker I’m screwed, if I’m in a tight line I’m screwed.
Yup.
I don’t compress the ball.
You can’t, right? The club is taking over your hands at that point. To keep compression you need to keep your hands ahead of the club to keep some shaft lean on it and keep the club working down. That happens automatically.
In your experience, this part of it will get most of that?
It’s how you get there, right? Forget the golf club for a second. I’m loading up, going back, I feel my right glute. That’s my key checkpoint. I’m pushing my right ankle in the ground, feeling my right glute. That’s all I care about.
Now from there all I care about is using this left leg to shift and post up and now that brings my hands all the way to here. Why would I ever be scooping, flipping, cupping? It’s never going to happen, right? Unless you’re actively using the right hand.
Now what you’ve done is right in the sense that you have to use your right hand and that’s why you can’t get rid of the chicken wing and the flip because you have nothing else to move the club. You’re not using your legs so you’ve got to use your right arm because that’s your dominant hand. It feels powerful. That’s where all of your speed is coming from.
Whatever speed you can produce from this is your entire golf swing, which is why you’re stuck at 92 miles an hour. When you open up and recruit all of this this doesn’t have to do anything. It can take a break and chill out. That’s why you’ll stop flipping and scooping because by the time you get down here your brain has done all of the work to get just your lower body to bring the club down. Then all you have to do is let the club release.
If you start throwing from the top, which you need to do … When you’re not using your lower body you’re always going to scoop it. You don’t have a choice.
The focus drill-wise would be back up into the weight shift drills, posture and stance and weight shift. Neutral joint alignment and all that kind of stuff.
Your stance is great. All that stuff is great. You have a great setup but you’re just missing the key point to your power source, which is all these big chunky muscles. There you go. Good.
One of the ways to feel this really easy and because most of us are right-handed, as you know, it’s a lead side dominant sport. This left arm as you go back it’s putting a really weak position. There’s not a lot of power if you just have your rear delt and your lat to help bring the club down.
What it teaches you if your arm feels weak and you don’t have your right arm on the club, well, how would you really produce power? You know you wouldn’t just do this because this is completely futile.
Try to whip it.
Yeah. You’re going to use your trunk. You’re going to go back and be like, “All right. If I’m going to really move my left arm really hard like I was throwing a frisbee I would have to use my body instead of just my right arm.” The trick to a lot of these things is just taking the right arm out of it and then figuring out what natural power sources you’d have.
Logically, they’re going to pop up in your head like, “I don’t have a choice but I’ve got to use my legs because this left arm is so weak.” The problem is people don’t take their right arm off enough and they use that for everything.
I look at those VJ and Michelson videos and I go, “I’m not there.” They’re barely holding on like this.
Yeah.
At the impact.
Exactly because they’re releasing the golf club. What does it mean to release something? It means to literally let go, right? You should be able to hit the ball exactly the same doing that. My right hand is just a passenger. You don’t need it there. It’s there to help but does a lot of things. The whole golf swing in general you can make it look exactly the same without it on there and get the same feeling of power sources.
Take the club for a second. I want you to load up. Let’s ignore the ball for a sec. I want you to focus … I don’t care where the club goes. I want you to focus on your right hip and glute as you go back. There you go. Now bring that club down with your legs. There you go.
Remember I said earlier I was looking at this ratio of how much your hands move during the first half of the downswing and how much your hips move. What you did there was different than your real swing. Your real swing is hands are here, hips barely move. That time you went and then down. That’s the whole trick to the sequence.
Load the right glutes. All your care about. Good. There you go. A little too much hip turn. You’re going to feel it. You’re not going to feel that same muscle recruitment when you over-turn. What did you feel there?
All right.
Better? Yeah. Okay.
A little bit.
I want it to feel 100% more load on that right glute than what you feel in your normal swing. Double. There you go. Go to the top and stop. Stop.
Sorry.
That’s okay. Do it again. There you go. Good. If you’re not sure this is when you do the little squat to feel … Sorry, not the squat move in the downswing. This is a backswing check. Right? You go to the top and just squat down. Do you really feel that right glute and hamstring? That’s your simple way to check it. Then you can come down from there. There you go. There you go. Feel your legs?
Yeah.
They’re waking up, right? Looks good. Notice we’re not worrying about swing plane or path move and stuff? The club is dropping down perfectly on plane without you having to think about it. Too much hip turn initially. What did you feel different there?
I could tell I didn’t turn my hips as much.
Yeah. Exactly. When you don’t turn this muscle, your exterior side of your hip here, when you don’t turn this muscle loads. When you turn this muscle …
Yeah. All this time I’ve been focusing on the knee, trying to keep the knee in, when the trick is it’s here to here.
Exactly. It’s the box that we talked about. There you go. Try to leave the club up there even a split second longer at the top. Give your hips a little more time. Okay. Now here’s what you did there. Watch closely. Tell me if you see …
Ah.
What did I do?
Well, you turned everything together like it was a little wedge as opposed to a power swing.
That’s part of it. Watch my right foot as I go back. What did you notice?
Well, it didn’t.
As I go back.
Oh, as you go back.
Did you catch it?
Yeah. Exactly. What you did was this, it was a pretty weak way to get back to the other side, right? Your weight it’s going to start on the inside of your foot and go to the middle but it should never go to the outside. This is a really weak position. If you turn too much your foot is going to start to roll like this.
Again, you want to think that this thing is like a big old Oak tree anchored to the ground and it can’t roll like this. You’re going to stay flat-footed the whole time at the backswing and try to drive it into the ground. I want you to leave an imprint like I just did there. Be heavy on your right foot. There you go. Feel a little different?
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
There you go. Keep doing that. One more for me. All right. Let’s take a quick look. Big difference there.
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Instead of shifting your hips this way.
Right.
Notice how your head isn’t way over this way. Before your hips would go like this, which would make your axis tilt look like it’s exaggerated, right?
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Which then makes you hang back even more because you’re … As your hips go this way and your spine is this way it’s really hard not to hang back. Really hard.
Now you’re stacked and loaded. That looks great. Let’s check that ratio. Look at the natural down clock there. Lag for days right there, right?
Yeah. That’s a wide, narrow, wide too.
Yeah. Now you just got to let it release, right? Look at the flat left wrist. How are you going to scoop it? It’s not going to happen, right? This whole little move starts everything. You get that right hip loaded up going back. The sequence of the downswing is more or less automatic because your brain is going, “I’ve got a lot of load. I’ve got a lot of tension over here.” What does your brain want to do with that tension?
Release. Yeah.
It wants to get rid of it. You’re doing it automatically. You don’t have to think about, “Oh, how do I get my hips to work?” Obviously you’re an athlete. You’ve obviously played other sports and done things. I can see by the way you move. If you’re going to be an athlete, take advantage of those natural movements, these natural things that you do.
One of my favorite drills on the site is the frisbee drill because it teaches you to load, transfer your weight, post up, and then release the club. You are not loading, releasing the club. Does that make sense?
Oh, yeah.
That’s the whole sequence of it. It’s not even more complicated than that. Let’s try and hit a couple. Now I would go really slow at first and I would let your right hand … I would try and not use it so you could hit them just left-handed at first. Then you want to swing really, really slow. The tendency as soon as you put your right hand on there your brain is going to go to there and not here, right? Really easy. Just hit them 50 yards. Load the right glute is all you’re thinking about.
Nice. All I’m caring about is your hips. That was good. Again. All your … I couldn’t care less if you shank it or chunk it. All I care about is do you load up going back? Feel that right foot push into the ground. What did you feel there?
Well, I felt like I hit it solidly and that I didn’t turn my hip much.
Yeah. Let’s do even better. I want you to really concentrate on loading and a little bit less rotation. You’re going to feel like you move into that right leg. It’s got to move laterally slightly remember.
Yeah.
Push that right foot into the ground. Not bad there. Again, you’re going to start using your arm and stuff so you really need to concentrate on just this right hip. Like I said, I’d rather you miss the ball completely and load up that right hip correctly. Big turn that time.
Really?
Yeah. This is where video is invaluable, right?
Yeah.
Your drill is perfect. We saw your drill. It was spot on, as good as any tour pro. How did that feel?
I compressed that one.
Aha.
Was that still too much turn?
Yup.
God.
A little bit. It’s going to take a little bit of time, right? I would never recommend you go hitting balls full speed while trying to do this, right?
Right.
I want to go nine to three drills.
Okay.
Load up, little baby shots. This stuff once you do it at nine to three it’s easy, right? Going full speed you’ll goof up.
It’s interesting because my hundreds of practices have been wrong.
You’ve learned. A good thing, you can learn.
[crosstalk 00:23:08] About 800 to go.
The key here is when you’re practicing to give yourself some sort of physical reference if you’re going to be out here hitting balls. Obviously a shaft in the ground, a chair, something to lean against your hip.
They’ve got the sticks there.
Oh, perfect. You just stick that up against your hip and every single time go to the top. Can I borrow that for a second? Go to the top and stop and look. You look at this and you’re like, “Oh, crap.” Go to the top, take your time, stop, pause, “Okay, that’s right” and then come down from there. You don’t need to try and do it all at full speed. I like to chunk things up a little bit. Stop at the top, pause, check your hip, come down.
Well, my favorite … Not my favorite but one of my favorite videos of yours is the one talking about Tiger Woods. Watching him practice for however many hours it was.
Yeah.
All he did was do this.
45 minutes. The club never went past there and he never hit a single ball. For 45 minutes. The guy understands how to learn. Nobody has changed their swing as dramatically as he has and stayed competitive the whole time. Tour pros are just as Schizophrenic about their golf swings as amateur golfers are. Tiger is one of the worst really but he has the discipline to understand how the brain learns new movement patterns.
Let me ask you a personal question. What’s your trigger then? I don’t want to do this necessarily.
No, no, no. It’s just natural.
That’s the Gary Player.
Sure.
I don’t want to turn my head like Nicklaus but I guess it would be maybe a slight forward press.
No, I don’t like that. Here’s the simplest way to do it. What you’re working on is what? What are you trying to accomplish?
I’m trying to get into this hip and not over-rotate and use my core to turn my body.
Exactly. You’re trying to load up the right glute, the right leg of your body. The simplest trigger for that, lift that foot and smash it into the ground just a small little lift.
I’ve seen your videos doing that too. I couldn’t get it to work. Especially on the downswing but even obviously on the backswing. Just I don’t even have to lift it?
You don’t.
Just get that feeling into the heel?
It’s doing two things right. One, it’s giving you, one, the focusing your brain power on your right leg. Two, as you push it down your body has a physical response to this. If you push against the ground the ground is physically pushing against you, right?
You feel this little strike against the ground and guess what happens to your glute? It activates. Your body counteracts this pushing force against the ground, against you. If you do it hard, like just exaggerate it while you’re practicing, just stomp it to where you hear it and tell me what happens to your glute. It activates immediately.
Yup.
There you go. It automatically gets you comfortable shifting to the right to get loaded up over there.
Let me try that.
Pretty good. The load up was pretty good there.
Was it?
Yeah. Not bad. As you’re doing this, again …
I’ll just do the [crosstalk 00:26:22]
You want to slow down and just find the focal point on this. Like I said, even if you go to the top and you stop, check it and then come down from there. Even if it’s not correct, correct it during your pause …
I see.
Then come down. Yeah. Did you see the difference? That’s how much difference it was. That’s why you need to pause and check it. Yeah. Now come down. Good. That’s a good result. You learned to come down from some place you’re not used to. This is the whole trick to this. Chunk it up, break it into pieces like that, slowly start making those pauses at the top smaller and smaller. Once you know that you’re loaded up over there. There you go. Makes sense?
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Any questions for me?
Sure. About a million but I know you’ve got a long trip ahead of you and you’ve got 1-25 to go for Thanksgiving.
That should be no problem, right?
I want to get you out of here.
I appreciate it.
Yeah. Like I said, since it’s partial marketing then tell me why I would want to join now your Academy as opposed to continuing and finishing through your five steps?
Sure. First of all, you should go through the five steps because that’s the core of everything. It’s these five simple movements that if you learn those the world is your oyster as far as that goes.
The RSA stuff stacks on top of that. It’s assuming that you already have at least a knowledge base of that. It doesn’t mean you’ve mastered all five of those steps but it means that you understand the core constructs, which you obviously do at this point.
Once you understand those then what the RSA stuff does is it takes those into just practical movements. I don’t explain all the stuff that we did here. RSA assumes that you know the book knowledge, the intellectual stuff but from there we’re going to take that and start doing real world drills that you can do inside, outside, whatever. Most of them are designed to be done indoors. You’re doing them as a follow along program where I’m talking you through it.
It’s like taking a lesson with me today. You didn’t recognize this was going on. You actually knew but didn’t know exactly how to fix it.
Right.
I talk about … The [inaudible 00:28:30] is that exact move but loading up, watching yourself in the mirror, putting a shaft or something, a chair, whatever, a countertop, against that hip and continuing to move into it to where that becomes natural.
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Nothing else you need to worry about in your golf swing. Your setup looks great, your alignment looks great, your lag looks great, your impact looks great but the trunk is missing and that’s the most important part of the swing.
Other than that, how’d you like the movie?
Yeah. Exactly. Miss Lincoln, how was the play?
Right. Well, my game plan would be is do this for two or three months and then send in one or two of the five videos if I can figure out how to do it and send them. See if whoever [crosstalk 00:29:14]
I wouldn’t wait that long. I would video yourself doing these drills next week. We don’t care about seeing you hit balls. We only want to see you do the movements.
Ah.
We’d actually prefer that you submit videos of you doing the drills. There’s no point in you practicing on your own and doing it wrong for a month.
Yeah.
That’s the worst thing you could do. Video yourself doing the drill and just saying, “I want to make sure that this drill is right before I spend the next month drilling it.” That’s the smartest move.
Okay.
Just let them say, “Look, here’s what I’m working on. Chuck gave me a lesson. Said my right hip was reverse-shifting and here’s what I’m trying to do to fix it. Got a club up against my hip. Tell me if I’m doing it right or wrong” and then they’ll be like, “Yup. Here’s what you need to focus on. Here’s the videos. Drill this for the next month. We don’t want to see you again for a month” kind of thing.
How many instructors do you have now?
There’s 40 I think.
Jesus.
Yeah.
Chris Evans, isn’t he one of …
Chris Tyler.
Tyler. Yeah. I like Tyler. He does good videos.
He’s been with us for a long time. Chris is one of the sharpest instructors in the world. He really has taken the time to really understand. He has a huge passion for helping people. Chris is one of the guys who does the vast majority of swing reviews and unlimited review groups. His group he has like 100 members in there or something. He stays very busy but this is his baby. He takes it personal if somebody doesn’t get better. Yeah, he’s very, very dedicated to that.
Well, that’s great. I think you’ve developed a really good program.
Thank you.
And product. It’s just most people don’t realize … I call it the hang nail theory. That they think they’re doing the change that is indicated on the video and instead of being here they’re here and it feels like a massive change from here. When you look at it on video you go, “I didn’t change crap. There’s no difference.”
That’s why you’ve got to use video and mirrors. I will not make a change in my golf swing without a wall of mirrors. I won’t even bother. [crosstalk 00:31:20]
If you’re in your early forties you should take a hiatus when you’re 50 and give it a go.
I had my share in the days of pounding balls. My problem was always putting. I’m a far better putter now than I was when I played professionally but I still don’t have any desire to go out and hit [crosstalk 00:31:39]
Spend that much time.
Two hours a day in chipping and … My ball striking was never an issue. I didn’t have to worry about ball striking but that’s the fun part. I’d rather go out and pound balls all day than sit on a freaking putting green and get my eyes comfortable reading grain and all of this stuff. I just don’t enjoy that.
