Zach Johnson's Wedge Technique
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In this video, I'll show you the keys to Zach Johnson's wedge technique. You'll find out: 1) How Johnson controls ball trajectory and spin, and 2) What you MUST do right for pro-level consistency.
- Control the club face with a proper release through the hitting area
- Stabilize the lower body with a narrow stance for consistent shots
- Move the ball position back to flight the golf ball down and control spin
Hey everyone, This is Rotary Swing Instructor Chris Tyler.
And today I'm going to be going over this past weekend's Northwest Mutual Champion Zach Johnson.
We're going to be talking about his wedge play and some of the key components that he uses to become one of the best wedge players on the planet.
Okay, so those of you that were fortunate enough to watch a little golf this weekend on TV, You would have seen a pretty exciting conclusion to the Northwest Mutual Championship event, where we had Tiger Woods and Zach Johnson battling it down the 18th fairway all tied.
Tiger hits it in the green site bunker, Zach hits it in the hazard from the middle of the fairway, comes back to this drop spot and holds the wedge shot for a four, Getting himself into a playoff against Tiger, where he ends up beating Tiger in a two-hole playoff and winning his 10th PGA Tour event.
And bringing his career earnings to $30 million.
So congratulations to Zach, that's some great play and some stick-to -itiveness, I guess you could say, holding that wedge out.
Never really a doubt, I guess you could say.
So I want to go over some of the key points.
I've been very fortunate to play a lot of golf with Zach over the years and he, aside from a lot of the other stuff that he does on the golf course, aside from his putting and all the other consistent style things that he does in the golf course, his wedge play is fantastic.
Now if you remember back to the Masters, his first Masters victory, he didn't go for a par five at all the entire week.
He laid up and relied on his wedge play and he is a fantastic controller of the golf ball.
He knows how to flight his golf ball properly.
He knows how to control the spins on the golf ball.
And that's the reason why I want to break down his wedge play this week and discuss a few of his key ingredients that he gets going in the golf swing.
So also I want to bring to your attention, we are using the new swing viewer for this review today.
So this is new to you guys on the website.
I urge you all to use this tool.
It's a fantastic tool to be able to analyze your own golf swing.
You can actually put your swing in there and you can record over it and save it for future reference.
Or you can put a pro's swing in there and compare it with your swing.
It's a very great tool for you guys to all utilize.
So I really urge you to do use this and hope that it will make you a better wedge player moving forward.
Okay so let's go ahead and get into some of the stuff that Zach has here.
I've drawn a few lines on the screen so we can get some clarification here what they are.
This first one would be where the flagstick is.
You couldn't really see it in the video so I wanted to make sure we could all see that.
Also wanted to bring to your attention the club face, the line of the club face.
It's aimed at the direction of the hole, but I also want you to take notice of this line on the ground.
This is his foot line.
All right, you're going to notice that he stands quite a bit open, and Zach stands quite a bit open for a number of reasons.
One of the big reasons that he does this is that he plays the golf ball real far back in his stance.
And this is for flighting the golf ball or controlling the flight or trajectory of the golf ball.
Number one and number two because Zach has such a strong grip.
He stands a little bit on the open side here so he can get the club face back to square with the golf ball being so back in his stance.
That's a big thing that works for Zach very well and he controls this very well.
We do have a video on the website called the penetrating wedge series.
That's a great video you guys to check out.
So when we're done here check the penetrating wedge video out.
That's going to give you some good tips on how you can start to flight your golf ball like the pros do.
For those of you that have ever been to a professional event, you can see either when the golfers are warming up or when they're on the golf course.
Every one of those guys, the best wedge players, will keep their golf balls down and they will control the spin properly.
So let's move in and let's look at some of the other key components to Zach's wedge play.
Let's go ahead and put a line on his spine.
And then I also want to put a circle around his head so you can see how very little head motion he has.
Now I've excused my illustrations here.
I'm not much of an going to go ahead and get started into the backswing here.
All right, what I want you to notice is when we get to the top part right before we start to transition into the downswing.
Notice how his spine angle is perfectly where it was at a dress position.
Now that's a huge thing for you I want for you guys to understand.
That's a huge tool for you guys to maintain some consistency in your golf swing.
So trying to maintain that spine angle.
Well you can use this swing viewer to put your own swing in and you can check your spine angle.
So go ahead and use that tool.
Use that feature.
Also notice that Zach stands with a very narrow stance.
Okay and this is this is what's going to help him in the downswing.
We want to eliminate the lower body as much as possible.
There is some loading and unloading but we don't want to have any of that side to side motion.
This will help with consistency.
This will help with the strike overall.
But keep your stances very narrow.
All right so let's work into the downswing here.
And we're going to start down.
Okay also notice just before impact the head has moved very little.
The spine is still in check.
All right we're going to move into impact.
Head position is still beautiful.
Spine is still perfect.
Now, here's the interesting thing about Zach is that you can go through two more frames, like we just did there, and you're going to see that.
His spine angle is still perfectly intact and his head position still has not moved.
I also want you to take note of his right foot and the right heel.
See how that that's not come off the ground.
That's the good that's the reason how he can control his body.
He can control his body and move as one piece.
If he were to lift this foot up and fire up onto the toe he'd be working and spinning the hips open.
And And Zach is one of those guys that controls the club face with the rotation of his body and his arms at the same time.
Not necessarily what we teach, but it's a great move for him to be able to be consistent and it works very well for him.
So those are some of the key components that he does and uses in the golf in the game of golf.
He is a great controller of his golf ball.
So the point is is that you really want to work on maintaining the spine angle.
You want to keep the head position very very quiet.
You want to play that ball, position back and make sure you narrow up that base a little bit to control the lower body movement.
And also like I said before earlier is check out the penetrating wedge video.
That's going to give you some really good insight as how you could put this to use in your own game.
