Golf Swing Defined Through Position (HIGHLY TECHNICAL)

A fantastic explanation of the positional sequence in the swing.  Photo and Content Credit www.sandtrap.com.  My comments listed in RED

A great way to work on your swing during the rainy season is to pin these photos up on a large mirror and attempt to mimic the positions one at a time comparing yourself as you go.  Follow this short workout plan to make some great changes!
1) Rotate through these positions one at a time holding each position for 5 seconds.  Do this 10 times.
2) Follow these positions in order while completing a golf swing in 10 seconds.  That is SLOOOOWLY.  Do this 10 times.
3) Alternate a positional swing (5 seconds long) with a practice swing concentrating on rhythm and tempo.  5 times or 10 swings total.
4) Swing 10 times concentrating on speed keeping a good tempo and balance.
5) Finish with repeat of the first step.

By working on 50 swings up to once a day you will greatly improve your swing for the next season!

A1 - Address

Very simple one to understand, as A1 is the setup or address position. You can judge things like posture and overall setup, ball position, handle location (too close to the thighs, leaning back or forward too much), the hang of the arms, weight location (toes/heels as well as forward/back).  I enjoy this position - READY for action or an athletic move.  Much like a shooter in basketball who has just landed from a shot.  Notice the nice tilt over at the hips with a relaxed arm hang.  Ready to go!

A2 - Shaft Horizontal (Back swing)

This position allows you to look at how quickly the shoulders are turning, how quickly the wrists are hinging/cocking, how much the wrists and forearms are rolling, whether the head is translating or staying relatively stable, how much the shoulders have turned, etc. This is one of the somewhat "looser" positions because the wrist cock will determine the location of A2. For example, Charlie Wi hits a fairly normal A2 position (albeit one with a lot of depth):  A solid position!  On Charlie Wi notice the slight bend of the left knee.  Hands nicely to the inside without flipping the club to camera left.  Rickie is over accentuating this club position.  Love both club face angles with matching of the spine angle.  Stricker allows the club to drift inside with the hands a bit too high and separate from the body.  The camera angle is a bit off on this and makes the shaft angle look inside further than it actually is.

But Rickie Fowler's A2 looks funny because he doesn't roll his forearms at all in the start of the back swing:

Steve Stricker sets his wrists later, so the shaft "ascends" more slowly and "arrives" at A2 a little "late."

Late wrist sets will tend to look like the club has been taken more inside or under than it really has, and early wrist sets will tend to look the opposite.

A3 - Lead Arm Horizontal (Back swing)

When the lead arm is parallel we can check the wrist cock (typically around 90 degrees), we can check the shaft plane and the plane of the hands (where are they coming out of the body - base of the bicep? Top of the shoulder? Mid-way?), we can check relative shoulder turn (some people stop turning here, some haven't turned enough because they've just swung their arms back). We can check the head, the shoulder pitch becomes evident down the line, and more.  The beginning of wrist hinge.  Leadbetter would look for more pronounced hinge of the wrists but I have noticed that with amateurs this causes too must forearm rotation and too much variation in strike and directional control.

Note that Rickie's back swing is a product not of quickly cocking the wrists but of allowing very little rotation of the forearms or wrists ("accumulator #3" in TGM). His left arm to shaft measurement at A3 is only 107 degrees).

Of course, Steve Stricker's is even more:

A4 - Top of the Back swing

Wherever this player reaches the top of the backswing, that's A4. Note that a shaft isn't necessarily "laid off" if it points left of the target before the shaft reaches horizontal, nor is it surely "across the line" if it is pointing right but past parallel. Many things can be checked at A4 - wrist conditions, shoulder tilt, any translation off the ball, plane, right elbow flex, left arm position, weight/pressure/CG location, etc.  These photos are only of Charlie Wi, who is a stack and tilt swinger.  It would have been great to see the comparisons between Rickie and Stricker.  This position is also known as a one plane swing with the left forearm, shaft and shoulder plane all being in alignement.  A great consistent position although not one known to have a lot of power/distance.

A5 - Lead Arm Horizontal (Downswing)

This position can tell us many things as it's early enough in the downswing that a player can still make changes much more easily to affect A6 and A7. How far "in" is the left arm? What's the shaft done based on the wrist conditions? How's the right elbow working - towards the belt buckle or staying behind the rib cage? Have the hips begun going forwards? Has the head started tipping back? What's the plane of the shaft like?  So many great things to look at in these photos.  First notice the consistency in lateral weight shift into the left side.  This "bump" can be looked at as a slight lateral slide that all the greats have done.  Yet, the upper torso has not followed that slide or bump.  This upper torso or over sliding of the hips can be very destructive for amateurs.

Second, notice how the PGA Tour professional retains the angle and actually INCREASES the angle!!  A great point for amateurs trying to get below a 10 handicap.

Third, notice the shaft angle is roughly at a 90 degree angle to all 3 players spine angle.  As this relates to their spine angle notice the significant amount of tilt over. 

Note that in Rickie Fowler's case, "lag" appears excessive but it's an optical illusion. He's simply "laid the shaft down" so much that the face-on view is not a good indicator of lag.

See the blue lines on the left? Imagine they represented his left arm and club shaft. Imagine he rolled his left forearm and wrist enough to lay the shaft down that much. Look at how much "lag" it would appear he has from the face-on view! In reality, "lag" should be measured from perpendicular to the plane containing the three points: left shoulder, left wrist, club head. It might surprise you to know that Rickie doesn't have a ton more lag than good ol' Steve Stricker, but the camera position and the "laying the shaft down" throws you off:

A6 - Shaft Horizontal (Downswing)

A key position. There are a lot of things you can check here, but one of the keys is where the club head is relative to the hands. Charlie is pretty well "on-plane" here:

Note the two lines I've drawn. If your club head appears beneath or inside of your hands - the location of the green line - you're quite likely going to send the path of the golf club out to the right. If your club head is outside your hands or above the plane like in the right, you're quite likely sending the club head path left. The club head in the red case is "over the top" of the hands plane - one of a few definitions for that term ("over the top").

Though A6 is highly sensitive to camera position, it's clear that Steve Stricker is going to "hit out" at this ball, while Rickie Fowler - despite "laying the shaft down" heavily from P3.5 to P5 - is coming down pretty well on-plane.

Skipping ahead a little bit, I think this picture will make a little sense to people. I've traced the club head in both Steve Stricker's swing and Charlie Wi's (Rickie's is similar to Charlie's). As you can see, the tangential line at the bottom of the swing arc in Steve Stricker's swing - called the "base plane line" or "base line" - is pointed well to the right. If you imagine creating a plane on the arrows, the base of it would rest along the blue arrow. Charlie's (and Rickie's) plane is much more "at the target" than Steve's.

Steve Stricker plays a ball that pushes and draws a little, and catches the ball just in front of of low point to help the club head go a little left to take some of the draw curve off of his golf ball.

Final note on P6: good golfers tend - nine indices on downward (with increasing frequency) to get "under" plane or "stuck" (hello, Tiger Woods!), while poor golfers tend to be "over."

A7 - Impact

Things to look for here are fairly obvious: clean contact, club head traveling in which direction (ideally +/- a few degrees), handle leaning forward an appropriate amount (0 to 10 degrees, rarely more; less with the longer clubs, more with the shorter ones), etc. Ahhhh the magic moment!  Great balls strikers have one thing in common.  Great ball contact and the golf ball first.  Notice the weight solidly into the left side.  The shaft roughly 4-6 degrees of forward lean.  Hips significantly open (roughly open 45 degrees) while the shoulder alignement is close to the target line if not slightly closed.  Slight curvature of the back but still fighting to stay in posture. 

A8 - Shaft Horizontal to the Ground on Follow-Through

A9 - Lead Arm Horizontal to the Ground on Follow-Through

In virtually every golf swing, the shaft is horizontal to the ground before the lead arm, but the two are sometimes very closely timed. These images are from before A8 and A9, but honestly, A8, A9, and A10 are almost never used in discussing the golf swing because they're simply an indicator of what's come before. They are however quite useful in instruction, as a student modeling a position at A8 or A9 will introduce changes to his motion prior to A7 which will have (if the instruction is correct) positive results.

I view these positions as important indicators of what has happened in the previous positions.  The line I like to use is, "if the money is gone (from the bank) there must have been a robbery."  Generally if there is an error in these positions something else, usually before impact, has gone wrong. 

A10 - End of Swing

Again, debatable, but for all practical purposes, A9 is almost never discussed. It's too easily "faked." :-)  A great swing!  Full commitment, complete rotation, weight full onto the left side, club not flipped or over rotated.  Great job!

If you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to contact me at john.grothe@gmail.com

Your friend in golf.

John Grothe, PGA