Rickie Fowler - Using Your Legs
Rickie Fowler - Using Your Legs
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Description
Rickie Fowler uses his legs in the golf swing for a great amount of power and control. In this video, I'll show you how to start using your lower body like a tour pro.
Video Practice Points
- Understand what your impact position is supposed to look like.
- Allow the trail side to help get the weight over to the lead side.
- Control the body by focusing on the lead side hip being pulled away from the target with the obliques.
WEBVTT
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Hi, This is our ST instructor Chris
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Tyler. And we are back again with this
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week's tour analysis on the 2015 Deutsche
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Bank champion Ricky Fowler. So
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congratulations to Ricky. He came back on
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Sunday and took down Henrik Stenson in
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the final round.
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This week, we are going to be focusing in
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on how to use your legs in the golf swing
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to help get you a little bit more power
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and a little better consistency. I'm also
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going to give you guys a really good
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checkpoint with your trail leg in the
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golf swing. That's going to help you
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overcome a lot of the common swing faults
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that you may be struggling with from day
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to day.
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Okay, everyone. So as I said in the
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opener, We are going to be focusing on
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the legs this week. And I'm going to show
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you guys a couple of good checkpoints
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that are going to help you get into a
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better impact position. And also help you
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self-diagnose some of the common swing
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faults that we see. So if you've been
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battling with either hip spinning, or if
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you've been battling with getting too
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much secondary axis tilt? Or if you've
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been battling with losing your tush line,
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This video is going to be really critical
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for you and give you a good understanding
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of what you need to work on and what you
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need to focus on.
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So looking at the golf swing from a face
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-on perspective, if we look at the golf
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swing backwards, okay, so we're going to
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talk about impact first.
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If we look at impact, so let's get Ricky
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right into an impact position here. What
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are we trying to achieve in order to hit
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the golf ball really solid and have
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control of the bottom of the swing arm?
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Well, simply put, we're just looking to
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try to have our lead side very stacked up
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here. So you have the lead ankle, the
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lead knee,
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the lead hip socket, and the lead
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shoulder all stacked right on top of each
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other.
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We're also looking to make sure that we
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have a flat lead wrist and proper
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secondary axis tilt. So you can see the
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spine is just outside the lead knee here.
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Okay, now he's hitting a fairway wood
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here. He had ball position back a little
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bit because he is in Scotland for this
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video. So he's probably trying to fight
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the ball down a little bit.
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But if you've noticed that you're having
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a very difficult time of getting your
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lead side stacked up, where you feel like
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your spine is leaning further back,
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or if you see that your lead leg is out
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past neutral, and you notice that you're
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either hitting some thin shots or some
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fat shots, well, I want you to pay close
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attention to what your right knee or your
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trail knee in your golf swing is doing
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down in the hitting area. If it's jamming
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hard left,
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then that's you pushing your pelvis
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forward or pushing your hips through the
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hitting area.
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That can cause your spine to lean away,
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which in turn can start to change the
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path of the golf club. It can change the
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angle of attack. It can cause the golf
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club to start making more of an ascending
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blow rather than a descending blow.
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And I know there's a lot of times that we
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talk about push versus pull in the golf
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swing. And with the lower half, because
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downswing sequence does happen so fast.
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And I want you to think of this as kind
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of like a graduate level thing, where we
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do want the right side to help push a
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little bit. But once we get the weight
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over there, we want to control it from
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the lead side of the body. And I'm going
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to get further into that here in just a
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moment.
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So the idea is that from a dress
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position, you're going to see Ricky sets
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up very wide here with his knees apart.
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He's a little almost like a bow-legged
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appearance here. But we don't want to
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have the gap between our legs really get
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closed up because that can cause too much
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secondary tilt, which in turn can make it
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very difficult to control the bottom of
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the swing arc. It can cause, if you see
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that your gap is closed up quite a bit
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down in the hitting area, it can cause
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your hips to come forward, which is early
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extension of the spine.
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So that's a good way to kind of encompass
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what you're going to be looking at from a
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self-diagnosis standpoint.
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Now, from a down-the-line perspective, I
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want you guys to focus on, this is a line
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that you don't really typically see
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within golf instruction. This is a line I
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use quite a bit with a lot of my
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students. But it gives you a good idea of
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how much the right side is going to, you
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know, what we want it to do down in the
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hitting area and what we don't want it to
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do. So if you have a good down-the-line
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video of your golf swing, load it into
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the self-analysis tool and use this line.
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Put it down right in front of the knees.
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Now, I've gone above the knees this time
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because this camera angle over here on
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the left-hand side,
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the video does move around a little bit.
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The camera guy is actually moving it
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around. But I'm using this mark on the
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side of the green here. So this is over
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on the edge of the left-hand side of the
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green.
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And that obviously is not moving.
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But you'll get the point here in just a
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sec.
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So I'm going to go ahead and get Ricky
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loaded up to the top.
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Good load into that side. Pretty good
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position at the top. This is with his new
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golf swing here. A little bit more
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elevation up there. And in transition,
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what you're going to see is he gets his
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weight moving over to his lead side. So
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he's shifting his weight.
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I'll show you that from a face-on
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perspective.
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So he's loaded into the right. He's going
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to make a good shift over into the lead
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side.
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So I'm going to get him right in about
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the same frame here. So the lead arm is
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parallel to the ground here.
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Now, it looks like he's evenly balanced.
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But you can notice that the right foot's
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not really bracing a whole lot of weight.
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Now, this is the mistake that a lot of
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amateur golfers make. And this is the
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cause of a lot of problems at home. Is
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that we still, because we have that
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little bit of weight over in that right
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side, we want to use to push off of it.
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And that's what's going to bring the hips
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forward. That's what's going to cause the
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hips to spin, or the body to really kind
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of rotate open through the hitting area.
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What we want to focus on is we want to
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focus on driving this lead heel into the
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ground. We want to feel like we're
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pushing it into the ground. And we want
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to feel like we're using our left
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obliques to pull the left hip back away
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from the target. Like you're trying to
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rotate your hip away from the target.
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And if you can focus on the left side,
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then the right side of the body will
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react.
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We don't want to use a lot of that
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coordinated side of our body to help push
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and cause those swing faults.
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So let's look down here as Ricky gets
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down to the hitting area.
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And you can see that he's actually moved
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further away from this line. It's not a
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common kind of thing that we see with a
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lot of PGA Tour players. But what you'll
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notice is that if your right leg or your
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right knee jammed through this line,
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you're going to notice that your hands
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are very close to your thighs. And in
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turn, that's actually shrinking your
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radius up.
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And that's going to hurt you in the speed
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department.
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So now from a face-on perspective, You're
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going to see as he starts to pull that
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left hip away from the target and get
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into that really good sound impact
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position. If I were to move this line
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here, You can see that he's maintained a
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good bit of that width between his knees
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down in the hitting area.
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So that's a great way to use the lower
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body. It's a great way to understand what
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may be causing a lot of your swing
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faults. And chances are it can be your
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trail leg trying to do too much very late
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in the golf swing. And what I mean by
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late is just really at the release point.
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All right. So if you've been struggling
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in this area, try it out. Load up some
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swings in the self-analysis tool and
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start to better understand where you're
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at with your golf swing. And I can also
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recommend some videos that are going to
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help you out with this. Again, this is
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over into the recommended video side of
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the player. So you've got to click that
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tab.
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I want you guys to check out sitting into
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the left side.
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I also want you guys to check out the
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straight left-legged impact video.
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Also, the rotary connect hip stability
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video. So those of you guys that have
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rotary connects at home, You can go ahead
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and put the rotary connect between your
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knees, and you can use it to help
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maintain the width while you're working
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on releasing the golf club, all that fun
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stuff.
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And then also another video that talks a
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little bit more how to use your hips in
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the golf swing is called Exactly that.
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It's called how to use your hips in the
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golf swing. It's a great video that Chuck
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did. We're going to show you that. It's
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okay to have a little bit of trail side
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push there, as long as we're not
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overcooking it to where we're causing a
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lot of these common swing faults that you
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might be battling with at home.
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All right, everyone. So I appreciate you
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tuning in this week. Now let's get out
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there, use our legs properly, and let's
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play some great golf. Make it a great
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day.
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