I got a call from the father of one of my regular students, a high school golfer. His son, Josh, was playing poorly in matches and the playoffs were coming up next week, and as he said, Josh was in need of major 'surgery.'
Josh has been working with me for around three years and is a great example of the PPGS, with a real good dynamically balanced setup, including the trademark wide knees. His swing is a classic limited turn with the ¾ backswing to the T-finish square to the target. I have a policy that with junior golfers, I want a parent, the one most involved with the player, to be present to watch the lesson. Because many parents don't know what I am teaching their child, they must be 100 percent aware of and completely understand exactly what we worked on, so they will not ever comment on the swing with points that will differ from what we have worked on. I tell them that when they play or practice or watch their child compete, they will know exactly what to look for and what to say that will help improve their child's swing and playing. For their child's development there can be no confusion and contradictions.
Like all lessons with regular students, I started by asking for a report on his ball striking, wanting to know the good and the bad and the in between, and his stats on hitting fairways and greens. The good, which was not much, but really important, was that he was driving the ball exceptionally well in both distance and direction. His middle and long iron play was at best fair and playable. The big problem was short irons, wedges thru 7 iron. He was hitting a lot of really bad chunky shots and, with the wedges, an occasional thin/skull.
I then gave Josh his target and had him warm up hitting sand wedges as I began my evaluation, checking off and filling in my diagnosis and prescription (D & P) form. I then had him hit some 7 irons, then some 4 irons and he finished up with his driver. I saw the problem in his first swing and wrote in the forward upswing line: 'Head/spine drops 4 to 6 inches down.' The top half of the D & P form is all about setup, with around 30 points to check. Looking at his setup face on, the problem jumped out like a blinking neon sign. His stance was too narrow, in particular the right foot.
The peak performance stance is basically shoulder wide. The left foot is the one that varies the width based on the club being hit. For wedges, the outside of the left foot is under the outside of the shoulder. With the longer clubs the left foot moves a little left and maxes out for the driver with the inside of the left foot under the outside of the left shoulder. These parameters can change a little per individual, but suffice it to say, the PPGS stance is never wider than both feet outside of the shoulders.
The right foot is always in the same position with the center of the foot under the outside edge of the right shoulder, for all clubs. This never changes as it is the foundation for the pre-loaded, heavy right position. The left foot moving left is what creates the widening of the stance.
Josh's problem was that he had his right foot too much under, thus inside the outside edge of his right shoulder. He was in reasonable balance at the top of his backswing. But when he started his transition to the forward upswing, the balance went out the window. With the lower body shifting left, the upper body, with the spine and head tilting backward/right, as it should, be became unstable. With the right foot and leg not wide enough, and thus under the upper body, it collapsed downward when the spine shifted backwards in the transition.
The prescription was easy. Widen the right foot to where the middle of the foot was under the outside edge of the right shoulder. For Josh, this meant moving the inside of his right foot to where the outside edge was, or to the right, the width of his foot. His upper body was now stable and could remain tall and level with his right foot now under him at the top of the backswing. In the transition, when his lower body shifted to the left , and his upper torso responded with the 'secondary spine angle tilt to the right,' his head and shoulders stayed tall and level, so his arms had room to straighten out at impact and he was back to hitting shallow divots and solid shots from the first swing.
A golf swing cannot be fixed if there are setup problems. Since a golf swing abides by the laws of physics of cause and effect, the effect is the motion and the cause is based on setup, which is the foundation for the motion. Remember: 'THE SETUP DETERMINES THE MOTION.'
The Surge!
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