Post by Richie3Jack on Apr 18, 2014 13:37:35 GMT -5
Here’s a swing I’ve been looking forward to see in a sequence stills. And Golf Digest has a near little collage of the swing from 3 different angles.
I had heard of Woodland in 2009, his first year on Tour. I was reading about his ball speeds going over 180 mph and him having a basketball background. I’m a big believer in basketball being a good sport for golfers. Long distance running seems to be good as well, but having an ex-girlfriend who was into long distance running I think it harms the body in the end. One of the things Tiger was known for was his long distance running and I think some of the issues with the knee could probably be traced back to that long distance running. I know Mac is a notorious runner and has had his fair share of injuries as well.
Basketball is running in spurts and then vertical jumping. When I think of former legitimately good basketball players that turned pro golfer I think of Nicklaus (supposedly had a scholarship offer at Ohio State for basketball), Dustin Johnson (38” vertical leap) and Woodland. And they all hit the ball a country mile.
Woodland struggled his rookie year despite his prodigious length. He just wasn’t ready for the Tour. Then in 2011 he really came around until his golf instructor, Randy Smith, left him after Woodland chose a different agency. From there, Woodland went to Butch Harmon and actually got much worse. Harmon wanted Woodland to flight the ball lower with the driver which I thought was ridiculous as generally high ball flights have the advantage on Tour and Woodland wasn’t hitting it too high (which can happen). So Butch’s prescription was to have Woodland practice with a high lofted driver and try and hit it low. They also worked on strategy and made Woodland into a very conservative player. Let’s just say the effects were not positive.
Eventually, Woodland started worth with Butch’s son, Claude Harmon III. Claude seems a little more diversified in terms of swing philosophy and is more familiar with the modern technology used in the game. He seems to try and find a swing that fits the golfer instead of getting the golfer to fit his swing. Here are Woodland’s rankings in the key ballstriking metrics over the years. With 2011 being under Randy Smith, 2012 under Butch and 2013 under Claude.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
This is a 2011 swing (Randy Smith). The grip looks fairly neutral. He incorporates more of a ‘flat spine’ posture than a rolled shoulders posture. The ‘flat spine’ can put a lot of pressure on the lower back as the back is not designed that way. And that is not actually ‘good posture’ in real life. This will likely cause a flatter shoulder turn in the backswing if anything.
The left foot is fairly square while the right foot is flared a smidge. This would promote more of a draw as the ‘swing circle’ is more likely to go out to the right.
Fairly standard takeaway. His clubface is more open here. My guess is that with the feet positioned the way they are at p1, that sets up for a draw. So by opening up the face at p2, that allows him to hit a ‘push-draw.’ Although I would be willing to bet that he assumes that the clubface is square here. It’s not. It’s perpendicular to the ground while being open to the arc.
I like that he hasn’t hyperextended the left arm. To me, that is often a killer for golfers. I throws them out of sequence, screws with their wrist motions and alignments, get the pivot and body’s mass off-center, can cause all sorts of screwy things in order to compensate.
The shaft is pointing at the baseline. His shoulders have turned downward a little, but are still turning more across than down.
Hard to not like P4 from the DTL view. I’m suspicious that P4 from the caddy view isn’t quite correct. This may be P4.1. Mainly looking at the knees. The DTL view the left knee looks fairly ‘kicked in’. From the caddie view it doesn’t look like that.
The clubface is square. Right knee, hip and shoulder are higher than the left counterpart. The right elbow is lower than the left elbow, but it is removed from his right rib cage. This is a p4 position that won’t require big compensatory moves to get into impact.
He looks to have a lot of lag, but he sorta cheats it as the hand path radius gets smaller. His shoulders are also well closed here. They should be closed, but to this degree is a bit much. I think this is where the square left foot at p1 is coming into play. So if there are more compensatory moves, it’s because of the transition made at p5, not his alignments at p4.
Unfortunately, Golf Digest almost never gets a picture of p6. But, it’s still good to show Woodland from p5 to p7-ish. He had very closed shoulders at p5 and then unwinds them so rapidly into p7 along with his hips. That’s a big power move as it means the rotational speed is quite high. We also see ulnar deviation of the left wrist. Clubface stability is superb here.
I’m not a big fan of left foot action here. He’s bordering on ‘spinning out’ and in the bad/amateur-ish way of ‘spinning out.’
Bubba Watson spins out, but it’s in a different fashion:
When Bubba ‘spins out’, he does it by getting the lead heel up in the air. And then the lead heel spins inward.
When the amateur golfer ‘spins out’, they have the lead toes up in the air. And then the lead toes spin outward.
For Woodland, he’s leaning more towards the amateur ‘spin out’ versus the Bubba spin out.
I think what was happening is that that because Woodland’s shoulders were so closed at p5, he was trying everything he could to open up the body at impact. And that meant a left foot action that was more like you would see in an amateur ‘spinning out.’
Obviously, Woodland is a really good ballstriker. But I think if he had lost his mind and wanted golf swing advice, I would try to flare out the left foot a little at p1, get less closed at p5, then use more of a Bubba Watson footwork action into and thru p7.
I had heard of Woodland in 2009, his first year on Tour. I was reading about his ball speeds going over 180 mph and him having a basketball background. I’m a big believer in basketball being a good sport for golfers. Long distance running seems to be good as well, but having an ex-girlfriend who was into long distance running I think it harms the body in the end. One of the things Tiger was known for was his long distance running and I think some of the issues with the knee could probably be traced back to that long distance running. I know Mac is a notorious runner and has had his fair share of injuries as well.
Basketball is running in spurts and then vertical jumping. When I think of former legitimately good basketball players that turned pro golfer I think of Nicklaus (supposedly had a scholarship offer at Ohio State for basketball), Dustin Johnson (38” vertical leap) and Woodland. And they all hit the ball a country mile.
Woodland struggled his rookie year despite his prodigious length. He just wasn’t ready for the Tour. Then in 2011 he really came around until his golf instructor, Randy Smith, left him after Woodland chose a different agency. From there, Woodland went to Butch Harmon and actually got much worse. Harmon wanted Woodland to flight the ball lower with the driver which I thought was ridiculous as generally high ball flights have the advantage on Tour and Woodland wasn’t hitting it too high (which can happen). So Butch’s prescription was to have Woodland practice with a high lofted driver and try and hit it low. They also worked on strategy and made Woodland into a very conservative player. Let’s just say the effects were not positive.
Eventually, Woodland started worth with Butch’s son, Claude Harmon III. Claude seems a little more diversified in terms of swing philosophy and is more familiar with the modern technology used in the game. He seems to try and find a swing that fits the golfer instead of getting the golfer to fit his swing. Here are Woodland’s rankings in the key ballstriking metrics over the years. With 2011 being under Randy Smith, 2012 under Butch and 2013 under Claude.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
This is a 2011 swing (Randy Smith). The grip looks fairly neutral. He incorporates more of a ‘flat spine’ posture than a rolled shoulders posture. The ‘flat spine’ can put a lot of pressure on the lower back as the back is not designed that way. And that is not actually ‘good posture’ in real life. This will likely cause a flatter shoulder turn in the backswing if anything.
The left foot is fairly square while the right foot is flared a smidge. This would promote more of a draw as the ‘swing circle’ is more likely to go out to the right.
Fairly standard takeaway. His clubface is more open here. My guess is that with the feet positioned the way they are at p1, that sets up for a draw. So by opening up the face at p2, that allows him to hit a ‘push-draw.’ Although I would be willing to bet that he assumes that the clubface is square here. It’s not. It’s perpendicular to the ground while being open to the arc.
I like that he hasn’t hyperextended the left arm. To me, that is often a killer for golfers. I throws them out of sequence, screws with their wrist motions and alignments, get the pivot and body’s mass off-center, can cause all sorts of screwy things in order to compensate.
The shaft is pointing at the baseline. His shoulders have turned downward a little, but are still turning more across than down.
Hard to not like P4 from the DTL view. I’m suspicious that P4 from the caddy view isn’t quite correct. This may be P4.1. Mainly looking at the knees. The DTL view the left knee looks fairly ‘kicked in’. From the caddie view it doesn’t look like that.
The clubface is square. Right knee, hip and shoulder are higher than the left counterpart. The right elbow is lower than the left elbow, but it is removed from his right rib cage. This is a p4 position that won’t require big compensatory moves to get into impact.
He looks to have a lot of lag, but he sorta cheats it as the hand path radius gets smaller. His shoulders are also well closed here. They should be closed, but to this degree is a bit much. I think this is where the square left foot at p1 is coming into play. So if there are more compensatory moves, it’s because of the transition made at p5, not his alignments at p4.
Unfortunately, Golf Digest almost never gets a picture of p6. But, it’s still good to show Woodland from p5 to p7-ish. He had very closed shoulders at p5 and then unwinds them so rapidly into p7 along with his hips. That’s a big power move as it means the rotational speed is quite high. We also see ulnar deviation of the left wrist. Clubface stability is superb here.
I’m not a big fan of left foot action here. He’s bordering on ‘spinning out’ and in the bad/amateur-ish way of ‘spinning out.’
Bubba Watson spins out, but it’s in a different fashion:
When Bubba ‘spins out’, he does it by getting the lead heel up in the air. And then the lead heel spins inward.
When the amateur golfer ‘spins out’, they have the lead toes up in the air. And then the lead toes spin outward.
For Woodland, he’s leaning more towards the amateur ‘spin out’ versus the Bubba spin out.
I think what was happening is that that because Woodland’s shoulders were so closed at p5, he was trying everything he could to open up the body at impact. And that meant a left foot action that was more like you would see in an amateur ‘spinning out.’
Obviously, Woodland is a really good ballstriker. But I think if he had lost his mind and wanted golf swing advice, I would try to flare out the left foot a little at p1, get less closed at p5, then use more of a Bubba Watson footwork action into and thru p7.
