I once shot a par round using this left
shoulder in the downswing move, want to know what it is, keep watching.
So what was this left shoulder move in the downswing I was doing that helped me
shoot a par around the golf? Well I was having one of those days. I was hitting
the driver not too bad, hitting a lot of fairways striking it pretty well. But,
after three or four holes I found myself a few over par things weren't going
great and I could not hit an iron shot to save myself from the fairway.
Every time I was
on the short stuff, I was hitting toe shots thin shots hitting it fat I was just not
getting the ball first. I wasn't getting that compression on the golf ball. Now
I thought long and hard at the time. Well, you don't get much time during a
round and I went back to some basics with this left shoulder about keeping it
low in the downswing that rarely gets talked about in golf instruction. And
something I was shown a few years back and so many pros do it but it never gets
spoken about.
And all I did was and I'll go into a bit more detail about why this can
really help your game. When I was getting to the top of my
backswing, as I was starting down I, was lifting that lead shoulder up
in this position straight away and all that was doing was making my
club bottom out back here somewhere and I was using a lot of hands and arms
to really flip at the golf ball. And from this angle I was getting
a lot of toe shots as well so from this angle, it was looking like
this my hips were driving forward I was early extending. If you do
any of those things you early extend you get toe shots fat shots I was
looking like that relying a lot on my hands and arms which i could do not too
bad to get any sort of contact on the golf ball so what i started doing was
i had one swing thought in my head as i started my downswing i went to the top
and i felt like that lead shoulder that left shoulder for a right-hander went
down at the start of that downswing it only probably moved maybe maybe an inch
maybe two inches doesn't move a lot but what that was doing was
that little move there was enabling my club
to bottom out just past the golf ball and i discovered
i started hitting my irons flush they were coming off the center of
the club face and even though i didn't hit every green
from then on in whenever i missed a green i was only
missing it just off the back or just to the side so my ball striking improved
immediately just by getting that feel in my head
getting that lead shoulder lower to start that down swing and i just started compressing and
everything just flowed on beautifully from there
so let's talk about why getting this lead shoulder left shoulder low in this
downswing is so powerful for you now this left shoulder getting lower in
the downswing it has a few really key benefits that are going to help your
game one thing it does is it really helps you get that shift
when you get that pressure into your back foot and your backswing it really
helps you get that shift into that lead side
it also helps you get those hands dropping a bit lower
and staying more on top of the ball covering the ball as you probably heard
which enables you to compress on the golf ball
nice and solid and when you can do that the ball will go further and a lot
straighter so as i get onto one here
and it also helps you stay in much better posture which means
you don't have to rely on your hands and arms let me show you what i'm talking
about when you get that lead shoulder going down
as we go down helps me maintain my tush line at the
back here i don't early extend when that shoulder goes down
i can maintain a better posture through to the golf ball
and strike a lot more solid i played with my father many years ago
and he always used to say to me used to love
when his ball ended up in the light rough just off the edge of the fairway
and i remember asking him why do you want to land in the rough don't you want
to land on the fairway but he loved landing in the rough because it meant
that the ball was a little bit teed up as long as it didn't sink down in the
rough but it was a little bit teed up and he could pull out his
you know five iron six iron seven iron and he could just
scoop on it like that lift it into the air and he'd get it up
somewhere on the green or beside the green and he was playing to maybe 16 17
18 quite comfortably for many years
now problem that was that was when he was on
the short stuff on the fairway when he lifted that lead shoulder up
very quickly which is what he used to do he'd invariably hit way behind the ball
he did slices thin shots toe shots and he'd be in all sorts of trouble
so when you do the opposite and you keep
that lead shoulder high straight away so if you have a look at your swing on
video now and you've noticed as you start down
you're like this that lead shoulder goes up straight away what you'll find
happens is you're clubbing the bottom out
way back here or
you'll catch the ball on the up swing you'll hit it thin or toe it
like that it's very difficult to save the shot
when you're lifting that lead shoulder up straight away like that so just a
simple tweak to your game simple feeling in this downswing of that
lead shoulder can make a massive difference if there's one thing i want you to understand from
this video is is that getting that left shoulder low
whereas the opposite getting higher is it changes the low point on your
swing and that's something i really want you to understand because if you're
someone that lifts it up high like this it changes that point the club hits the
ground it'll be terribly inconsistent it doesn't matter whether you've got an
iron in your hand or a driver if you're changing your low point that's why
you're going to hit one good shot one hole and you'll hit a bad one the next
if you can keep that low point consistent which is what this left
shoulder low is going to do you can keep that left shoulder low
consistent you can consistently bottom out and have
a low point the same every time that means more
consistent golf by the way this also works
great with your hybrids and your driver as well it's just more effective with
your irons because the key part with the irons as i said is hitting the golf ball
first and the divot after so with those other clubs you'll still get benefit
but the idea is you want that lead shoulder going down
so you're able to really compress on the golf ball i'm going to show you a pro
golfer swing in just a moment make sure you don't miss this because it will show
exactly how this left shoulder is moving now i just want to make it clear from
this angle here it will go down how much it goes down
will depend on the golfer everyone's different but as it goes down it will
only be for a split second it will go down then the shoulders will
level out and that lead left shoulder will go
up and back so very important that you don't sort of
doing sort of this move here it's going down then the shoulders will level out
and then they'll move back have a look at this video swing of tony
finau from face on i want you to pay special attention to the green line at
the top of his head as if completes his back swing watch
what his head does it drops about only about an inch or so but as that happens
naturally that leads shoulder is going down as well he's shifting pressure into
his lead side the arms are dropping down and he's coming through to a great
impact position and this is something you can copy now if you've got a really bad move with
your left shoulder where you really savagely lift it up high like that you
may need to feel the exact opposite and this is what i encourage you to do
do the exact opposite until you find a happy medium so you're
going to need to feel you'll probably need to feel like it's
down like that it won't be like that when you hit the golf ball i guarantee
you that it won't look like that but that's what
it will feel like you'll need to feel the opposite
like this and then rotate really really important
as you're doing this it goes down a little bit then you get
your rotation you get your rotation going from there you will start striking the ball
very solid so let's look at a drill that you can practice and build this into
your game here's a simple pump drill that i
recommend you practicing to build this move into your game by the way this will
work for any level golfer whether you're a higher
handicap a low handicap even to the better player you will benefit from
practicing this drill in this left shoulder move in your golf swing by the
way it's troy from hitting it solid here if you're new here make sure you like
the video if you find you're getting benefit of it drop a comment if you want
to ask me a question about the video maybe there's something you still don't
understand drop a comment i will get back to you let's hit one so all i'm going to do
is i'm going to make my back swing get my set up and i'm going
to do a pump drill going one two and three and i'm focusing on that left shoulder going low as i start the down
swing let's do it nice and easy we're just gonna go one
two and three simple little pump drill practice that feeling that left shoulder
low that will help you strike the ball more consistently now this video here
and this video here they're going to go into more detail about this left
shoulder in the whole golf swing as well as the right shoulder and get you
playing fantastic golf.