– Welcome back to Naples. I'm Adam Bazalgette, two-time PGA teacher of the
year award winner down here. Today's subject, a really
top young player on tour Patrick Reed, let's have
a look at his swing. (upbeat music) So Patrick Reed, one of the
really shining young stars. Great for America in the Ryder Cup. That's coming up here in a month, but he was a big inspiration last time. We'll have a look at his swing. There's a lot of good things in there, couple of idiosyncrasies. I'll come out at the end, and I'm gonna give you some ideas not specifically about his swing, but how you can get the most out of looking at tour player's swings and how to apply things
properly to your swing and the way I think you
should go about that. How to be a little bit more discerning. And also maybe where
should put your attention when you do these things, I
hope you'll find that helpful. If you like this video please
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My home website is scratchgolfacademy.com offering courses in
every aspect of the game. You can also go there to learn how you can get a personal
swing evaluation from me online. Let's get started. So there is Patrick Reed hitting a drive. Now he's gonna hit this ball right about that direction is where
he's gonna start this ball. Let's just test that. Yeah, kinda right where he's going. So now he may be shaping it a little, I'm not totally sure there. But let's have a look. Now this guy is six feet
tall, loads of confidence as he plays, the guy
is just one of the best young players on the tour,
that's the way it is. He's gonna be a solid Ryder Cup player. He's got some guts and
some fight in him for sure. So he's good. So let's see what makes him good, but interestingly enough
as we look at this there are a couple of idiosyncrasies
that are a little odd.
And that's what we're
gonna talk about primarily. And even when I come out
at the end of the video, and it's kinda interesting
to look at the whole package so if you notice where
he's hitting the ball, which is there. He's stance is pretty close to
that, at least his feet are. Obviously his shoulders are pretty square. Now watch what he does here. When we get into the basics
of his swing in just a moment, watch his left foot. His lead foot right there,
kind of an interesting move. Watch it leaves the ground,
but replaces itself there. Kind of unusual look, but look at that from the front angle, I'll give an opinion on that. The reality is that my opinion
doesn't matter for much, 'cause the guy's winning
millions of dollars every year. So what I think doesn't matter. Now what he's doing well, and that's perhaps a
significant thing to look at. I mean that's a beautiful take away.
Great look there, his arms
just nicely across his body. His clubs on a good plane. Beautiful position at the top. The toe hangs a little
down and a little open but just a touch and for
a player of his caliber that's not gonna be any obstacle at all. Nice balance in the legs. Very dynamic lower body movement. You'll see how beautifully
the arms respond to the body, how passive they are. Club's on a great plane. His arms are nice and close to him. That's a great delivery of the club but so I mean, other than the
feet and maybe the right hand look at that deal with
the right hand there. Couple golfers that you've seen do that, you've probably heard this
on other analysis videos would be VJ and Freddie
Couples both do that.
I happen to have VJ close
by years ago at Orlando. See that same kind of
look for the right hand. Comment on that, not, I'm not really sure. It doesn't seem to be
affecting the quality of play, you could certainly say that,
so it's just an idiosyncrasy. Obviously he has control of
the club where it counts. Which is there, otherwise he wouldn't have control of the ball but it does fly off there, I
think that's a little unusual And there's that left foot thing. Now, let me just show
you his iron swing here. Here's him hitting an iron, it's kind of a close up
view with the camera. Yeah, nice simple back swing. Really dynamic look in the lower body.
Let me tell you, you can't get your arms and clubs in a better position than that. His arms are right up underneath him and his club is right
up that right forearm, and right down onto the ball. and as good as his body motion is, just look how turned he is, look how he stays over
the ball with his chest. And if you can't hit the ball do that, I mean obviously he can,
there's something wrong. Because that is a great delivery. And if you look here, look at his left foot
it doesn't really move, not anything like in the same
way it does with his driver. Give me a filler on that in a moment, and actually nor does his right hand. Now I don't have a library
of iron swings of this guy but I'm telling you if
he did it on that swing at this stage of his career, that's pretty typical of his iron swing and it really great exit
point of the club there. The face isn't at all rolled over, I mean that's just a classic look there.
Now let's have a look from the front view. Yeah, nice set up, nice
grip, nice simple take away. Great blend of body and arms. Thick strong guy. This guy's won 5 PGA tour events, so he's no flash in the pan here. Really dynamic look of his lower body. look how the club loads towards him. Now watch that foot,
jumps back out of the way. And here's why I think he does that. First off I'm not even sure
he's aware that he does it. He probably is anecdotally
now that he's seen it on film.
But as he's hitting, his
mind is made that up. I think he leans quite a
lot way on that right foot. It's pretty well planted, but
he's got so much force coming through here, and so
much energy in his body. That it's almost got
to find like an outlet, and it skids that foot back
to help him turn through. Just one of those things
the genius of the mind can figure out and make work. And my guess is with his iron
he's shifting quite a bit more weight to his left side,
that would be fairly normal for a player to have his
hips or his body in general a little nearer the target
over here on an iron. And with more weight off his right foot he can turn through a little easier and he doesn't need to
slid that left foot. But when he's planted, just to get some stress and
some relief, he skids that foot. Not sure exactly about that right wrist, but, again what makes this guy so good isn't the skid of the foot or
the flip of the right wrist, its all the other things he does so well.
I mean, jeez what a great pivot. Great load of the club,
super dynamic, right through and don't forget this guy's
got a lot of intangibles. I play golf professionally at a very small level not on a PGA Tour. And you can talk about it, you can like the way you're
hitting it on the range but when you're really
out there, when it counts most people find that a very
challenging difficult situation I know I did. But this guy thrives on it. He's out there, he's
not afraid of the fight, he's got a lot of intangibles So let's get back out
there and let's talk about a couples things we might
want to pay attention to relative to that analysis.
So what can we learn from
Patrick Reed's swing? I'm gonna try and give you two things. Two kind of systems of thought or ways to go about looking
at tour players swings. Not necessarily specifically his, but I think you'll find these helpful. Because you're probably someone if you're up watching YouTube videos who likes to look at swings. By the way an old friend of mine actually got me my first
really good job in golf. It's a guy called Wayne DeFrancesco. You may have seen his
video analysis online. If you want full in-depth
painstaking treatments of people's swings, he
does a fabulous job. You might wanna check those out. But let's talk about what you can learn from
Patrick Reed's swing. First thing is okay his
foot moves, his right wrist does something a little
funky after he hits it. But remember the thing that
really creates the shot is the golf club. This is first cause, and you should think a
little bit more that way. So the ball doesn't react to the fact his foot has moved.
The ball reacts to the fact
he delivers the club so well. Now, a classic example: I've taught golf full
time for nearly 30 years. People come in all the time
with a huge great big slice lot of people have that. I like to ask people what
they think is going on just to kind of pick their
brains, see what's happening Someone, let's say, has a huge slice. So I'll say why do you think
that's happening in your game? and they might say well I'm
not turning my hips enough or I'm not bending my arm
or my back swing's too long or whatever else it is. But believe it or not,
it is rare that someone will say to me, I think my
club face might be wide open at the moment I'm hitting the ball That would be the correct answer. That's what influencing the ball. Not your hips turn of
your arm position per se.
So make it a habit, pay
attention to the golf club first. What's it doing, how's
it's being delivered. What are the angles. To some extent your body
will come in around that and help you move well. Now certainly, I'm not suggesting don't work on your body motion. But club first, that's why a
guy with these idiosyncrasies doesn't matter because he
delivers the club well. Okay, second thing is, when
you're looking at tour pros and I've had this habit over the years. I pick someone out with
the body style I like and a motion I think is really good.
And I think I wanna swing like that guy. But try to pick people roughly of your own general
stature and what not. And here's the key, look for common denominators
that players like that do well. Don't try to short cut
and soft of leap frog to some magic cure by looking
at their idiosyncrasy, and saying wow, he moves his
foot or whatever like that. Maybe that would give me more power and copy the idiosyncrasy Copy the common denominator. I'm from England, there's a
famous business man there. You've doubtless heard of Richard Branson. Billionaire. One of the quirks of his business, he has never had, and still
doesn't have an office. Has no office, he's worth like $4 billion. He meets people for lunch, he meets 'em at one of his
houses et cetera, et cetera. That's an idiosyncrasy. That isn't the thing you copy if you're trying to get good in business. You do all the things he does well; promotion whatever he
does well, great ideas, these sort of things, hard work. Discipline yourself when
you look at tour pros look at people who maybe move
a little bit more like you.
Body style wise, and look for
the things they're doing well that are common to players that are good at hitting the golf ball. And those are the things
you should practice. Hope these couple of ideas
maybe help you discipline your thinking a little bit more. Pay attention to the golf
club, that's first cause. And look for the common denominators, don't try to jump towards
some idiosyncrasy. Hope that helps. I hope you found that helpful. Wonderful player hope
my comments at the end give you a little more discernment about looking at different golfers. Scratchgolfacademy.com is my website, we're offering courses in
every aspect of the game.
You can also learn how
you can get a one-on-one video analysis online with me. Hope you subscribe to the channel here. We'd love to get you more free content, as always I appreciate your time..