Welcome to Play Smarta regular GOLF.com game improvement column that will help you become a smarter and better golfer.
Shots hit on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Masters week may not count on the scorecard, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. The work that happens early in the week at Augusta National can often be the difference between wearing the green jacket and becoming another footnote in history.
In recent years, golf fans have gotten an even closer look at how players are going about this preparation. With the debut of Masters beam traceryou can see every shot hit in the practice set all week. It’s a golf nerd’s paradise.
Another neat integration comes courtesy of courtesy Using GOLFTEC’s OptiMotion from CBS technology. With it, they can destroy players’ swings like never before. This week, they captured defending champion Rory McIlroy’s swing — and highlighted a key move that all golfers can learn from.
Copy this move Rory
In the swing in the video above, you can see the distribution of weight between McIlroy’s feet throughout the swing.
The weight begins to be evenly distributed between both feet when he launches, and then it shifts to favor the trail side as he swings the club back. However, it does not continue to move away from the target throughout its recoil. Instead, his weight is maximally displaced from the target (about 65 percent) when his lead arm is parallel to the ground. Then, it gradually starts to turn back TO the objective.
By the time his backswing is complete, McIlroy has already begun to shift his weight back to his forehand side, with only 59 percent of his weight favoring his fairway side. This movement – known as recentering – is essential to hitting the ball hard and is seen in every good golf swing.
“When we look at amateur players – especially those who struggle to make consistent contact – we notice that they do NO follow the same pattern,” says Top 100 GOLF teacher Nick Clearwater. “Instead of shifting up to 20 percent of their weight toward the target from the top of the swing like the pros do, they typically shift only a fraction of that percentage.”
McIlroy’s swing demonstrates this swing well – and it’s something you should try to copy if you want to improve your golf swing.
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