How Can I Make My Downswing Sequence More Consistent in Golf?

🏌️‍♂️ Keeping your trail shoulder lower than your lead shoulder during the downswing can dramatically improve the quality of your golf strike.

📊 Technology like Optimotion helps golfers visualize and quantify their movement patterns for more consistent ball contact.

🎯 Achieving a shoulder bend closer to tour averages leads to more repeatable and successful shots, reducing thin and fat strikes.

🗣️ Using simple, relatable language in coaching—like focusing on shoulder tilt—can help students better understand and apply technical advice.

🔍 A quick checkpoint for golfers is to see if their trail shoulder is below their lead shoulder at finish, which correlates with better impact positions.

00:00:00I'm going to show you a shot. This drill's really working with a lot of my students and basically I get them to hit a shot and feel like trail shoulder is lower than lead shoulder on the way down. >> Okay. >> So, if we show on Optimotion the difference when that doesn't happen, it's huge for quality of strike >> 100%. That's changing your inclination to the ground. So, yeah, let's take a look at that. [Music] So Mark, here's the swing on the left that a lot of students probably struggle

00:00:31with. The tops, the thin shots, the inconsistent strikes. >> This is address obviously with both these. And then this is the swing you just made where we were talking about keeping your right shoulder down. So um let's talk a little bit about what you're looking at here first and then we'll go to impact and show the difference. >> So what I like about this is they're both very similar. >> Mhm. >> So you're going to see literally the outcome of the drill working compared to

00:00:52it not. I'm not butchering anything in setup. So, you've worked on your setups. You've got your setup in a good place, which is a great place for all golfers. >> Um, I'm ready to go. But mistakes can still happen. Getting your setup right doesn't mean you've won. It's a step towards winning. Now, if we move these into impact, >> quite the deviation away from that original number. >> So, you can see I've considerably stood up. So, this is shoulder bend. So, this

00:01:18is measuring my bend this way or this way. So we can see we've got a forwards an F for forwards towards the ball. So 37 on my better strikes to back down to 24 or up >> correct >> to 24 >> when I hit the ball. >> So the way that this should work is on average tour players start at about 40° forward. Okay. And then by the time they hit they're at 34. So there is some of that extension or that backwards movement that you're talking about but it's only about 6°. Okay. If we look at

00:01:47both of these, you are set up essentially, call it 43 to 45 degrees forward on both of them. Yeah. Um, big deviation here, almost 20 degrees, right? Compared to this one where we're much closer to that 6° range that we're looking for. So, this is again where I think OPTIMOTION can be really cool. You can see the color codes make it really easy for a student. As a coach, I would look at this and I go, "Yeah, even though the number's yellow, the pattern is what you want." >> Absolutely.

00:02:11>> Versus this one, blue generally means when we're talking with students like, "Oh, blue is more than tour average." That's typically a good thing. Yeah. >> Well, in this case, this is really bad. And what's really cool here is we've got these key points that we can highlight as well. So, I'm going to take us back to address. >> This is your inclination to the ground, both of these yellow lines, and then we look at impact. You can see how dramatically those inclinations have

00:02:32changed. That's what you're talking about when you're talking about quality of strike. >> 100%. the chances of me getting this club down to the ground in a position where my ball and ground contact is going to be repeatable and successful is really slim. Now, just out of interest for some like when I do videos in this, you get well, there are some great golfers who do really stand up and there is and they're great golfers. If I hit better shots making this movement, all

00:02:56Optimotion is allowing me to do is quantify what movement I make to allow me to make better shots. >> Correct? I would rather have this number cuz by luck it's closer to tour averages. I'm just falling into the averages. I'm in that middle bin. I could be an outlier and you could absolutely be an outlier, but on this occasion I'm absolutely not. >> This one I'm going to have to butcher this to try and get down to the ball. >> Something in here might need to happen.

00:03:25or I'm going to have to do a lot of this, which is a lowering, but then that's going to put the club way back behind the ball. >> A lot of fat shots. You'll still probably hit some tops and some thin ones. >> So, you see people get round this conundrum, >> but they do it in a way that makes them an outlier, unfortunately, on the lower end. >> Correct. >> Correct. They sacrifice speed, they sacrifice strike, they do all those things to basically compensate for this

00:03:49movement. So, what I really like about this is just the simplicity of describing in your finish your trail shoulder, your right shoulder being lower than your left. Yeah. And you can see with this swing, which is the one where you had that feeling, this movement pattern is very different than this one. Like, I would argue the right shoulder is still below your left shoulder in the bad swing. >> Yeah. >> But compared to this one, it's very, very different as far as what you get

00:04:11when you strike it. >> And also, what's really interesting with this is the the the language that I'm using to activate that action. is actually not really bend. >> Correct. >> I'm talking about being more this way at the top of the back swing which is actually tilt but by me having that feeling and using that language for lots of golfers watching it really improves that number. Correct. So that is the beauty of coaching with technology but then using language that resonates maybe

00:04:43with a student rather than me just going you need more shoulder bend and you hit the ball and them going how on earth do I do that >> and nobody's going to know how to do that. I think what's really cool about what you described is the when you finish it's very easy to tell is your trail shoulder below your lead shoulder like is my right shoulder is right-handed golfer below my left. Well if it's not I'm going to look like this. Well you wheel that back to impact. Now

00:05:06everything's much more vertical and it's going to be much harder to strike it. So really, really simple, easy checkpoint. Really, if this is a problem that you have, that'd be a great way to work towards solving it. And using some technology like this would just make it even easier. >> Absolutely. [Music]