Posts Tagged ‘Rickie Fowler – The Swing that won the 2016 Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship’

What you can learn from Rickie Fowler – The Swing that won the 2016 Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship

Rickie sets up to the ball in perfect posture, bent forward from the hips keeping his spine nice and straight and flexed at the knees. His arms are hanging freely down from his shoulders and away from his legs. Rickie’s set up is very athletic and dynamic and the other thing I really like here is how the clubhead is hovering just above the ground, this helps to reduce the tension in the hands, arms and shoulders which is key for longer distance. His body alignment is perfectly square with the feet, knees, hips, arms and shoulders all parallel to the target line.

As Rickie moves the club into the take away, notice how he does this in a one piece fashion, this is where the shoulders, arms, hands and club move away from the ball together. Hovering the club at the address promotes this and this really glues the rest of Rickie’s golf swing together. This is one thing that Rickie and his coach, Butch Harmon, have worked hard on. Rickie used to take the club away from the ball very closed and outside the target line and this forced Rickie to re route the club in the downswing which forced him to attack the ball too much from the inside causing a lot of inconsistency in his golf.

This is a perfect check point of the backswing – When the club reaches parallel to the ground it should also be parallel to the target line. Notice how the toe of the club points up towards the sky – this is a square clubface. Rickie’s old position when reaching this point would see the clubface in a very closed position with the clubface pointing more down towards the ground and the shaft of the club would be pointing left of target line.

Rickie shows a great example of an on plane golf swing. This is when on reaching the midway point of the backswing, the shaft of the club is pointing directly down at the target line.

At the top of the backswimg Rickie has fully turned his upper body over a very balanced and stable lower body. Notice how Rickie has let his right leg straighten a little which is perfectly fine as this allows the hips to rotate in the backswing which is so important as this works hand in hand with the upper body rotation. If you try to keep the right knee to flexed it will block your rotation in the backswing causing all kinds of inconsistencies.  Another thing I like about the top of Rickie’s backswing is how the clubface matches up to the left arm, this shows that the clubface is once again square to the arc of the swing.

Rickie starts his downswing perfectly with the weight transferring across from his right side to his left. This is achieved by the knees and hips moving across towards the target. Notice how Rickie keeps his back facing the target for as long as possible as this keeps the club moving down on plane.

Rickie is still unwinding from the ground up and is delaying the upper body from opening up to early. The swing is on plane, the shaft of the club once again points at the target line. This leads to a great swing path through the hitting zone and a lot of power.

The club is arcing in towards the golf ball really well, the body is still unwinding via the hips and legs and this chain reaction creates a lot of speed in the upper body which produces a ton of clubhead speed and therefore explosive distance.

Through impact Rickie’s arms are fully extended which releases the club in a free wheeling motion through the ball, this is something that should naturally happen. A lot of golfers I see collapse there arms through impact which robs them of clubhead speed and therefore distance.

Perfectly balanced in his finish position, this is a good trait among all the good players on tour these days and something that many amateurs could learn from.

If you want more easy to understand and informative tips especially on hitting the ball further then “How to crush the ball 20 yards further” is available NOW in the kindle store to download.

You can read the book on kindle by clicking >>>>HERE<<<<

You can also check out my Youtube Channel and subscribe for FREE by clicking >>>>HERE<<<<