Adjust your Centre of Gravity! - Wisdom in Golf - Shawn Clement transcript

So Sean here um for this week's newsletter uh I am uh you know by the time you get this I'll probably be in Paris by now. Uh so I just wanted to talk to you about how the center of gravity of the body and your setup with each club um can be modified to your advantage as far as your balance. if you're having an issue keeping your balance or you're having an issue uh with your range of motion in the back swing and stuff like that.

Now, uh the the the alignment of your feet does not necessarily have to be spot-on for certain clubs. All right? And that's why I say that. So, if we look at um I'm going to start with a wedge here. And we talked about how the ball sockets of the hips and the ball sockets of the shoulders are parallel to each other. Otherwise, I'd be walking around like quasimoto, right? And when as soon as I bring my hands together to take my grip, my hands and arms are going to tend to swing parallel to my ball socket system.

All right. Now, with a wedge, that's proper. So, I feel like you notice if I had too much of a closed stance with a wedge, well, I'd be physically in my own way. I'd have to, you know, reach away from my body. So, with the wedge, either square or slightly open is more proper. That's right out of the book from Hogan's Modern Fundamentals. That's part of the fundamentals that's actually pretty darn decent, especially for a shorter person with longer arms.

Okay, now we get to the other side of the spectrum and the woods. Now, if you remember my one leg video, so if I'm going from uh you know, a a standard twoft, you know, flatfooted drill or flat footed swing and I go to one leg, notice how my center of gravity just moved back and forward. So, if you look at it from this angle, see how my center of gravity is moving this way? So when I put my foot back, I now have a better frontto back balance.

So I have more resistance to the outward pull of this longer club. So that's why Hogan, who was a shorter person with longer arms, I'm a taller person with shorter arms. I have found benefit in both. So you look at uh guys like Fred Couples, they with the driver, they're wide open and they're they're swinging down the left side of the fairway, whereas Hogan had a closed stance, quote unquote. Well, what he was doing, he was taking his center of gravity and dropping it back and providing a much better forward to back balance situation.

So this I've recommended to a few of my students. And so from this position here, it doesn't mean that you're following the angle of your feet. You still want to continue to follow the direction of your intermediate point. So if I'm hitting a little fade here, so I'm lining up left edge, let's say, of my intermediate point. Drop that back. Notice the angle of my feet. I can still go wide away from that intermediate point to the left and swing left of that intermediate point and still hit a beautiful fade.

It would be much more difficult to do this with a wedge, however, because the the wedge is a much shorter club. My hands are hanging much closer to my body and now that that leg becomes a physical impediment. So for a draw, I'm aiming straight over that intermediate point. Play the ball back. Now I can get into a position here. So the bottom line, what I want to feel is when I swing to the right edge of that intermediate point, I feel like I'm going to be able to to to hold my balance supremely in position.

So right now it feels like this feels really solid. It feels like I can really whip with some nice intensity if my trailing leg my trailing leg is a little bit further back. And that gives me my center of gravity. It just drops my center of gravity further back. And it gives me much better forward to back balance. So for those of you who are having issues with your balance and you feel like you're falling on your toes even when you're swinging out toward the target, well then have a go at that.

I think that you'll find some nice success uh in in this particular type of setup. So again, stay with your intermediate point. You say, "Okay, if I'm over here, feels like I'm going over the intermediate point." Play the ball a hair back, feels like I could have access to the right side. Then change your feet and feel like you're going to stay with the right side of that intermediate point. So, as long as you feel that you can swing in that direction and you feel like the low point of the swing is slightly in front of the ball, it's all good.

Okay? So, I hope you enjoyed that. And over the course of the summer, if you haven't uh registered for the YouTube Premium channel, again, it's only $4 a month. It it really helps cover all the costs of of our production uh with Matt uh who's got his production company. Now, we're going to have an amazing tool this year with that drone. So, we'll have some nice overhead views of this particular setup that I talked about, and we'll be able to to really identify the shot making.

You know, I'm going to we're going to pick the target. We're going to see what the target looks like. We're going to practice setting up to that target, and this is going to be part of that package. So, can't wait. We'll see you soon.