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The swing change that led to Aaron Baddeley’s 1st win in 4 years

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Tour Radius – Scott Hamilton from OnTour Golf on Vimeo.

When you look at the stats, the difference between the game’s top players can sometimes be difficult to sort out. The fractional differences in each skill between players can add up to a great performance or a missed cut. As an instructor, it can be difficult to decide what to work on when the statistics don’t point to a glaring weakness.

That wasn’t the case when I started working with Aaron Baddeley. It was clear from the start that we had to work on his full swing. The best he had ranked tee-to-green since his last PGA Tour win four seasons ago was 157th. Each year he managed to keep his card by being a legendary putter. In those same four years since his last victory, he never ranked worse than 8th in Strokes Gained Putting (he even ranked 1st in 2015). The stats made it very clear. Aaron needed to improve his performance on full shots. My task was simple, if I could help turn the Tour’s best putter into a better ball striker, success would follow.

Last week, Aaron won his first event since 2011 at The Barbosol Championship in Alabama. Ranking 8th in both Strokes Gained: Tee to Green and Putting, his performance with his full swing finally matched his putter. The combination added up to victory.  In an interview after his win, Aaron mentioned us finding the root of his problem and the hard work we’ve done to fix it.

I made a video about his swing change earlier this year, and thought I’d share it with everyone here at GolfWRX.

Aaron’s Swing Change

Applying It to Your Game

This video is part of Scott Hamilton’s “The Iron Swing” series from OnTOURGolf.com. You can watch the first nine chapters of the series by signing up here. 

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Currently teaching 14 PGA Tour players, Scott Hamilton is a staple on the PGA Tour range each week. In 2015, a poll of PGA Tour players conducted by Golf Digest ranked him as the No. 2 instructor on the PGA Tour. His players like him for his ability to conduct a complete analysis of their games and return a simple solution to help them play better. “You get the result you want without all the big words.” as Scott often says.

19 Comments

19 Comments

  1. Dominick Miernicki

    Aug 22, 2016 at 1:52 pm

    The premier online golf community. Industry news, equipment reviews, tour photos, discussion forums, and classifieds.

  2. Kb

    Jul 30, 2016 at 11:54 am

    You’d know, considering you’re a large woman yourself

  3. Ramrod Ray Reardon

    Jul 23, 2016 at 9:35 am

    Swing fixes for pros are largely useless for the average hacker who cannot move their upper and lower body independently. Pros can. Back pain awaits people trying to stay in the same spine angle throughout the swing. Not a great thing to copy IMO.

    • bobilla

      Jul 29, 2016 at 2:21 pm

      I don’t think you’re doing it right.

  4. tom

    Jul 22, 2016 at 8:23 pm

    Scott looks like Roger Clemens.

  5. don d.

    Jul 22, 2016 at 8:01 am

    a win is a win . no masters though. aaron is one of the good guys. great in pro ams.

  6. gunna22

    Jul 22, 2016 at 3:34 am

    Such an annoying accent

    • Tyler

      Jul 27, 2016 at 2:02 pm

      That’s all you got out of this article? Which state/country are you from that you don’t have an ugly accent to someone from another state/country? Keep your annoying comments to yourself bro.

  7. 300 Yard Pro

    Jul 21, 2016 at 12:22 pm

    Weak field. That’s why he won.

  8. Christian

    Jul 21, 2016 at 9:28 am

    Did he need to flatten the lie of his irons after the swing change?

    • bobizzle

      Jul 29, 2016 at 2:40 pm

      His initial swing fault was coming out of his spine angle, straightening out, and getting the handle a lot higher at contact. If you maintain the correct spine angle and tilt down and through contact by focusing on keeping your butt back, the swing has to flatten in order to make a solid strike. Your arms will naturally want to fall almost vertically, placing your hands lower and closer to your body. That little bob down and back to straight with the lead leg at or just after contact helps whip the club head through the impact zone. Tiger did that to an exaggerated degree, I believe to his detriment. Didn’t help his left knee out much, or his current back issues, but the demands and forces he put on his body year after year have seemingly come home to roost in the form of a spectacular but shortened career. Know your own body. Swing accordingly.

  9. YackNWilt

    Jul 21, 2016 at 1:59 am

    Lets not forget why Badds went awry to begin with: he got suckered by Stack & Tilt !!!!
    That’s what got him all out of whack in the first place.
    Now he’s back to a more normal move into the ball. He used to swing great back when he won the Australian.
    Just needed to get his old swing back before he went to Stack

  10. SB

    Jul 21, 2016 at 1:28 am

    happy to see aaron back on winner track! good training also, i should give it a try.

  11. kev

    Jul 20, 2016 at 8:11 pm

    sure would like to understand why the butt comes in or goat humping. is it because of pushing off the right foot too hard?

    • Jack

      Jul 20, 2016 at 9:51 pm

      I used to do this, because it felt like I was getting more power off it. It was so ingrained that I felt like I was not going to hit it as far if I didn’t do it. I got rid of it mostly through watching instant replays of my swing every time, and just working on hip rotation. With the hip rotating instead of humping air (LOL) it just provided more power rather than less. It’s important to keep that spine angle intact as well. This really helped my issue with drawing the ball too much as bumping the hips towards the ball caused my wrist angle to become flat and the club was more upright promoting a more close clubface and causing the ball to fly/curve left.

    • Kevin B

      Jul 20, 2016 at 10:39 pm

      I did this move because my backswing was to fast and my lower body couldnt catch up and I would goat hump sometimes even OTT.

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Instruction

Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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