From a five-hole playoff in Detroit to the exciting winners across the LPGA, LIV, DP World, and Korn Ferry Tours, this weekend had it all. Scott recaps the action—including Aldrich Potgieter’s historic PGA Tour win, Patrick Reed’s home-turf triumph at LIV Dallas, clutch team play at the LPGA Dow Championship, rising talent on the Korn Ferry Tour, and Adrien Saddier’s emotional win on his 200th DP World Tour start.
Plus, a quick review of Potgieter’s ultra-strong grip— the positive and negatives of such a grip, how it opens the clubface and why keeping your own grip neutral may help you maintain a more square face through impact. Because at the end of the day, the game rewards those who take control, lean into their habits and Own Your SSWING.
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Your Weekly Drive: The Friday Fix for Golf Movement & Mastery
Good day golfers. Ever found yourself redirecting blame and making excuses after having an absolute shocker on a golf course? I know that I have. Range was closed. I was a little cold. Didn’t warm up. I hit it in those three old divots. Then we have the podcast for you. We focus on how to fundamentally own your swing. Strike it pure and consistently shoot in the 70s. Be it if you’re a weekend hack, retired and playing daily, a school phenom, or a tour professional, we present and discuss facts and physics pertaining to golf, trying to keep our ego and opinion at bay. We dispel myths such as keep your head down, bend your knees, or my all-time favorite, game improvement irons. So, stop drinking that mythical Kool-Aid and have a sip of ours. I think you’ll find it both inspiring and refreshing. I’m Scott Young, founder of Swing, PGA professional and ex- tour player. Welcome to Pivot the Path. Good day, golfers, and welcome to Pivot the Path. I hope you pivoted your path last week as per and you’ve had a great week. This comes finding us very strong off a great week of golf uh finishing yesterday with the young 20-year-old South African/ Aussie uh winning his first PGA Tour event. more about that in a little bit and we’ll get into improvement pivot point which we’re actually watching uh our young South African lad and how he grips the golf club and how it affects kind of your approach because what I’m noticing is that when someone wins a tour event then all of a sudden the golf community try that whatever it is that idiosyncrasy with that person so potar big young strapping South African Aussie uh and we’ll see how it affects your improvement pivot point. And we’re just saying, hey, pump the brakes to to to doing what they do, understand what they do, then if you want to adopt it, knock yourself out. So, news from the fairways. I’m loving the McLaren dominance of F1 right now. So, once again, Lando and Oscar win the Austrian GP one and two, which is pretty cool. The LPGA had the teams event, which I think is really good for a player. I think it gives the players a bit of a week off of pressure cooker golf and it just allows them to be a little bit of a normal normal golfer. So I love when the old teams event not too many obviously because it’s very boring from a customer point of view but I think for the golfers it’s great to to to build the camaraderie on the tour and uh and play a little bit of a teams format which is great. So we had Jinhi Lim and Somi Lee won the old DA teams event. So good luck ladies. On the illustrious corn ferry, we had Austin Sutherman. He fired an eight under final round. Chap couple of groups ahead fired a 10under. So those boys can flat out play. He wins by one. Austin, I think it’s his second or third win. So mate, great job you. You’re obviously destined for PGA Tour. And as I said, anyone on Cornferry could literally be picked up. Put in PGA Tour and away they go. So uh so so mate, fantastic for him. DP tour. Frenchman Adrien Sadier pieced together a very tidy little four under to finish 14 on the DP tour. So in Italy, fantastic work as we get towards the British Open. So it’ll be interesting to see who kind of comes to that feray which is which is pretty solid indeed. Live to us saw us play back here in the US down in Dallas and Patrick Reed uh scrambled his first little win for a while. So, first playoff hole there. And actually, Liv’s kind of struggling in my book. I think uh you guys probably all saw the media when Brooks kept a wailed on one of the T- markers there. I think Liv, and this is just my personal view. I don’t have anything to back this up. Obviously, I haven’t spoken to any Liv players. To me, Liv is really struggling in terms of golfers being competitive and receiving that adrenaline boost of competitive golf. I think, and again, nothing to back this up, just my opinion, I think the LE tournament players, apart from someone like Bryson who’s really used that money to he’s building a community in his local neighborhood, I mean, the the guy is just on fire. But for a lot of the other golfers, they’ve literally taken the money and run it. It it appears that they’ve lost the competitive juice to play golf. And apart from say Wim. And it’s funny that I look at Brooks and I see Brooks a little negative about the fact that he’s kind of cailed his career very early, obviously financially set. Same with with Dustin, but it it’s like they’ve lost their mojo and so I hope something happens sooner rather than later. I’m not sure what Bryson’s doing with the end of his contract, but I really hope golf gets back to, you know, PGA Tour. I think the PGA2 will be far stronger. But also for the likes of, you know, Cameron Smith, Brooks, we’ve got Dustin. They’re kind of in this no man’s land of not playing many events. They’ve guaranteed money. Anyway, I I feel Liv’s really struggling. So hopefully they can sort that out and get that back on uh back on track there. Which leads us to the PGA Tour, the Rocket Mortgage. And what an event. And again, PGA Tour compared to live. PJ2 is buzzing right now. I think uh a lot of that has to do with the upcoming RDER Cup here here locally in Beth Paige and and and how much our fearless captain is doing to promote that. But the young South African raised in Australia actually he was interviewed and I was expecting a very deep South African accent and he was an Aussie accent. Mr. Uh Aldridge Potgeistister Potger uh was just this big strapping rugby playing athlete who grips it extremely strongly which is what we’re going to do for our improvement pivot point in a second. Uh kids 20 years of age. He lost in a playoff for about three two three months ago. And so he had his first PGA tour win. And Chris Kirk was the old man of the group. he was 40 and uh it was just fantastic to see this young kid who’s who hits at 350, 360, 370 and just get it done. So his first PGA Tour victory sacrificed quite a bit to move from South Africa to Australia, from Australia to the US. His old man was there and it was just a fantastic event. So power to PGA Tour. I’m loving the new technology with shot tracer or whatever the technology is where they put on the ball flight whether it’s green or red so quickly in the air. I think that’s very cool. Uh I’m not sure how the tech is doing that but it it’s pretty damn awesome. So shout out to PGA Tour and some of our locals we follow. Cam Davis didn’t play. Cam Young came tied 46. So it looks like the US Open might have given young Cam Young a bit of a swift kick up the butt. and Mingu Lee came tied 13th. And then just a shout out for an Aussie who I know, Harrison Endicott. Harry’s back playing his second tour event this year. He came tied 82nd. Harry, good to see you back in the mix. Which leads us to on the greens for the young family and what we’re doing in our personal journey and growth in golf. Obviously, fresh off the Irish trip, I wanted to really make sure that I was under coming into impact, getting a little more shallow. So, tick the goal. I achieved that. We’ll put some video. I do apologize for my neon white legs. So, my beautiful bride always wants me to wear shorts and I never show my legs in public. I should have a law actually should be a local law 11 like we have here for the scaffolding of the building. We should do local law 12. S Young shouldn’t show his legs. So, they are white. When I tell you my legs are white, I look like a vampire. So, apologies if we upload that video. You have to put on some sunnies. Uh, but I got the club shallow and I was underneath my right elbow, trail elbow into impact. So, goal achieved. I’ve just got to now cement that to habit. And remember playing with Fo and Fo used to say most golfers are subconsciously incompetent, meaning they’re not very good. The hard part is going from consciously competent to make sure you work on the right thing. And then Faldo once said to me a couple of times, it’s hard to get a golfer subconsciously competent. So you’ve got to think about doing the right thing, but the hard part is becoming subconscious at doing the right thing. So that’s where I’m at right now. We’re building a habit. Takes about two two or three two or three months. So we all always talk about our community here being patient. Practice your technique. Become consciously competent in here. The hard part is becoming habit. So I’m I’m working my way towards that. And then we had my 15year-old Isabella and my little guy seven cult. and ma grandma mom walked around with us. Mom’s 80 plus and you know not not quite swinging the golf club anymore. But the four of us walked around nine holes of golf and it was absolutely hysterical and we just laugh laughed. Colton drove it on two greens at the age of seven and smashed into this cart with this lady ahead of us. I don’t know why she was driving a golf cart on a green. Um but my little guy’s carrying his clubs and off we go. So news from the greens for us. We had a fantastic fantastic little nine holes and we’ll we’ll upload some video. So, meanwhile, while uh we’ve got our eldest and our youngest on the golf course, our other two middle ladies, Matilda and Valentina, they’re owning their swing in Hershey, Pennsylvania. uh they’re playing a massive lacrosse event in a thousand degrees and they are owning their swing with all their defense and and attack and uh so we’ve had a sport sport weekend and we’re hoping that you guys own your swing with the sports you’re playing too. So movement onto our improvement pivot point and what I wanted to always tie it back to is face path low point and how someone like Aldrich what we’re noticing is that when someone wins like JJ Spawn lab putters go through the roof. What we’re trying to do is be very objective and say it’s not the implement. It’s not the person’s technique. It’s the thousand hours of pra or 10,000 or 100 thousand hours of practice that you haven’t seen leading up to a moment. So, what I’d love to do is talk about Young Aldridge’s technique, specifically his grip and how it really affects your entire bag, because I noticed with my community, obviously, what we do with Pivot the Path is we have a snapshot of our community in here at Swing. Obviously, we’ve got 30 years of my experience and we mold those two together to give you a pretty hopefully a pretty factualbased evidence of of where we’re at in the golf industry. So, our improvement pivot point is to actually look at Young Eldridge’s grip and notice what it does for his ball flight and how it influences and if you want to take that on on your golf game, that’s obviously up to you, but we could be objective in giving you the upside and downside of that. So, let’s get into it. We’ll we’ll talk about grip and face and path. Okay. So, Young Aldridge, how’s this our improvement pivot point? Well, I’m not much of a grip guy to be honest when I’m giving lessons, but I have noticed that when someone on PGA Tour wins, as we’ve talked about, whether it’s a lab putter or whether it’s a a golf shaft, they see the golf shafts that you see that the tour players use might literally be spray painted a different color than what they’re actually to try and sell product. And our job is to be pretty objective here. So, let’s talk grip. And I think this is pretty important. Young Aldridge, big strapping young. I believe and I teach the club is gripped in the fingers. We grab that from Mr. Hogan. And I like to see that the forearm of the lead arm, the wrist and the golf shaft are one straight line, right? And I love that about Bryson. Why is that? Well, at impact, we know that every single tour player is a dead straight lead arm, lead wrist, golf shaft. So, I kind of reverse engineer the golf swing when I’m giving lessons. I always look face path, low point. Okay. The first thing I’m going to look at is how the club exits. I want the club exiting parallel to shoulders, not vertical. I’d say most amateurs exit the club vertically. Okay. So, what we’re doing is looking at how the club exits, how the person’s rotating through impact, and someone like Aldridge really affects that with his grip. So, let me talk about it. So then you can make out an educated decision whether you like it or not. If we know that every tour player, lady, man, senior or young kid has lead arm, lead wrist, club shaft, straight line, then I address the ball in the same manner. I have my hands up a little. So if I turn side onto camera here, I have my hands up a little so that all I have to do is return them to where I started. Now, when our young South African friend gets a very strong grip, he points his glove logo. So, I’ve got a couple of alignment rods here. I believe that the club is gripped in the fingers and the glove logo is parallel to where you’re trying to hit the golf ball. Now, if I grab my hand on the golf club, and I point my glove logo to 2:00, if 12’s the target, you’ll see how much my face now opens. Do it again. So, I’m trying to hit the S in swing. I grip the club in my fingers. My left arm is bolt straight to my left wrist to my to my golf shaft, and the club face is pointing to target line. As soon as I strengthen my glove and point my glove logo to like 2:30, 3:00, my face opens. So, anytime you see a guy grip the golf club with a really strong, now I don’t know where that ever came about, but in the golf industry, it’s labeled strong. I label that glove logo to 2:00. If 12 if 12:00’s a target, then we know the club face is going to trend open. That has cause and effect. Therefore, most golfers have to spin their torso through impact to get the face back online. So again, this is not tour players. This is young amateurs. This is talking about your average 99 center of golfers. As I said, I like to see that the glove logo or the back of the lead wrist, left wrist for righthanders, golf shaft and club face are all one straight line. the moment we grip the club so the glove logo faces away from target then that has a a ripple effect if you like. So if I set up to the golf ball here glove logo parallel to target club face to start line target line being start line and I set up to the golf ball if I really strengthen or point my glove logo to 230 the club face wants to open up as I said. So now if I league with my hips for every action there’s a reaction the face will open cause hips turn result or or or opposite reaction face lags. So be careful the next time you check your grip. I like my grip logo pointing parallel to target. If you strengthen that grip the face will open. Just remember as you separate your hips, left hip turns, club face lags, club face lags, face opens. It’s going to be manifested. It’s going to exaggerate how much you’re going to open the face. Remember, what’s the rule of golf? Face less than path. So, just be careful emulating the young fella’s grip. Because if you do that, then all of a sudden, the face is going to be a little more open to path. That’s part one. Now, part two of this, let me just get on camera here. Part two of this, if I want to chip, and we notice that one thing that the young fell, he won his tour event, but he didn’t chip and pitch the ball brilliantly. One thing, again, there’s an upside and a downside. For someone like myself who was very neutral, the shot that I don’t play brilliantly well is that really low spinner. So through impact, one thing that Scotty Sheffller does so well is as he hits the golf ball, the club face is actually pointing to his forehead through impact to hit that spinner. So why do we know that? Well, we need the club face to open. So the ball spins longer on the face, rolls up the face, and as we get a little steep on the ball with an open face, we’re generating a lot of spin. So, the upside of someone like me teaching this method, which is keeping the the glove and the club face nice and square, is that my chipping and pitching is largely very solid because the club face never leaves the target line. The downside of having a very neutral grip is that playing that very spinny shot is very difficult. Okay? Because we need the wrist to be that lead wrist to be very, very strong. So in young Ptgeister when he has this super strong grip, what we’re going to find is he can play that spinny shot like Scottish chef and a lot of guys on tour really easily. But the downside of that if I show you down the line here. So if I’m playing a chip a pitch in a chip here, especially a chip and run, especially back in Ireland. So when we see young Pogister go to the to the British Open, this is going to be interesting. If I point my glove logo to target, let’s get rid of this arrow. If I point my glove logo parallel to target and my club face to target, I’m just hitting a little chip shot off the putting green here. I can play a little chip shot off my back foot, no problems. Why? Because the club face remains square. But the moment I get a really strong glove logo to 3:00, now my club face opens. We’re talking about the amters, not golf pros, right? Because golf pros, they’re doing it six, seven days a week. Amateurs who aren’t playing that much, if you emulate and copy young Pulgeister and really get a strong left hand, what you’re going to find is a little chip off the back foot because the club face opens, you’re going to have a very hard time closing it. As the glove logo strengthens, logo to 2:00, the face opens. Now, if you play a little chip and run off the back foot, you’re going to hit the ball way right. So, just be careful. If you have a nice neutral grip, you’re going to keep the club face nice and square relative to start line. If you get a really strong left grip, glove logo to 2:00, if 12’s the target, you will open the face. And if you have a little chip and run off the back foot, you might shank a couple. Why? Because the face will be open to path. Everything we do at swing is face less than path. Remember, everything has upside and downside. I’m not one minute saying that grip is more correct than that grip. But what I am saying, if you’re not playing a ton of golf, i.e. twice a week. If you have a glove logo that’s parallel to your club face, you will enjoy a lot more neutral golf. You will enjoy your golf because you’ll hit the ball a ton straighter. Potgeist when he gets his big on strong grip, he will lose the ball right a lot. And we saw that in a couple of shots in the playoff. If you have a very strong grip, you have to offset that with aggressive shoulders. Again, undeniable. And what we’re trying to do here at swing and pivot the path is explain all this. What we’re trying to do is say the whole macro. This isn’t incorrect, but it has a trickle down effect. And the trickle down effect is that if I’m trying to hit the word swing and my glove logo is pointing to 2:00, the trickle down effect is my club face will face right. The trickle down effect is if I’m trying to keep the ball low off my back foot because the club face is going to have more right orientation. The stronger the grip, the harder it is to play off the back foot. But I know if anyone comes to see me with their glove logo super strong, they’re beautiful bunker players because that’s an upside of having a strong grip. The downside is they’re not going to be able to play a chip and run off their back foot. They’re not going to keep a low shot very easily in their bag. One’s not more correct. Again, we’re trying to create a platform where we’re really pragmatic. And we’re trying to say, “Hey, you can do whatever you like in your golf swing, but just understand the math and geometry of it, and you’ll own your swing.” Remember, our platform is about owning your golf swing. So, me personally, I’m going to stick to having a really neutral grip because I want to hit the ball really straight and I play a lot of little punch shots. The downside is I’m not going to play that super spinny shot too often, but then I can use my low point to play chip shots and pit shots and I think with far greater effect. Remember, always understand the upside and the downside of what you’re doing. Always practice with alignment rods and you can absolutely own your swing. Beauty golfers, look, thanks for listening. Don’t forget to share the newsletter pops out at the end of every week. We look forward to the British Open. You can own your swing with the work you put into your game off the golf course. We’ll look forward to seeing you next week. Cheers. [Music]
