Nip Early Extension

Nip Early Extension

[Music] Hey, good morning everybody. It’s Bobby. Now, before I deliver today’s lesson, which happens to be about ridding yourself finally of that habit of standing up during the golf swing, ridding yourself of early extension, maintaining your posture, and learning to do it by improved use of your legs, and actually using the ground. Before I get into that though, I do have an announcement and that is that 2002 PGA Champion Rich Beam and I will be conducting a series of golf schools. Now, we’ve been talking about doing this for years and we finally have the opportunity and the dates are below. So, you know, uh with those golf schools, it’ll be three hours of instruction each morning uh followed by lunch and then nine holes in the afternoon. Now, we only take eight people and so if on day one you you play golf in the afternoon with me, on day two you’ll play with Rich. So, not only can you learn from a major champion, but actually get to go play golf with him. So, that’ll be a lot of fun. Again, it’s filling up fast, so sign up below if you’re interested. All the details are down there. Let’s talk about early extension. What is early extension? It is the habit suffered by so many of standing up during the golf swing. If you were to draw a line right there on my tail end, my tail end should stay on that line. It shouldn’t come off of it. Now, there are some great players like Lee Trevino who actually went even deeper beyond that line during a golf swing. So, you’re not ever going to stay too far back with your tail end, but most people have problems with this. And so, here’s what I want to do. Let’s go outside. I’m going to introduce you to a series of three drills, and it’s going to make it much easier for you to finally learn how to maintain your posture and not early extend. So, the question really is, why do people tend to pop out of their posture? Why do people early extend? And furthermore, why is it that the better the athlete, it seems, the more likely you are to not use your legs properly? I think the answer to that is the leg action required in a golf swing is completely dissimilar to the leg action required in just about any other sporting endeavor that I can think of. Now, what’s the main difference? How would I characterize it? Simple. In every other endeavor, you’re going to your toes. That’s just what’s going to happen. If I’m going to jump up on a box, I’m going to go to my toes. They’re going to be the last thing that touch. If I’m going to do a barbell power clean, I’m gonna go to my toes. If I’m a shortstop anticipating a ground ball, I’m gonna get to my toes. Now, a person might not go heel toe. They may go toeto toe, but the toe is what the person in other sporting endeavors is looking to achieve. It allows them to be nimble and ready to move. In golf, it’s not like that. You’ve got to get to the heel. Now, that’s the only way you’re going to maintain your posture if you haven’t been doing it. Now, as soon as I point this out, someone will say, “Hey, so and so on tour, his left foot’s completely off the ground.” If what you’re saying is correct, shouldn’t he be on his heel? Once you learn to maintain your posture, you can get away with untold sins elsewhere. You, however, if you’re going to your toe on the down swing, then you’re just going to continue to lose your posture until you learn to get to the heel. Because by getting to the heel, your tail end stays back. And this becomes a nice solid post around which you can finish your golf swing. So, that’s the key. How do we learn it then? Well, as I said, it’s dissimilar to every other sporting endeavor. But one thing, one thing, and I’m not the only one who’s ever used a chair. There’s some other videos out there, but this third drill, I’m going to take you through three things you can do, uh, that’s going to be a building process. And this third drill really will be the icing on the cake. And what uh, turns the tide for many people. Now, I said that we want to go toe to heel. Well, simply push yourself back. And you’re already doing that. All right. If I push myself back, I’m going toe to heel. Wow, that’s different. No other sporting endeavor has taken me there. Let’s do that again. Once I do that, I got to start thinking about how I can turn that into a golf swing. How do I do it? Well, this time I’m going to lift the right foot up in the air and turn myself as I push off. Now, it’s beginning to take on the feeling of a golf swing. I’m pushing back with this left foot and getting to my heel. Let me try that again. I’m going to elevate that right leg and push off. See if I can feel myself go from toe to heel and turn. Okay, we’re almost there. Now there becomes this thing about loading the legs. In a golf swing, you got to load the legs so you can use the ground and then maintain your posture and get to your heel in an athletic and consistent way. So what do I mean by loading the legs? Well, in a golf swing, I load the the left leg by bending this knee toward the toe. Now, someone watching me might say, “Well, it also goes this way, doesn’t it?” It does go that way, but in my mind, it’s just going straight toward the toward the ground because uh my hips are turning. The appearance is it’s moving to the right, but that’s only because of my hip turn. The knee itself is moving toward the foot. How do I practice that in my chair? Well, what I’ll do is I’ll start with my legs unloaded. See, they’re not loaded right now. I don’t have any push off. I got to load this leg. How do I do that? I’m going to take a back swing and roll the chair toward the heel. This is the part that it seems like sometimes people don’t hear. This chair has got to roll freely beneath you toward that heel as you take your back swing. And from there, you’re gonna go to your heel and fire. That is a golf swing, ladies and gentlemen. I’m out here. My legs are unloaded. I’m going to load this one. Take my back swing and then fire. All right. And the more I do that, the more I can then start to get a sense of it and then share that experience with with a real golf swing. It’s not long. I’d say do that 20 or 25 times and then start hitting some shots and you’re not going to believe the difference of how you feel pushing yourself back here. Now, the big question that people ask is, well, how much does this knee bend? Well, that’s a little bit up to you. Um, some modern players bend it very little. They still load it. Uh, it’s just like if I were going to jump up on a box, I might load a little bit or I might really squat and load, but there’s going to be a spot that’s right for me in terms of how much I want to go down before I sprint up. Same thing here. This is the direction this knee bends, if it bends at all, to give you the ability to fire back into that heel. So, let’s go do a recap on this, and I know this is going to help you. Now, one other thing that you need to consider when it comes to uh leg action and maintaining your posture is if you are really over the top, if you are a super steep swinger of the club, then it doesn’t matter how effectively you get to your left heel, you’re going to lose your posture because now you’re just trying to fit a very tall club. See, a club that’s coming in steep is very tall at the moment of impact. And so you’re a person stands up because they’re trying to give it room. All right? And so the necessary complement to maintaining your posture if you have a super steep swing is you’ve got to round it out. And that’s why next week uh I’m going through swing plane with you. I’m going to show you if you’ve been over the top, if you’ve been someone who’s super steep, then I’m going to show you how to get that thing a little bit more around you both on the back swing, which is where it starts, and on the through swing. And the combination of getting more on plane uh and maintaining your posture will do absolute wonders uh for both the distance you hit the ball as as well as the accuracy and consistency. So stay tuned next week when I go through swing plane. Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for tuning in today. I know this will help you. I look forward to seeing you next week. [Music]

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