Jordan Spieth Broke His Swing Chasing Distance

Jordan Spieth made swing changes he never needed, and it all started with tiny setup tweaks, including a 2° more upright shaft that completely altered his tilts, spacing, depth, wrist angles, and downswing sequence.

What began as an attempt to chase distance pushed him into a pattern that got the club behind him, forced early shallowing, and actually made his downswing steeper. His iron control, wedge consistency, and natural match-ups all took a hit.

In this video, I break down the exact changes in Spieth’s setup and in swing mechanics, why they didn’t fit his natural DNA, and what every amateur can learn from it. After three decades of coaching, this is the biggest truth: every swing is built on compensations, the key is understanding your pattern, not copying a method or trend.

Let’s take a look at what changed… and how it affected everything.

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Jordan Smith is one of the best examples of a player who tried to fix something that just wasn’t broken. At the heights of his career, winning majors dominating fields, he started chasing distance. And instead of building on what already worked, he tweaked his setup and changed key inswing principles that completely disrupted the matchups that made him elite. Honestly, who in his corner thought this was a good idea? It all started with pre-swing changes, a slightly more upright setup, which led to more shoulder tilt at impact and a more laid-off bode wrist hop position. And once those setup shifts took hold, the inswing changes became unavoidable. The club got stuck behind him as he tried to shallow it earlier. And when he tried to save it from the stuck position, his downswing actually steepened, leading to timing issues, two-way misses, and a huge drop in iron and wedge control due to the fact that this move was working into his short game. So, one tiny adjustment at address set off a chain reaction he never really needed. And this is why I upload four to five videos a week to teach you the individuality of golf swings and why chasing methods or trends usually hurts amateurs. In the time I’ve coached for three decades, every swing, every method, every secret move is built on compensations. The key is understanding yours, not copying someone else’s. Now, let me show you his changes and how they affected his swing. So, when you see these two swings next to each other, you can see some subtle changes. The one on the right is more up and over at setup. Now, this will do a couple things specifically for the shaft. We have a 42° shaft setup on the left, 45 on the right. Now, you think to yourself, 3° Tony, what’s the big deal with that? Well, it does make a pretty big deal at their level. Let’s go over these one by one. Arches of the heels straight up to the sky on the left side versus Arches of the Hills straight up to the sky on the right side. Now, we will see the one on the right. It is actually technically a much better setup due to the fact that the lower plane line the spine angle are running right into his center point. So his center point on the right side is bang on. The one on the left side it is slightly heelbased. More of the weight is sitting back here. Number two is when you do sit back this also will raise your hand height and the one on the right side we see the hand height is slightly lower which will give you that 3° difference. Now it doesn’t stop there. This actually turns into inswing principles because the center of his weighting is different. The first move back that we can see the hands on the left side get off that plane line much quicker versus the right side. It’s staying on that plane line much quicker. The arm action is also moving outward with Jordan on the left side and more inward with Jordan on the right side. And remember this was all to try to get distance to shallow the club quicker on the way down. As we move back, we can see the hands here are already in a different position. Jordan on the left side is working higher. Jordan on the right side is working lower again to set the club more inside and deepen the hands. And we can also tell by looking at the shaft. So the shaft is working higher to the secondary plane line versus the one on the right side is more in between the planes. And we continue up to the secondary plane line. Both hands are high. But look at the difference between the laid off position of the club head back here on the new one versus the old one. It actually crossed back around. Now we take a look which hand is actually deeper. Well, we see the depth is actually deeper in terms of his center point on the old swing, but on the new swing it’s bang on. So again, a really solid setup on the right side, and he’s matching up better on the right side, but it’s going against his natural abilities on the left side. And we will notice that club head on the left side is technically crossing the line versus the right side. It is laid off. And this is also accompanied by a more pronounced bow at the top of his newer motion. We’re going to do a quick triangle check. and we’re going to draw where the center of those triangles are. And look at how the motion works. So the one on the right side falls right down the center, but the one on the left side is moving to the right side of his triangle, which will give you a steeper motion. Now remember, he was going after distance. Now, distance at that level, you got to get that club on that lower plane line quicker. And once the club gets midway point, we can see that steepness on the left side versus the right side is shallowing out much quicker. Now remember, if you look at my videos on bowing and cupping, when you do bow it, you have to increase your tilting to hold off the club face and get your hand path working differently. But we take a look as we come on down. Again, hands on the left side are working outward. Hands on the right side are working more down. And once we get down to impact, the club on the left side is working more around the body. The club on the right side is working more under and we strike the golf ball and we can see the difference of tilting. So this is the old tilting and this is the new tilting. So we see a difference of almost 10° of tilting. And we come on through. Look how fast we see the club head on the left side move through the body versus the one on the right side. It takes about a frame longer to get through the body. And this is stabilizing that face. But unfortunately with somebody on the left side that is not used to stabilizing the face and relied on beautiful timing and tempo. He’s just erasing what made him special. So you have to be very careful about the changes that you make. And if you are going to make a change with the setup, you have to address the inswing principle change or it’ll just become a whole new animal. So let me know in the comments if you did enjoy this. Let me know who you want me to analyze next. But I hope that helps you. Remember, it’s your swing. It’s your personal motion. You are like a snowflake. Not sensitive like a snowflake, but I hope you know what I’m saying. Other than that, I’ll see you next time. Pharaohs and greens.