This video provides essential golf instruction, focusing on how the popular notion of golf rotation ruins golf swings. Rock, not twist, is the essential advice that will change your whole swing pattern and improve your short game.
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Time Stamp
00:00 Introduction
00:35 Higher order pattern
02:10 Rock vs twist
04:50 Short game relevance
05:30 The drill
09:05 Twist is a by-product
👨🏫 About Dr. Noel Rousseau: Golf coach and movement specialist helping golfers improve through evidence-based instruction. 🔔 Subscribe for weekly golf instruction videos that combine scientific principles with practical coaching expertise.
Thank you to @smart2move594 and @MyTPI for footage.
31 Comments
Brilliant
Wow… just the drills/exercises to do in this cold weather rather than playing!!
Would it work holding a golf club in each hand as part of a pre round warm up?
That is brilliant. Itching to try this out on the course. Been off a low handicap for over 20 years and I honestly did not know this. I’ve never used frontal plane rotation knowingly, I’ve always tried to rotate around my spine. On the way to the course now 😁
It is indeed a very different approach. I'll definitely try this routine! Better late than never… Many thanks and all the best for 2026, Noel!
I have been thru 4 coaches so far each one of them gets there track man out tells me I am hitting degrees left or right etc not one them has shown me how to swing a golf club I think getting a golf coach is like going to the Chiropractor you feel fantastic when you leave but next day back to same thing and your £80 down
In essence, you suggest that there has been too much emphasis on rotation or forcing rotation and not enough consideration given to the correct use of lateral shift both back and through?
I’m really surprised you never worked on this when you visited Marcus Bell, he’s been teaching this for years.
Sean Clement – a teaching/YouTube pro from Canada has been teaching this movement for decades.
Excellent! Thanks.
❤❤❤ ! Once again @golfcoachdrnoel presents a wonderfully simplified and brilliant explanation of the true swing. Save this video. Watch on repeat.
Great stuff thank you . Do you have a link to get the indian clubs please? If not what weight are they ? Many thanks , your videos are always clearly explained without any fuss
6:19 I think you're mistaken with the way you're speaking about weight shift. I understand the action as popularized by Dr. Kwon and the other mechanics guys. However, I don't think it's helpful to instruct people to "shift mass" as a step in the process. The cue should be to shift pressure. When the pressure is shifted (by "unweighting" the foot you're shifting towards), the center of gravity of your body automatically causes the positional shift to occur. When you cue people to shift their weight or mass, they tend to sway back and forth instead of moving pressure back and forth. This can cause the center of gravity to align too closely over the center of pressure, and all of a sudden you've lost all your torque in the horizontal plane. In other words, the position shift happens as a response to pressure shift, it's not something you do first, then stop, then swing.
I'm also not a big fan of those continuous rocking "shurn" drills. You shouldn't be able to rock more than a few times without the momentum of the clubs/weights becoming totally uncontrollable. Otherwise, you're just training how to slow the club down, not accelerate it. Every pressure shift adds to the momentum until you necessarily start doing the opposite of what you think you're training to improve.
Wow your swing looks so much better, leads to a great follow through thanks for all great videos, just had first ever sub-par round at 66yo!
I am 100% behind the teaching of the "big picture" or wholistic approach to the swing. But for some reason I find this video confusing. My understanding has always been that the "rocking" move you demonstrate was a big no no. Maybe I'm not grasping the terminology and their meaning. But I am that person that looks like your demo of the back swing and then, as you subsequently added, can't get around effectively in the downswing. But I just don't get the "big picture" you are trying to convey. You initially talk about Rose saying the swing is rocking and twisting but later you say we don't want to twist? Sorry about my confusion
This is the first time I have heard the golf rotation explained this way. I have been golfing for 40+ years, lowest handicap has ever been is a 6, currently an 8. Tried this at the range today, from the first ball to the last I was hitting it extremely solid with much less left and right dispersion. Excited for the coming year! Thank You so much.
Wow… my swing is back! Thanks!
10hcp pkaying like a 35 lately. its like my body forgot what to do and then the mind kicks in which isnt good ever. No doubt this video will take me back to basics 🏌️♂️⛳️
Great advice. The main thing to avoid with this is a reverse pivot.
So Dr Kwon’s early teaching emphasis on YouTube. He also talks about frontal plane torque.
Great video Doc. In lessons the past year i have been seeing almost an epidemic of too much rock and roll. That is the lead shoulder works way too much down with too much thrust towards the ball target line and not nearly enough across. This is causing another set of
issues in the swing that are responding to the lead shoulder
Would you say when someone is working on the frontal plane torque or rock and roll to be aware of the lead shoulder so it doesn’t work excessively downward?
Happy New Year Noel. I’m so pleased you explained this big picture concept. For years I have been trying to work out the mythology of body rotation. You instantly know when you see a great golf swing it’s a great golf swing. Just like when you see played who use the simple turning approach it just looks wrong. I recall many moons ago first starting out with this excess flat turning motion. The hips turn on a flat rotation, the shoulders tend to stay more in forward bend, the lower body tends to move in the opposite direction to the upper body and hips slide towards the target. There is zero spiral staircase. There is no vertical loading of the trail hip in the backswing.
For years I have been searching to properly understand the proper body rotation methodology. It’s that Pete Cowen spiral staircase in essence. When you look at a great golf swing like Rory Mcilroy or that female golfer you included above Chiara Noja, you instantly know that’s different and that’s what we are all seeking.
Getting the right balance between turning / rotation vs tilting / Side Bend in that wonderful spiral staircase mode.
The problem with the other model is the fact that it’s easier to fool the high handicap golfers into thinking that’s the model. The reason being that’s what all the high handicap golfers thinking they should be doing anyway. Then you get the YouTube golf coaches who are run of the mill players who teach this method because they grew up playing this way. They may even have become scratch golfers playing that way but it’s so detrimental to the players who really have the potential to be an exceptional player.
Once again brilliant research and concise explanations. I do like your comparison of the two different approaches laid out side by side like this.
More please on the negative side of the turn biased approach please.
Special request just for me. In a good downswing your hand path will move down but also out towards the ball to target line. What determines how soon you should move your hands out vs down? And how far out is optimal at key milestones should you go?
Myles
Fantastic! If you hadn't of said about lengthening trail side to then lengthen the lead side – with examples of the tour players, I would have been lost! That visual was fantastic. I've always tried to twist…not known or been taught about 'frontal plane rotation'. But after doing some dry swings with out ball, feel so much more natural for me, connected and stable.
Booked range session for later. Let's see how it translates to actual ball striking😁👍
Really interesting! I’ve been to Butch Harmon, Dick Harmon, Hank Haney, Paul Marchand, and many top teachers of their time and it’s never been put this way. I’ve struggled with early extension for years. I’m excited to think about the swing this way! Thanks.
Colin Montgomerie! He was pretty good – love this analogy
Great Training instruction,thank you😊
Seems a lot like rotating around a centered spine staying in posture and elevating arms
Brilliant… 30 years of trying and it becomes this simple. Thank you
At last! Something my small brain can handle. First time in 40years golfing I have a swing that looks good and works! I don't think it's a rock that turns into a twist. It's just a long rock where the twisting is totally a by-product. Rocking a child high to high is actually a good drill (the Grandkids love it too).
Great video thank you very much.
I was working on this with a friend last evening. I sent him this video as it explains thing better than I can. I like the idea of starting from the beginning instead of tweaking a flawed swing.
Incredibly explanatory, this was the exact lesson I needed. Former 2 cap, currently struggling as a 10 cap. Thank you, and very well done Sir.