Helping a Tour Pro Differentiate Real from Feel in his Swing

We recently had the opportunity to work with PGA TOUR and KFT veteran Anders Albertson. Anders turned pro in 2015 after a decorated career at Georgia Tech. He’s won multiple times on the Korn Ferry Tour, but has recently taken a medical extension after he started to experience lower back pain.

Anders offers a good example of how golfers can develop multiple strategies for working around physical limitations, the importance of distinguishing real vs feel and how feedback can be a powerful tool in directing swing changes.

Full article: https://www.mytpi.com/articles/swing/helping-a-tour-pro-differentiate-real-from-feel-in-his-swing

all right so we got Andrew Albertson
here at TPI today he’s a journeyman out
there on tours played corn faery and PGA
Tour started getting some things going
on in 2022 that led to him taking a
medical I haven’t seen him much lately
but he’s starting to bring his game back
after dealing with these injuries
anytime you’ve got somebody who’s been
off the game for a while you never know
different motor patterns can creep in
you want to make sure that when you go
out there there’s no weaknesses you
can’t have weaknesses when you go back
on the PJ tour now go ahead and rotate
that as far as you can I’ll feel your
left
one different world
right come back down just this arm tell
me if there’s any
difference it’s more work right one’s
harder again so it’s becoming pretty
evident here looking at Andre that he’s
two different humans the right side and
the left side when we’re testing his
left side things are moving really well
when I get to the right side it’s a
whole different story we’ve got
limitations not only from the lower
quarter but from the trunk even in the
shoulder which side’s better prob that
yeah it’s a lot better I’m worried about
that back swing man I’m starting to
build a picture here we noticed
everything going to the right which is
his back swing was restricted okay I
want you to see something turn this way
if I put a line across the front of your
pelvis see that white line M see how you
get to that white line mhm okay go right
leg can you get your pelvis to that
white line with the right
leg NOP interesting is you have better
range than that on the table than you’re
showing me here so when you’re weight
bearing your body’s kind of protecting
it when you take that club away if
you’ve got restrictions on that right
side then there could be potential for
sway you could go into something we call
reverse spine angle you could lose your
posture you could have early extension
what do you need help with I think I
could hit it straighter and higher I I
think I get uh stuff on my right it’s
really hard for me to get into my left
soon enough so when we ask Andrew how
can we help it was very evident he’s a
fantastic short game number one with
inside 10 feet in putting for a long
time a great bunker player but he said
in his long game he tends to get a
little stuck on his right side gets a
little long in his back swing and has a
hard time getting to his left side
that’s kind of his perception of what
his golf swing does wrong we got a
strong guess on what we’re going to see
over here but let’s let’s do it let’s go
hit so that’s kind of what I show up to
the course with every day if I don’t
have my stuff together yep just go to
this higher right and I really get
focused and not high
R you’re completely avoiding your right
side and your back swing um you you
thought you were going too much on your
right what’s kind of interesting with
players is feel versus real a lot of
times when a player tells me what they
feel is going wrong the real could be
completely
different look at that up there there’s
the top of your back so which leg are
you on 100% at least the force plate
showing that what he would do is he
would load left and then as he went down
because he was left too early he would
go back to the right so that’s why he
was feeling like he was hanging back on
his right side and he couldn’t get to
the left it was because he was loading
left when guys push from their right leg
to go to the left they usually push with
about 23% of their body weight you’re
pushing with 12% right I mean it’s
almost half that might work with like a
shorter iron or like a flighted iron the
minute you start to lengthen the club if
you load left we get a breakdown in the
kinetics and the kinematic sequence
you’re not on your right leg that’s why
it’s hard to push from your right leg
it’s hard to get left if you’re already
left this is what I would feel like if I
go to a ter like I got to really drop it
in disted it straight driver tack angle
something do not like this that lateral
driver that push from your right foot
starts the momentum towards the left leg
that we then turn into rotational speed
very important for creating power in the
golf swing from here can you push into
me okay now go to your right side can
you push into me no so you feel like
you’re outside your right foot there
yeah what would be the best place to
push into me inide of right I agree let
me see you go there is that where you
are in your back swing no I agree but
that would be the best place to get left
right yeah with Anders not only did we
have this physical limitation creating
the bad pattern well now we have a bad
pattern we got to break again it’s
basically learning a new skill double PL
ready say that’s the center of your STI
stance if I drop a plum Bob down from
your zipper and it comes down where is
that in relationship to the center of
your stance in front the zipper in front
yeah okay best drivers in the world what
do you think it is probably opposite
it’s about that far behind so anytime we
see an improper weight shift in the golf
swing one of the first things we’re
going to look at is setup with the
driver most players are just a little
bit behind the center of their stance
that allows for them to almost preset
load into their Trail leg how could you
do this and keep your pelvis level
more flexion yeah right knee probably
have to flex a little bit more okay now
go to the top of your back
Swing From Here do you feel like it’s
still behind there yeah maybe I’d like
to do something I call Finish where you
start you’re going to start with it
lightly behind and you’re going to
finish the back swing with it lightly
behind and then you can do your normal
swing you start slightly loaded on your
back leg and as you take your back swing
you stay there this allows you to
aggressively weight shift forward what
I’m hoping is that position helps you
get left harder on the down swing can we
try one like that yeah stay there in the
back SP double plate
ready now what you might notice on
something like this is you might hang
back because now you got to go left
before you never had to go left cuz you
were already there okay remember it was
12 it’s at 15.6 now you can still do
more and more is keeping it over here
longer or pushing more yes both okay the
minute we started to get him to load
onto that trail side you could see the
results in the for some pressure and you
could kind of see the bright light go on
in his
head I want you to see something set up
like you’re going to hit okay now turn
your right foot in okay now try and stay
there in the back
swing no there’s no chance right like
turn your foot out now watch this is
freedom your natural tendency might not
be the best thing for your golf
swing all right that was 16.6 we’re good
we’re good now right so we start with 12
went to 15 now we’re almost at 17 you’re
now starting to push harder left so
you’re getting left like at least we get
weight shift going things are going to
get better hit a couple without the
force play just get used to it a couple
times the first thing you’ll see with
good players when you actually get their
movement right and you get you change
their loading patent is they’ve
developed a release mechanism based on
the old pattern you might now have
changed their swing but they still have
that old release so now we’ve got a
shift to controlling Club
face wait notice what that ball did you
hit the ground harder the ground hits
back harder and it actually makes you
twist and open more as your body opens
what happens to the club
face it opens so if you get aggressive
and start Weight shifting if you don’t
release it the ball’s going right great
so let’s do the exact same thing just
release the crap out of it if you don’t
do lateral and the club’s not in the
right position it’s kind of hard to
sequence everything else cuz you have to
compensate aggressive weight shift
aggressive
release so once we got him loaded better
into the Trail side the first few swings
he actually blocked it to the right now
he had to actually release the club it
release good and the harder you turn the
less turn that Ball’s going to have your
whole thought should just I’m going to
go as aggressive as I can so I better
release where the ball’s going right
yeah this feels like five times the time
on the right you are but notice you’re
pushing with 40% more so stay over there
on the back swing but now on the down
swing step into the pitch go after
it that’s going to turn into something
really good the minute he did that you
could see the ball starting to Sten out
he actually started to get more of a
draw patent yeah there now looks like
you can launch it Dustin Johnson looks
like
that oh dude put that in the Box you
look at John who’s obviously one of the
best drivers in the world does he look
like he’s on his right or his left side
more right and then watch him at the top
of the back swing look at his head look
how far on this side he is so that he
can move left I think it’s totally that
might this the you couldn’t feel
yourself going left so you’re trying to
go left early but going left early was
your problem you had to go right to go
it’s been years years
that double plate
ready it’s almost an avoidance pattern
and anytime we see this it leads to the
things that he’s he’s complaining of the
high right shot the the miss it really
affects power and
consistency dude do that look how much
better that setup looks there Dave yeah
it’s way better that looks like Rory
double plate
ready good good players they have great
intuition they have great feel they can
start to really quickly figure out what
they need to do to square that club face
at impact look where we’re at 18 started
at 12 by 123 we’re at 18 now and by the
way the other numbers are going higher
too and we didn’t even talk about them
but 218% vertical you just had it
backwards in your head
3 is it weird to hit a three arm from
like there watch just feel this way
until til to the left okay and back now
watch do that again notice I call that a
fake Turn come back now just turn just
rotate golf should be rotation yeah okay
it should not be leaning towards the
target
okay better way better pushing right to
your left is what does is going left
early kills the left pressure does that
make sense that’s been the frustration
that I’ve had because no matter how much
work I put in it was invalid it didn’t
matter see how you go left there yeah
didn’t you go left you go left and now
you can push into live of the
club so much better so you’re a little
closer finish where you start and be
aggressive left and aggressive
release and see the spine Nagle looks
great yeah then watch the
shift notice’s he’s rocking now before
he’s twisting which is great when you
move into that trail side you’re staying
wider because when you’re left already
you’re narrow and then you’re like oh
I got to get angle out so then
you’re backing up to get angle out so
you have width now before when he came
in his feel and reel were not the same
once the feel and reel match and now it
all makes sense and sometimes now you
just need to get out of the way you just
need to go hit balls now and you’re
going to figure this out we need to
attack to make this easier for you right
we want to be able to get more range on
the right like I need you on your right
side I need you to be able to rotate in
your right hip turn in your right spine
shoulder be able to exent rotate it’ll
just make this easier for you and you’ll
be able to go longer and hit the ball
farther right there looks good stay
there to the
top lower body is actually your
superpower that’s where you’re the
strongest but you were killing your
lower body and you’re
gossing the concept of position where I
start you know like that to me clears up
a lot and it doesn’t hurt 20 swings it
went from 12 18 in a month you’ll
probably be over 20 awesome cool thank
you guys so much I was really excited to
be
here feel and real are very different
dude it’s hard to coach yourself it’ll
be nice to work on these as I’m get back
some important lessons here feel and
real we talked about you know here’s a
player classic example comes in tells
you they’re getting stuck on their right
side can’t get off their right side when
when we go look at the data not even go
to the right side right so it’s
important don’t assume make sure you
test probably around 60% of the players
that come in here what they think
they’re doing is completely opposite of
what they’re really doing the important
thing here is once the feel and real
match that’s where the light bulb
moments occur for not only the players
but also the coaches