In this video tip, Scott Tanguay of the Coastal Golf Academy in Myrtle Beach, S.C. is here to demonstrate in detail all the elements involved in achieving proper post-contact extension in your golf swing. Check it out!
Scott Tanguay:
Hey, folks, Scott Tanguay here at the Coastal Golf Academy, right across the street from Myrtle Beach International Airport. Come by and see me sometime! Today, we're going to talk about the extension that's required after you hit the ball. Some people, actually I hear it a lot, where they feel like right after they hit it, that it's already over and that it doesn't really matter what I do after that. But that's far from the truth. A lot of people I see actually have a decent swing, a good setup, a decent swing back and through, but then their extension and their finish is no good. So it's a full package. You got to get it all right.
So when we hit a ball, bam, there's our impact. And that's definitely not the end. We got to continue to extend our arms and at least to about hip height here, you want to see them be pretty close together like that. We can't have this sort of chicken wing that you'll hear it be called, where we come in, we're trying to lift it and people start to lean back and pull the arms up. Very inconsistent. It can go anywhere, left, right, short, it doesn't matter. To hit it solid time and again, we got that good impact position, but we continue to extend down the line. When you hear people say, “Swing out to right field,” it's kind of true, but it's also kind of a trick. What we really need to do is just extend it down the line. We don't want to pull the club in here too quickly. It's very important.
So we hit the ball. Bam. We almost point that club right at the target. And if you roll the wrist over a little bit, that should help too. It's pretty hard to keep that left arm on top for too long. So we extend down the line. Maybe there's a little bit of roll. I like to say, maybe get that left palm to face a little bit more towards the sky. Because the other way would be this, wouldn't it? Left palm to the ground, elbow up. Look a little something like that. And we want to avoid that at all cost.
Now, most people aren't willing to do this. You got to do some deliberate, slow swings, 50 percent, 75 percent. Don't be shy about maybe even just chipping it down there. Just a little knock down chip and try and hold this position here before you go into a full swing. The faster you try and do it, if you're not used to it, the harder it's going to be. So the more deliberate, smooth ones that you can feel this extension, the club is doing the lifting, not your arms. So we're here. In slow motion looks a little bit more like this. We're turning. We got our elbows pretty close together, forearms are almost touching.
Another drill I like to do is, you don't take any back swing at all. You just push the ball forward. So we're here, push it forward, see if you can get it a little bit airborne for a second there. And then when we swing, you're going to gain so much more speed and height. Because in order to do this, you have to slow down at some point to even get there. It's like putting the emergency break. So we want to keep that speed, keep that speed, and let it go.
All right. There's your tip!