The 3 valuable swing checkpoints to consider

Golf Digest

Who among us has recoiled with horror when seeing their golf swing on video for the first time? It was possibly so traumatic for me that I’ve avoided at all costs seeing mine again. In fact, I love my swing instructor so much because he’s a feel guy, not a video guy. I’ve laughed with other golfers about it: What we think we’re doing with our swing and what we’re really doing can look like painting stick figures instead of a Van Gogh. You see your own action and wonder how you ever occasionally find the middle of the face. And the truly humbling moment for me wasn’t even a video, but getting on one of those machines where they choose Rory McIlroy’s swing and the robot pulls you through it. I thought I was going to pop a hip and realized pro golfers are from another planet.

There is still value to video, no doubt, and nowadays there are plenty of folks who tape their own swing and try to analyze it. Probably not the best idea, and Luke Kerr-Dineen advocates for getting lessons here. But he also talked to a well-regarded swing coach who offered the keys to watch for DIYers, and it’s really good stuff.

The 3 key checkpoints a top coach uses to analyze any swing

World-class coach Andreas Kali uses a simple three-checkpoint framework to analyze body structure in any golf swing.

By Luke-Kerr Dineen

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Tod Leonard

Michael Thorbjornsen keeps rolling along, and the second-year pro from Stanford has put himself in position to reach the Tour Championship. By going 66-66 to open the BMW Championship at Bellerive, Thorbjornsen headed into the weekend in the projected 30th and last spot to make it to East Lake next week. The kid, who won his first title in Detroit this month, can certainly run hot and cold. In his last five starts, he’s gone Cut/T-7/T-40/Win/T-47. He’s mostly been impressive, though, with eight top-25s in 21 appearances.

Tod Leonard

As hard as it is to believe, Charlie Woods is about to start his senior year of high school. The Palm Beach Post reported that Tiger Woods’ 17-year-old son will start classes this coming week at the private Benjamin School. It’s also golf season for the boys there, and Woods is part of a stellar team that won the Class 1A Florida High School Athletic Association title. Charlie, who shot 68 in the second round at state, was the Post’s Small School Co-Player of the Year last season with his Buccaneers teammate Andrew Tsar. This was not a standout summer for Woods, who ranks 311th in the Rolex AJGA Rankings. His best stroke-play finish was a T-28 in the Team TaylorMade Invitational, while Woods rallied to get into a 14-for-2 playoff in the U.S. Junior Am, only to miss advancing. Barring a dramatic change, Charlie will be playing golf at Florida State at this time next year.

Jonathan Wall

Callaway's Full Toe SP wedge is built around a simple observation: open-face wedge shots aren't centered strikes. Contact drifts high and toward the toe, and on a conventional wedge profile, that's right about where the grooves stop.

So Callaway extended them with the help of Spin Gen 2.0 grooves that run heel to toe across the face, with the pitch spacing tightened by 17 degrees, which the company says amounts to 44 percent more groove area than a conventionally shaped wedge.

The elongated toe also created room to move mass. Callaway's Spin Pocket construction (the largest pocket the company has built, 18 percent bigger than Opus SP+) pulls material out of the bottom of the head and relocates it up the face, producing the highest wedge center of gravity (CG) in Callaway's history. Square the face and the CG sits above the strike, holding launch down and spin up. Open it, and contact climbs closer to the center of mass while the head's offset adds launch back.