“You have too much leg drive in your downswing…” is something you’ve never heard an instructor tell anyone – ever. Does that seem strangely true? You’re probably asking yourself, ‘How have I never noticed this before?’
The answer has been elusive because the wrong questions are being asked. We are either asking the ‘What?’ and the “How?” of a golf swing from our instructors, or they most-likely answer any query with “What and How?” answers. The question and answer should be about the “Why?”, again. Why is leg drive never a problem? If leg drive could be a bad thing, we would have heard about it by now, right?
You have never heard of such a thing because leg drive is never a bad thing. It is a positive effect of an underlying cause. That cause is need, as usual. The substance between cause and effect is comprised of a few different disciplines from need to the expression of need. But, for our purposes, let’s assume an Open Stance is the vehicle for getting from the beginning to the end of a straight, solid golf shot.
Leg drive, or leg action, is an athletic substitution for hip-rotation as the chronological, kinesthetic, driver of the downswing. It supplants damaging over-rotation on the leading knee and hip with a smooth, momentum-based power source for beginning the downswing. Why is this necessary from an Open Stance, you say? Because we don’t want our club closing to the plane before impact.
We need to delay the release of the club along our foot-line in order to keep the clubhead square to the target line at impact. The only other way to mitigate the steeper impact of an opened Stance is vertical shoulder rotation. There should be a combination of these two athletic compensations in any golf swing – based on individual physiology.
The reason leg drive is never a problem is because it is either absent already, which make it tough for your friends to diagnose – or it is ample, which makes it beautiful to watch and never to correct. I guaranty that you will NEVER see leg drive like Lee Trevino’s from a golfer who may hit is straight from a set-up that is square or closed.
Watch this video on the topic, and like it if you learn.
John Wright – Founder
The Open Stance Academy