This has become a very distracting issue for me and hopefully I can put it to bed so I can move on. (I don’t believe I’ve asked about this directly). I’ve noticed most times in my backswing that my lead knee moves straight laterally towards my trail leg as opposed to down towards my lead foot or down diagonally towards the ball. When I consciously try to fix it, it bends WAY down, then my head dips down and I end up tilting towards the target instead of staying stacked. Now when I compare it to other S&T swing models (Charlie Wie, Mike Weir, Arron Baddeley, and you “Tom”) I noticed y’all’s lead knee bends very slightly down towards your lead foot and just barely inwards and not excessively in either direction. I realize these movements aren’t contrived positions but are effects caused by other movements. For the life of me I can’t figure out what’s causing it.
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Cast them off to the Great Shift & Lift Abyss where you no longer reside!!
@Buford T Ogletree - The issue of the lead knee kicking towards the trail side is some common residue from swings past. (Can you hear those old demons laughing and snickering as they cause it to happen?)
First of all we need to check setup. Both feet flared out approximately 10-20 degrees, and the knees similarly angled outward - though perhaps to a slightly lesser degree - are prescribed setup features of Stack & Tilt. From there the lead knee retains that orientation and must be allowed to bend in the exact direction that was preset at address. Any inward motion towards the trail side is likely bringing some weight - along with our low point - back with it, and then the shoulders and hips tend to lose some of their groundward orientation, the arms may lift, and we begin to encounter similar issues to those discussed when we reach back beyond our body's stopping point. (In other words, we risk the possibility of morphing somewhat back into the previous Shift & Lift version of ourselves that we are so desperately trying to make a distant memory.)
So make sure the lead knee is working as prescribed, and then check your weight distribution (which I will continue to repeat in various comments ad nauseum): Start with your weight forward (55/45 on the front side; 60/40 for the longer clubs), increase that same weight forward to the top of the backswing (70/30), and further increase the forward weight during the downswing from halfway down (80/20) through impact (90/10) and to the finish at 95/5 forward.
As for your head going down and the lead knee bending too much, that is oftentimes the result of full tilt and insufficient extension. Refer to Lesson 2.3c (Extension) and then 2.4 - Combining the 3 Motions.
Let's see if this helps you kick those demons butts out of your swing once and for all!
Tom