

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Some Teaching Video from K.J. Choi and Manuel de la Torre

Today's post is basically all video. I've mentioned Manuel de la Torre's book Understanding the Golf Swing before on this blog, and some of you have told me that it was very helpful. So here are some videos that may help you -- and the rest of you who are just curious -- understand his slightly different approach to the golf swing. It's based more on the old Ernest Jones techniques, which are an adaptation of the old classic swing to steel shafts. Every pro uses the Jones stuff to some degree, so it's worth knowing.

K.J. Choi's swing looks especially similar to this and, as you've seen over the last few weeks, it's a very dependable swing. So I've included a couple of Choi videos as well so you can see the similarities in the motion.

First, here are two Choi videos from 2010. I picked them because most of the newer stuff I found is very short, and his swing really hasn't changed much at all since these were made. The first one is a driver swing, the second an iron swing.

Here is Manuel de la Torre hitting shots. See how similar his motion and Choi's are?

Now here's an old Academy Live show from GC with de la Torre. This is back when Peter Kessler was hosting, but it was done after de la Torre's book came out. This is the whole show, nearly 45 minutes, and while the first five minutes may sound like a lot of geometric gibberish, there are a number of useful drills scattered throughout the show that can help you get the sequencing of your swing correct.

The eleventh minute has a particularly useful drill that will teach you the difference between dragging the club across the ball with the face open and getting your hands back to square so the ball will go where you aimed.

This is a really good introduction to what de la Torre teaches, so it's a good way to see if his book might help you without having to buy the book first. It's worth watching the video just to learn the drills.