During my last round my caddie took a few snapshots of my swing. One of the pictures reminded me of a similar shot of Tiger on Golf.com. The timing of the swings is pretty close – close enough for comparison.
So I took my picture and put it next to Tiger:
The angle from the camera is slightly different (mine is angled slightly behind; Tiger is head on), but it’s close.
A lot of things are similar, and I think a few key things are different. I see three major differences:
- Left wrist – I have a bad habit of not letting my wrist cock straight so that my forearm and top of my hand are in a straight line. Tiger’s is straight and cocking toward his thumb; mine is cocking toward my forearm. If you look at the clubhead you can see the effect this is having (Tiger’s is near vertical, mine is rotated to the sky more). I’ve heard mixed analysis on the importance of this, but I do know that I get better results when I cock my wrist like Tiger’s instead of the way I have it in this picture. Another aspect of this could be the placement of my right elbow. Mine is stick out, away from my body. Tiger has his right elbow tucked nicely inline with his left arm.
- Center of gravity – My weight is more on my front foot (left) than Tiger’s. This could be a side effect of my left ankle rolling (the 3rd difference), but either way my weight should be shifted a little more to the center of my body.
- Left ankle roll – If I remember right, Jack Nicklaus did/does this, but that doesn’t mean I should do it. I don’t know why I do this, other than to take pressure off my left knee as I turn my shoulders. It’s a bad habit I need to stop. I have a feeling it’s taking away some of my power and control, and like many golf pro’s say, the golf swing is complex enough, so why bother adding more moving parts than necessary.
Otherwise, I like my left arm angle, shoulder turn, head, and hip turn. We’ll see how the swing differs after some instruction.