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Last week I was walking around Augusta National with my fellow newsletter writer Sam Weinman. We were talking about the things us newsletter writers talk about, which is golf swings. Specifically, Tommy Fleetwood’s golf swing.
As we watched Tommy play his way up Augusta’s ninth hole, Sam pointed out something:
“I probably get more swing videos of Tommy Fleetwood on Instagram than anybody else.”
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it was a good point. If your Instagram feed looks anything like mine, open it up at any given point and you’ll be flooded with lots of golf swing videos, but three players’ golf swings in particular:
- Nelly Korda
- Rory McIlroy
- Tommy Fleetwood
And of course, each time I do, I linger over the video, like it, and move on, leaving the algorithm with all the information it needs to know what to give me more of.
Anyway a day later, Tommy Fleetwood finished off his third-round 72 en-route to his career-best T-3 finish, so I decided to ask him: Why do golfers seem to get so many Tommy Fleetwood golf swing videos? And what can they learn from it?
He laughed.
“Good question! I dunno. Probably because people like you won’t stop talking about it.”
(Guilty)
“Listen, I’m not a coach, but I think my swing has a kind of good framework that could help a lot of golfers.”
1. No slide
That word—”framework”—is important because it’s essentially how Tommy views the golf swing. Like a car driving down lanes on the road. You’re not too worried about the little movements; the goal is keeping the car between the lines.
One of those is the idea of staying very centered on the backswing. A common fault of amateur golfers is to slide their hips too far away from the target on the backswing. And when that happens, they can’t get back to their left side enough in time. It causes chunked shots and tops and all sorts of ugly shots.
“I like to stay quite centered,” he said. “If I’m centered on the backswing, it’s easier for me to get to transfer my weight, and get to my lead side on my downswing.”
Often you’ll see Tommy work practice hitting golf balls caddy holding an alignment stick on the ride side of his head. The stick literally prevents him from swaying too much off the ball.
2. Clubface control
The clubface is king in golf—it accounts for about 80 percent of the ball’s starting direction. In other words, if the clubface is pointing way left or right, that’s probably going to be where the ball goes.
Naturally, Tommy says he thinks about this a lot—and thinks you should, too. Something you’ve no-doubt seen him do is hit shots with an abbreviated follow through (you can learn more about that here).
It was a go-to shot once upon a time, which has basically become his stock full swing. The key feel here is making sure he finishes so his arms are straight, and his chest is pointing towards the target. You can see him doing exactly that on Augusta’s 12th hole on Sunday.
“It helps me feel the right things, and get a sense of where the clubface is,” he says. “That’s a good thing for a lot of golfers.”
3. Neutral(ish) swing path
The final piece of Tommy’s framework is his swing path, or the literal direction he’s swinging the golf club. Golfers who tend to swing over-the-top generally tend to swing too far to the left. If you’re stuck, you may be swinging too far out to the right.
Tommy wants his golf swing right somewhere close to straight down the middle, and he’ll practice this by hitting balls between a yoga block and a set of alignment sticks.
“It just helps me feel the right things and makes sure my swing isn’t moving in any crazy directions,” he said. “Again, just a basic thing that I think golfers like.”
A few things Fleetwood says we can learn from his move, that will maybe make our own Instagram-worthy.
Questions? Hit me at luke.kerr-dineen@wbd.com.
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