Teacher Chandler Rusk has one mission in his golfing life: to stop golfers getting stuck.
To stop golfers getting stuck.
"Probably about two or three years ago I realized I had probably done over 50,000 lessons," he says. "I was thinking how when a player struggles with their ball-striking for a duration of time, it's typically not from being too much over the top and too wide. It's because they get stuck."
Getting stuck is like the golf swing version of the flu. Nobody wants it. People are spooked enough by the idea of it to proactively try to avoid it. Yet even still, a lot of people get the flu, and a lot of golfers get stuck.
In simplest terms, getting stuck is when your arms get too far behind your body on the downswing or when your club gets too far behind your hands on the downswing (or, worst of all, both). This causes whatever the stuck part is to fling out to the right. It can send the ball wide right, or if the clubface is closed, hooking left. You may even hit too far behind the ball. Timing gets difficult and everything gets wild whenever you get stuck. It's exactly what a young Tiger Woods said when he talked about getting stuck here.
Getting golfers "unstuck" has become the central focus of Rusk's teaching. He's a great follow on Instagram, because he'll often highlight clips of golfers getting stuck and others who don't. Last October, Rusk highlighted my swing as an admittedly good example of a golfer whose swing can get stuck.
When I called him I asked him what were some of the most common things that cause golfers to get stuck.
Here's what he said …
1. Setting up too close to the ball
Rusk says he likes golfers to stand a little further from the ball than most teachers. It just creates more space, he says, which gives the arms more room to track down in front of the body.
"Sometimes people can just set up too close to the golf ball. Although there's a range—you can be too close, you can be too far—but an indicator is maybe starting a little bit too close to the ball."
2. Too much lower body slide
Rusk says a lot of good players slide their hips towards the target so much that it causes their upper body—and arms—to hang back. Think of it as a race between their arms and hips that their arms are destined to lose.
"I see a lot of people move the lower body way too much towards the target, and it makes the upper body get into excessive side bend," he says. "That slide results in their upper body hanging back and their arms getting stuck."
3. Too much upper and lower body separation
Golfers create power when their hips separate from their upper body. That X-Factor stretch can be a very good thing. But like everything in golf, too much of a good thing can create a bad thing...
"I've seen people get stuck by not rotating their hips very much going back, and it's more upper body, then they fire their hips so fast that their arms get stuck," he says. "Separation between the upper and lower body is a good thing in the golf swing. We all need it. But sometimes we can deal with too much separation, and sometimes it's better to feel like things are working more together."
4. Getting narrow and losing width at the top
When your arms get behind your body, they often bend along the way, and get close to your body. This—getting narrow—is a common reason Rusk sees golfers get stuck.
"Getting really narrow with your arms at the top, not having width is a big one," he says. "It's also anything that takes away your spatial relationship from the golf ball."
5. Too fast tempo
Rusk says sometimes golfers just try to swing too fast, which throws everything out of sync in a way that leaves your upper body too far behind everything else.
"I see a lot of people get stuck because of a really fast tempo," he says. "Maybe they have a slow backswing, and then they just rip it and try to swing as hard as they can from the top, and the lower body extends or slides, and you don't have room. Your body's kind of closed off at impact."
Editor's note: Speaking of tempo, I just did a whole Golf IQ podcast episode about it.
6. Early extension (on the downswing)
Early extension is when your body moves towards the ball on the downswing. And what happens when your body moves towards the ball? Your arms are now further behind your body than they were before.
"This is often where I see the shanks come from," Rusk says. "The golfer might early extend and stall out, and their arms have to extend out towards the ball, which pushes the hosel into play."
7. Early extension (on the backswing)
Yes, you can early extend on the backswing, too. And yes, that can also cause you to get stuck.
"Everyone thinks early extension is only on the downswing. Well, no," Rusk says. "I literally see people that go into their backswing and stand up. All that vertical movement makes it harder to rotate and get your arms back in front … typically when somebody has a hard time rotating, it's usually because they have too much up and down movement going on in their swing."
8. No side bend at address
Rusk says that a simple way to prevent golfers from getting stuck is setting up with more side bend—tilting your upper body away from the target slightly. Yes, you can overdo it. But too little is just as bad.
"I see a lot of people who set up with no side bend at setup. They set up just straight up and down, and sometimes people pelvic shift. Their spine gets stacked; now their body is moving around and they have to fling the club back out to the ball."
9. Physical limitations (older golfers)
The final two both involve physical limitations that can influence the above. This one is relevant to older golfers, and desk workers...
"I see it a lot with a lack of flexibility in the lower body," Rusk says. "Hamstrings being tight and glutes. A lot of times, if somebody can't bend down and touch their toes, well, in the golf swing, the glutes want to put you in a position that is stable for your body, and if your hamstrings are tight, you'll early extend to get to that point, and now your arms aren't out in front."
10. Physical limitations (younger golfers)
Most junior golfers learn to get good at golf by learning to time and control a stuck draw. They lack the upper-body strength to pull their arms in front of their body, so they drop the club behind them and sling draws. Often, golfers do this as they learn to stop coming over the top—then spend the rest of their life trying to fix it.
"That's where I also battled my entire life," he says. "I was smaller than everybody, was trying to chase distance, and you can control a draw when you are small and don't swing it that fast, but as you get bigger, and as you reach your growth spurts, and you put on some weight, and you get in the gym, and you start swinging faster, well, things start to get a little bit more out of sync."