As part of his extension series of videos, Ted Frick of the Classic Swing Golf School at Legends Golf Resort in Myrtle Beach, S.C. brings his “Big Red Board” into play, to demonstrate how to create proper extension in both your backswing and follow-through.
Ted Frick:
All right, so here we are. Classic Swing, the famous red board! I think I've had it for 29 years now since day one of the golf school. We use this as the training wheels for the shaft of the golf club, and it guides us along the backstroke and into the follow-through. These are the two alignments that we're really keeping our focus on in this topic called extension. So let me walk you through it. All right, so on the red board, my incline plane, I'm really going to focus on my backstroke right now. The word extension. I may be aware of some pushing out of my hands and arms, but I want that left arm to move that golf club out away from me so that I have a wide arc versus a narrow arc.
Remember, the topic is extension, and a wider arc has much more potential for energy (therefore moving into that miles per hour) than a narrow arc does. Big importance here, moving from the backstroke to the follow-through. In order to get to full extension, both arms straight, you're going to notice how important it is of this right shoulder continuing to transport the right arm in the follow-through. So, a couple ingredients out of the trunk. The trunk, the area between my hips and my shoulders. The trunk has to tilt and turn. So my obliques are rotating. I'm using this muscle group to help and assist my hips rotating through. Now, once again, I'm going to show you here what not to do as well as what to do, because here's the drill. All right, so in life we always say, if you have no idea where you're trying to get to, how are you going to get there? So, very popular on day one in our golf schools is we just move the students in chipping or pitching to a follow-through condition.
Now, here's the address to find the alignment's backstroke and then the follow-through, full extension both arms straight. So a real cool drill without a golf club first. Take your left hand and get it out there away from you. And with this right hand, I'm going to try to shake hands in the full extension. Now, there is a popular swing flaw titled the chicken wing, and that's people focusing on how this lead arm coming through impact is literally breaking down. Everything in the golf swing is cause and effect. The lead arm in the golf swing is breaking down because the golfer is running out of right arm. See the right hand's below the left heel and the golf club and if I don't get this right side through the shot, then the left arm is going to look like this and this becomes a primary focus for the golfers going “I got to get rid of this chicken wing.” You get rid of this chicken wing through rotation. The body's got to keep moving through the shot.
All right, so let me hit two soft little pitches because once we move the students into the follow-through alignment to sit in here just doing this drill, just feeling this drill, notice how the right shoulder is working under. And once again, I'm going to talk about these legs here and one of these tips coming up. Versus again, this action through the golf ball.
All right, so let's say, A, what not to do. This is when the body breaks down through the shot, little pitch shot. This is when the body's breaking down. There's no rotation going on here at all and because of the lack of rotation, the arms are being pulled in as a result. Versus again, get this image, get this exercise, do your wall touches, and then just hit some little, we call them punch shots, to full extension, both arms straight. All right, please do this drill if you know that in the follow-through your golf swing needs width to the arc.