This past weekend was a good one for seeing some great golf. Camilo Villegas won the Honda Classic by 5 shots, shooting 13 unde,r which is the tournament record score since the Honda moved to PGA National Golf Club. Camilo shot a final round 2 under 68 to extend his 54 hole 3 shoot lead to win by 5 shots. It is really a great feeling to come to the last hole, especially a difficult one like at PGA National, where there is water all the way down the right side and around the green, with a big lead. It makes breathing a lot easier.
The Champions Tour, Toshiba Classic, was won by Freddy Couples shooting a 6 under 65 to win by 4 shots. In three Champions Tour events this year, Fred has finished runner-up, and won the last 2 tournaments. I guess we could say Fred is presently dominating the Champions Tour.
This week's winners have quite different golf swings. Camilo is a very short ¾ length backswing and is quite vertical, standing his club up much as we teach with the PPGS. On the other hand, Freddy has a full parallel back swing and quite a big shoulder turn. Both have smooth and slow tempo backswing and are quit explosive in their transitions to the forward swing and are both considered long hitters. Let's take a closer look at each of their swings.
Camilo has a very athletic setup and the only point I would change is narrowing up his stance to shoulder wide. I like Camilo's backswing a lot. He is slow and deliberate and holds his knees so they barely move. His backswing turn is well short of 90 degrees and he stands his club up pretty good to around 11:30. Overall his backswing is quite close to PPGS standards.
Camilo's forward upswing to his finish is the one place I would, if he worked with me, make some changes. I feel his transition lateral shift has too much lateral movement. If he gets ahead of the ball he hits it a little heavy and right, especially with his irons. I believe it is because his stance is too wide and he has to shift farther to reach his forward foot. Then, because of that, I see Camilo sometimes tends to get stuck back behind the ball before impact and his finish often has a reverse C look. So that is the main reason why I would narrow his stance. With that done, then he will be able to shift over to his left/front foot and leg, smoother and quicker so he can then pop tart and stand up to a dynamically balanced T ' Finish.
Freddy Couples, as we all know, has a smooth and silky flowing swing. He has a full parallel back swing with a pretty good amount of shoulder turn. What I noticed yesterday watching him is that he has very little left/front foot and knee action and a very limited hip turn. I have watched Freddy on Tour and he sets up aimed quite left and thus open to his target. He then makes his shoulder turn to well short of his open toe line, to what would be just about dead over his toe line if he were aimed parallel left of his target as we do in the PPGS.
From there he just swings down his aiming line and releases to a pretty good T ' Finish except for one important point. He tends to let his arms finish wide and fold around his torso. This is a finish position that puts a lot of stress and strain on the lower back, which as we all know is a problem for him. I would correct it with teaching Freddy to swing his arms and club up and over the center of his left/forward shoulder with his right hand finishing very close to his left ear. Then he would recoil and relax his arms and club straight back down in front of his torso, with the club pointing at the target to emphasize and feel that he finished square to his target.
What I was really impressed with Freddy in his ball striking is that I saw him hit two sand wedges in a row to 1 foot and then 2 feet. What jumped out at me was both impacts for these wedges barely took a divot. I also saw him hit a 7 or 8 iron and again, his divot was small and very shallow with almost no grass flying out of the ground. He is definitely playing nip it; tear the grass out of the ground divot golf.
Congratulations to Camilo and Freddy on their victories. I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of them playing well and contending and winning in the future. They both have solid swings and do many good things that we teach in the PPGS.
The Surge!