Matt Kuchar / Pre-Round Range Session w/ Expert Analysis

When most golf fans think of Kuchar, his dramatic swing change comes to mind. The 2008 and 2009 seasons saw Kuchar adjust some fundamentals in his swing motion to both eliminate the left miss off the tee and gain some distance. His swing coach, Chris O’Connell, had to work with Matt on his overall swing motion to produce a more body-driven one-plane swing. At first, the look and feel were not comfortable to Kuchar, but O’Connell quickly pointed out that although many would call the swing flat, they could not be more wrong.

The majority of golfers, and even instructors, will call a swing flat just because the left arm, hands, and club appear low without taking into consideration the body position.

Kuchar is 6’4” and needs to bend more at the hips, creating spine angle to find a proper golf posture at address. His perfect backswing puts the left arm almost exactly parallel to his shoulder plane and sets the table for a textbook one plane swing. O’Connell worked hard with Kuchar to groove this motion because swinging on one plane requires the body to drive the swing and impact sees very minimal hand action, thus eliminating the misses off the tee.

Getting more accurate works, but Kuchar wanted to get longer, too. To make this happen, O’Connell had him load better into his right side, specifically sitting into his right hip. A great way to get this feeling is to think about the toes on your right foot (for right-handed golfer) lifting off the ground slightly on the backswing. This keeps the hips back and creates torque as the body rotates back. This a great feel to cure falling into the ball during the swing.

They worked on the right hip moving away from the ball slightly during the backswing and keeping the shoulders on plane and steep. This produced tremendous torque, similar to the athletic motion a discus thrower. As a result, Matt picked up eight yards off the tee, jumping 50 spots in driving distance, and gained 1.77 mph clubhead speed! 😳