Chase Cooper Fixes Our Golf Swings | Part Two

What actually causes big slices with driver, heavy chips, and inconsistent contact in golf?

In this episode, golf coach and content creator Chase Cooper breaks down Dave and Chris’s golf swings live on the podcast — identifying the setup mistakes, low-point issues, clubface problems, and swing patterns that are holding them back.

From driver swing faults and ball position to chipping technique and strike control, Chase explains why most amateur golfers struggle with contact and how small changes in setup and intention can completely change your ball striking.

This is a raw, honest and hugely relatable coaching session for any golfer trying to improve their swing without getting lost in overcomplicated technical instruction.

Topics include:

• How to stop slices with the driver
• Why golfers struggle with low point control
• The real cause of heavy chips and chunked pitch shots
• Ball position, forearm setup and shoulder alignment
• Why solid contact solves more problems than golfers think
• The difference between “feel” golfers and analytical golfers
• Why most golfers are more consistent than they realise
• How elite players control strike location on the clubface
• Simpler ways to practice golf effectively

If you’ve ever stood on the range wondering why your swing suddenly disappeared… this episode is for you.

🎙️ About the show
How Low Can You Go explores how amateur golfers can improve their game, lower their scores, and actually understand what moves the needle—without wasting time on the wrong things.

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🏨 Big shout out to The Leddie Hotel on Scotland’s Golf Coast.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Solid contact solves a lot of problems. Like it sure feels a lot better and it makes us way less emotional and way less crazy about oh, I'm not hitting it solid, my golf swing is just a mess. It's like, no, it's not, it's an inch off.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome back to How Low Can You Go, the golf improvement podcast born in Scotland, where Chris and I try and reach our golf targets by speaking to some of the best coaches on the planet. Last week, Chase Cooper completely flipped the way we think about golf coaching. Not with complicated swing theory or with a hundred different positions, but with one simple idea. Can you control the task that can then control the strike? So, in part two, things get personal. Chris and I have sent our swings to Chase for a live on-air analysis and breakdown. And what follows is in equal parts enlightening, uncomfortable, and honestly I think pretty relatable for anyone who's ever stood on a range wondering why the ball just won't do what you want it to. From big odds slices with driver to chunky chips with wedges and low point disasters, Chase strips everything back to impact, setup, and intention in a way that might honestly change how you approach your own game. So if you've ever felt overwhelmed by technical golf instruction, I think you're in good company. Keep listening. This is How Low Can You Go. How low can you go? Selfishly, before you joined us, we did send you a few clips of our swings because we we were hoping that you might take a little look. Now I'm I'm actually getting a little bit nervous as to what what you're gonna say about mine. Where should we start? Because like I think I I sent you a couple of drivers and then there's there's one iron shot that I shared with you.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

I I will say, I will just interject here where you were talking about how to two of your methods when you're you're coaching can be the caveman style. I'd say my learning is very like I love the analogies you're using, and maybe you're using them for like like say with the plane landing, I am the caveman style, and that helps me, just so you know. Do you know what I mean? Although I'm a lower handicap, I've always found the like the cave the caveman approach to be so helpful for me if that no, it's good.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah, that that was what I was gonna ask earlier. What like what I think I kind of know what you mean by this, but like what do you mean by the caveman style? It's kind of like this is your task, like this is your task. You need you need to do this, you need the low point to be here. That's your task. I don't really care how you do it, just go and do it. Is that is that it?

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, like you know, I jokingly, you know, I I created a a spreadsheet on this or a or a PowerPoint slide, and I used caveman, I had caveman swinging a stick, you know, and the idea is like stick needs to land at the ball at this, you know, like I have stick, I hit ball, you know, and just I think we just make and I I've I've taught it this way forever. We just make golf too much. And it's like I have to make this one motion while I'm also doing this, while I'm also doing this, while I'm also bringing a bunch of anxiety to it, because I have to shoot this score while I'm playing with a group of guys I don't I don't know, and I'm nervous about that while there's wind off the right, balls above my feet, and there's trouble left. It's like, huh, um, good luck. Have fun with that, you know. And we know the brain doesn't multitask complex talk complex things very well. And so, like, what are we gonna do? You know? And so, you know, I I just I'll I I mean I use I use duct tape, I use spray in the face, I use pool noodles. I'll put a piece of tape down three inches in front of the golf ball and say, go hit it. And they're like, how? Like, I don't know. Go hit it. Well, do I need to work? How do I hit the ball on the tape? And then I'll hit one and show them and I'll put it six inches forward and hit one. They're like, that's possible. I'm like, yeah, okay. So now I don't care where this golf ball goes, go hit the tape. And they'll hit it, and a lot of times it'll be healy or what, oh well that was healy. Okay, so then I'll put a T down right next to the ball and say, okay, now you got to miss the T, but hit the tape. So I'm trying to get them to hit it off the toe. Put the put the T down just on the north side of the golf ball if you're facing the golf ball. Can we hit it in the middle of the? Can we hit it off the toe and hit the tape? And like they'll flush it and they're like, that's the most solid shot I've ever hit. And I'm like, yeah, solid contact solves a lot of problems. Like it sure feels a lot better, and it makes us way less emotional and way less crazy about oh, I'm not hitting it solid, my golf swing is just a mess. And it's like, no, it's not, it's an inch off. You're literally this far off. And so that's always the direction I go with with the caveman style. So going into you guys' golf swings, and I like I said, I'll be I'll be gentle, I'll be kind.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I don't I don't want to take it, Chris. You were kind of saying, please give it the caveman approach because you don't want to be your head tickled with like technical goals.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

My yeah, my type of learning is like, see, the technical, like it can some like you said, there's so many things to golf that sometimes the technical, I then will only my the way my brain thinks, I'm only picking up one thing, but you've told me three. But like if it's simple and like I do know I mean I can go away and be like, yeah, I understood what you meant here because it was just like a layman's terms, caveman, like but be be crit, like tell me where I am, crap at golf. And I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

So I need to so so Chris, one of one of the things I see, and if I'm looking at, and you guys can use this, use the swing that I'm looking at now when you if you post a reel about this, but the the the swing I'm looking at is you guys look like you're playing the same golf course, you're in you're in a white shirt and blue pants, um, and it's a driver's swing. One of my non-negotiables is I do not like open forearms at a dress. And so if we if we hold our hands out in front of us like this, like we're holding the steering wheel, I want everybody's setup to have a little bit of closure to it. So we're gonna turn our hands to where that we're turning the steering wheel a little bit to the right. Just a little bit. And so this could change your grip, because I didn't see a face on video, but this could change your grip a little bit. But we want to turn the steering wheel a little bit to the right, to where our forearms, at least from say the middle of our forearm down to our wrist, are a little bit closed, at least square, but a little bit close.

unknown 6:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

And so, like if you're hitting wipe your fades and your fades aren't going as well as you want them to, it's either a contact issue first with driver, especially. There's another non-negotiable. Know where contact is on the face with driver, because if it's a heel strike, it's gonna tend to fade. If it's a toe strike, it's gonna hit gonna tend to draw. So is it solid on the face first? And if you're like, yep, it's solid, but they're cutting too much. Okay, we know the face is open. And so for you, from that video, ball position looks a little bit forward and the forearms are open. So you're already starting with this path that's gonna go down and left or just left more than it necessarily needs to. So I want, and if I if I zoomed out, I want I want more of that rotation to where it we're getting our right forearm to be a little bit below our left, to where you can see from a down-the-line view, you can see the top of your left forearm. At least they're square, but but not open.

unknown 7:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

And that's always one of the first things that I do with all my players that are fighting some some overly pull fades um or or wipey cuts with driver. We check contact and then we preset that way. Um backswing's a little bit flat, um, but yeah, you know, I what I said is I said open forearm shoulders at address, the ball book, the ball looks a little bit forward in your stance, both add to the pull fade pattern. And so if it gets too far over, then the brain says, nope, I gotta open the face, and now the face to path get off off kilter a little bit, and now it becomes a more of a deflected weak cut. Um, the face has to be open when you're swinging that far. And so um it just gets wipier and wipier. And so for you, I would say get the forearms right. You may have to move the ball back in your stance just a smidge to make it work, and then I want you to be able to hit a straight drive or a little bit of a push-draw feel. Doesn't need to be like that much of one, but just have the ability to add some solid pull lefts or some solid straight balls in there, just because that means we got the face and the path closer together, but just assess contact. So it needs to be a straight ball or straighter ball from the middle of the face, and then you know that you've kind of organized this circle a little bit better. Um from your chipping, um This is a big one. So the first thing I would say with chipping is if we're fighting like heavier shots, um I want you to draw a line up the shaft at a dress. Call that the plane line, and the club should never get inside of that. Okay. So if it gets inside, we don't have enough time to get it back. And so we can go an inside takeaway with with a full swing because we have time to do all of this motion. We have time to get it back. But it but if we go inside and the club gets too low to the ground, now our chest is really closed, and now we have to speed it up to be able to make it work, and now we hit it too hard. So the only way for you to do that is to hit it, hit it too too fast, and now it's not gonna be a functional shot, even though we find good contact. And so what I would say for you is like you've got to get you've got to keep the club head a little bit more up and outside. You want to get the club away from the ground a little bit more, steeper, and I kind of just wrote down like steeper and outside for a pitch shot is always better than flat and inside. Okay. So if we're gonna error, I'd much rather it be, it doesn't have to be way outside. It can just be on plain, look up speed hitting pitch shots, look up, look up whoever. It doesn't really matter. But feel like they're a little, you're a little bit more outside and the shoulders aren't just rotating first move back, and that'll get the club out of the ground a little bit better. It should help you feel like if it if you're gonna hit the ground, you're gonna hit the ground past the golf ball a little bit more and not so far behind it. Yeah. It just looked, it looked inside low and kind of your shoulders were a little bit closed. And so I would say with short game, and it's a big topic of conversation now, we want to hit down on it some and we want it to be steeper. And Joe Mayo's done a done a good job of kind of bringing a lot of this to light. But I would say our goal is a slightly more open-shouldered setup with a little bit more outside takeaway because it gets the airplane to land further past the golf ball. And then we open the face and we add some throw and we do some different things to take some speed off and to get some height up. But we don't want some non-negotiables for pitching, would be right side bend, would be tilting back, would be closed shoulders, and would be really inside takeaways. Okay. If you give me those three, I'm gonna give you somebody that cannot chip it at all. You could hit a high draw with a driver off a T, but you cannot hit a soft pitch shot to hit the ground and hit the ground. And so if we were gonna error, we would error soft cuts and little fade feels with pitches. Okay. And then we would, for you, you would need to error a little bit more draw feel with driver. And then I would say off season, the only other thing I would say to watch out for is don't let your backswing get too flat. The flatter it gets, it's much harder. You run out of room to come from the inside, and so it wants to get a not that you need to go higher, but I would say you may go back to some videos when you felt like maybe you were hitting it better or whatever, and you may look and see where that backswing was. The flat backswing's fine as long as it stays there, but it's a lot of it's easy to get the momentum coming even more across. Yeah, correct, when it gets that low and flat.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Perfect. Thank you very much. Now that's and just what you were saying about Chris with his full swing with the driver. Did you say the dot back swing you thought was a little bit flat? Yeah, just a little low.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Right, okay. Okay. And I need to just move the ball obviously off because I normally have always set it off on my back left heel. Would you say just move a tad to maybe I'm okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

My guess is the video you sent me, that ball position looks more forward. So just be aware of it. Yeah, and I would say, you know, Kepka is a is an interesting study for you because Kepka puts the ball further back, at least in some of the videos I've seen on YouTube where the ball's, you know, looks like it's six or seven inches off of his left foot, inside of his left foot. And so for you, I would just say you've got to find the balancing point with your setup to where your shoulders and forearms are neutral, and then figure out where that ball position needs to be. Right. And then you can you can get it a little further back, and then we add a little bit of the right side bend, which would also help you with some draws too, to be able to still get it in the air.

SPEAKER_02 12:37

And is that, sorry, yeah, is that with using because you were saying obviously that I want to feel like I'm dry, and then tilt to the the right. When I go like that, that then makes my shoulders tilt a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Yeah, so the first the first conversation would be put your hands down in front of you and just rotate, rotate your elbow, get your right elbow to bend and your left arm to come up a little bit. So we're turning the steering wheel first with just our forearms. Okay, and then we would add a little more steering wheel with our side bend if we needed to.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Okay, got you. Perfect. It sounds it sounds almost like you're telling him to do a bit more of that with his full swing, with the driver swing, but then almost I might correct me if I'm wrong, Chase, but a bit more of that with the chipping. Chipping and the pitching.

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Yeah, shoulders are very, very close at impact or square at impact with chipping and pitching, and that can be scary from low point control. It just moves low point back. So, you know, if I'm pointing at the camera and I rotate this way, I'm gonna, my low point's going back. If I point at the camera and I rotate this way, my low point's going forward. And so, like this concept of right side bend, left side bend with rotation moves low point around a ton. So, like this whole thing, if I got to move low point forward, I'll go, I'll go open and forward with my head. If I want to move low point back, which low point back for you, Chris, would be a little bit more draw feels because it'd get the club staying inside a little bit more. Yeah, that could be debated, but I would say for you it will do that. Um, getting the steering wheel more back this way will help with that.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

Okay, quick pause here because some of this is probably easier to visualize when you're watching a video rather than audio. I totally get that. What Chase is essentially getting Chris to feel with the driver is less of that uh open setup with his shoulders and forearms that can encourage the face to stay open through impact and produce big slices at times. He's talking about slightly closing the forearms at a dress, almost like gently turning a steering wheel to the right, and this is for a right-handed golfer. So the club has then got a better chance of returning square instead of cutting across the ball. And then interestingly, with shipping and pitching for Chris, he's encouraging that Chris almost feels the opposite to the full swing driver. So Chase wants the shoulders and club working a little more open with less of that low inside takeaway that can really bring the low point too far behind the ball and lead to some of those heavy strikes that we really don't want that so many of us golfers struggle with. It's one of those things that makes total sense once you see it. So if you're listening to this and you're trying to picture some of these movements, then definitely check out the videos and drills over on our Instagram because Chase has very kindly been sending us visual breakdowns and feels to work on. So we'll keep posting all of those updates and then test some of this in our own games over the coming weeks. Let's get back into it.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

And then which hand just the final one with chipping hands-wise, I've found when I've been like stronger and tighter on my hands with my chipping, I feel more control when I've had them like lighter, which I've seen people talk about. I don't have that good control. Is that like a preference, or would you say have them?

SPEAKER_00 16:10

I would say that's a great question. I would say it's a preference. I'm on the lighter side of things, but that's also my preference. And I think some of it is you guys hit more low driving chip shots than we have to here. We have to hit some softer, higher pitchier shots. So I do like, I like that, but I would still say it's a little bit of the Goldilocks principle of like, can you do both? Can you hit can you have the drive and hold? Can you have a little bit of the softer one? Your job again is just to get rid of the chunk. I would rather you thin it. I'd rather you thin it than chunk it because with if we thin it, we can sometimes get lucky and it can hit something and pop up in the air. The chunk, you got to hit it again. It's gonna be another one, and so it's always it's always scary. So I would say just some more set, get your shoulders a little bit more open, get the club away from the ground longer, not low in inside, and yeah, and then play around with just you want to bottom out a just an inch or two, or or right underneath it, or just past it, depending on the shot. Perfect. No, thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

And just picking up on what you said earlier, uh Chase, about like some of the real fundamentals of ball position. And you know, we've heard that from we heard that from Scott Fawcett, we heard that from Alex Huang from Decade as well. You know, we're hearing it from Chase. You know, I'm preaching to myself here because I don't do this enough in practice, is people make sure that when you're practicing, let's get that right, let's get a really good situation where where that exactly where that ball position is consistent. Because like Chase, there's a reason why the pros obsess over this stuff, right? Because it's just so key.

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yeah, and again, how much you know, how many sleepless nights do we have thinking about our golf swing and why we played bad today? And yet there's a lot a really good player came in yesterday that played at a a power force school or or uh you know an SEC school seven or eight years ago, and he hadn't played much, and he'd got, you know, had a young family and all at seven, hadn't played much in the last couple years. And he was like, Chase, I used to be the best ball striker, I was one of the best ball strikers in the conference, and I couldn't pot. And he goes, No, I can't hit it at all. And I just I was like, man, his he had no knee bend, he was really close to it, and the handle was really high. So he was really like shoulders were all jumped, jumbled up and just really tight. And I I watched him, and I don't normally do this, but I I usually get him on the force plates and get data and stuff for a play like that. I usually collect a lot, but we were just outside hitting, and I just had him, I was like, hey, give me a second, and I moved the ball about two inches from him, knee bend, lowered the handle, and adjusted his shoulders a little bit, and he like flushed the first one. He kind of looked, looked at me, he was like, Really? And I was like, Yeah, and he goes, Chase, that's the most solid shot I've hit in a year. I was like, dude, like, I mean, so I I keep saying, if if I have a set model, it's is the setup and and sometimes setups nuanced, like, is it set up? Are you set up the way I want you to be set up to it? Is the setup decent, nice and athletic, and and and we're aimed for the shot we're trying to hit and where we where we need to be aimed. Is the backswing decent? Are we hitting it solid in the face? And then is there one shot we can't hit? Can we hit a little bit of a fade when we need to? Can we hit a little bit of a draw when we need to? Yes, cool. Get your mind right, go make some putts and let's go have some fun. Like it's that simple. But when it's not, uh I want you to identify what's the problem. I'm I'm having problems with contact. Okay, set up and backswing good. Yes, okay, work on contact. Get low point more forward, move it back, get it more on the toe, more on the heel. Like calibrate, calibrate, use that as think of that as the skill. That's fine, but calibrate impact and get it where you want it to want it to be. Because people say that a lot of times, like you can't you can't think about contact. I'm like, you can move the ball. Yes, you can. I can hit it on the heel and I can hit on the toe on purpose. And the best players in the world can shank one on purpose and can toe, hit it off the toe on purpose. They can hit it low in the face and high in the face. And a lot of amateurs only hit it where they the one spot that they're used to hitting it. And it's what's also crazy is how consistent they are. A lot of people come in, I'm the most inconsistent person ever. I'm like, no, you're actually really consistent. Uh man, I either hit it flush or I shank it. I'm like, no, you either shank it or you hit off the heel. Like, no chance. And I'll spray the face, and their wear mark is literally a quarter of an inch from the from the shaft. Like, yeah, that he was like, Yeah, that was good. And I'll show him the face, and it was like almost a shank. He was like, Wow, I didn't realize that. It's like just measure, just check, just check it, because it'll it'll save you a lot of save you, calibrate. That's right. It'll save you a lot of problems.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

No, I I want I want to uh suspense is killing me for Dave. I want to hear it. Because the two of us, Dave is the one that is like really, I'm just kind of feeling it. I'm like, oh Dave, you are the guy.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

What I would say, Chris, you are very fortunate in that you were handed a golf club when you were about five years old. And so I kind of think from your perspective, you've never really ever needed to like learn all this nonsense that a lot of people learn. Yeah. Or or like go down dark rabbit holes because you just kind of know how to swing a golf club.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

But sometimes, yeah, you do sometimes veer, like say all the stuff you were saying about, obviously leaning with left with a chip in, like I all of these things, but it's just you get knocked out of sync and you just took like you're saying about that golfer you had in, he knows probably all of this stuff. And when he looked at you and went, Really? This is literally this is it.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

I'm paying you this much to tell you this. Yes. So it's that well, and and I and I think too to Dave's point, imagine if we at let's just say we didn't allow people to ride bicycles until they were 40. Yeah. And we told them to get on a bicycle and learn how to ride their bike at 40 years old. How difficult no one would ride bikes because we would fall once and it would hurt so bad and we would never, we would never want to do it again, right? And it's the same thing. Like golf's an acquired, it's an acquired skill and acquired taste. And if you don't learn it early on, it's it can be really difficult because as kids you just learn the motion. It's like, okay, my golf swing's kind of built. And like by seven, eight, nine, ten, they've got a decent golf swing for the rest of their life. But if you've never touched a club and never done it, it's really, it's really, really difficult. So, Dave, I feel I feel your pain on you having to having to grind a little bit on the mechanics to get this thing right. It it it makes sense. So here's what I will say about your swing. I like your backswing. Backswing's good. You get it a little bit across and you get your left wrist a little bit cupped. So it gets a little bit, a little bit cupped, which if you follow Instagram a lot, cupped is a bad thing. But I don't, I really don't have a problem with your left wrist being a little bit more cupped instead of flat. So left wrist cupped would be your wrist, your knuckles are working towards your watch of your left hand. Yeah. Flat or flexed would be um it's cupped is extended, flexed is um uh what's bowed. That was the other term I forgot. Flexed is is bowed. Um typically more extension opens the face a little bit more. Um you do a pretty good job at the top where you run into problems, and here's what I'm gonna tell you the body is an opener or is a slicer. So if we just take it to the top and use our body and don't move our arms at all, we're gonna slice it. We're gonna come over the top of it. The arms need to be more responsible for draws and getting this club to work more from the inside and come down a little bit more. So if I have somebody that hooks it too much, typically they're too much this way. They drop their arms down too much and they tilt. If it's a slicer, we don't use our arms enough and we go this way. And so for you, your first move down is body with opening the face. So as you open the face, first move down is all body, and you've got no chance but to hit a wipey cut or a big pull cut when you're dialed just right.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

The other thing occasionally, T is just on that, I'm sorry to jump in, but occasionally I will hit these nasty pull hooks or just like, yeah, the just duck hook OB kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00 23:32

Yeah, and and sometimes you time up, sometimes you time up the face, or could be a toe strike that takes away the face open in the gear effect and it makes it go left. Um, and and the other the other thing that I would say, and here's a non-negotiable, is I hate the head, I hate head movement towards the ball, towards the target line of the ball on the downswing. I hate I don't mind it going down. I don't mind it going down, so I don't mind it going down. I hate it going towards the ball. And so when we take it to the top, and if our first move down works to where our head works towards the ball with some body rotation, you've got no chance. This is the only way you're gonna make it work.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

And so So sorry, sorry to cut in again, Chase. I just want to make sure that I'm understanding that so the you don't like the head, the club head to no head. Your head. My head. Sorry. Okay, you're good.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

So tell me what you don't want to see the head doing what, did you say? Yeah, so if I'm set up to a golf ball and right now the camera's right in front of right in front of my face, I'm okay going straight up and down. I don't mind if on the backswing we lower. Lowering is fine. What I don't want is I don't want a movement towards the ball. I don't want it to work towards, towards, out towards like past your toes. I don't want it to work that way. And so if we drew a line, like if we put an alignment stick down for our alignment, right? The head should never work towards the alignment stick on the downswing. Most great players are moving slightly away from the golf ball. They're not working closer to the golf ball. And so if I make a backswing and my first move down works towards the alignment stick, with body rotation opening up a little bit too soon, you're gonna come over the top of it. And then one nerdy comment about your golf swing is so the lead arm, the relationship between the lead arm and the chest is really important. And your lead arm gets stays too close to your chest for too long. It's called lead arm adduction, and it stays too plastered across your chest. So a move for you long term is to get the club face more closed on the way down and keep the arms working more down your chest, more this way and not this way.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

And I would, you know, off off here. I mean, it's it's obviously your most of your listeners listen via audio, so it's hard to show this. But I if if you want, I'll make you a video and kind of kind of dive in and show it, and then you guys can display it if you want to on a reel or whatever and show you kind of what I'm talking about. But yeah, you've got to feel number one, you've got to get the club face more closed, especially first move down, and then you've got to feel like the arms work down more towards your hip pocket with a with, say, your shoulders staying closed, kind of like how Chris chips a little bit, like a little bit more closed. That wasn't meant to be a dig. Um, but it feels closed and the chest feels feel closed, club face and the chest feels closed versus open and open. You open too fast and the face opens too fast, both both openers, you're gonna have a really, really, really hard time doing anything but hit and wipey cuts.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

And I'm wondering if any of our listeners can empathize with this, but I actually do think that that move that you're describing where it's like a lot of body to kind of turn into the downswing, I think that is probably as a result of me binge watching lots of YouTube stuff where you would get people saying, like, take the arms out of the out of the swing, you know, take the arms out of the downswing.

SPEAKER_00 26:46

100%. Well, go ahead and go go watch my Instagram because I push back against that big time. And I would say, I would say, if and to answer that question, if you guys were going to write your name on a chalkboard, would you use your big muscles or would you use your hands and your arms? If if heaven forbid anybody had to have brain surgery, would you want your surgeon performing surgery on you with his pivot and his body? Or would you want his would you want the surgeon performing surgery on you with his hands and his fingers and what we are so good at? Every great player I've ever spoken with said they had educated hands and they could make it work from from weird positions. And go watch tour players when they have a bad driving day, how well they hit it from really weird lies and setups and ball above their feet and have to hit hooks and have to manipulate. They are amazing at it. And so you need to use your hands, you need to be able to control it a little bit more with your hands and arms. And if I take the hips and the body out of the out of the golf swing, I can still hit it really far. But if I take my arms and hands out of the golf swing, I can't hit it very far at all. And so we can only pivot as fast as we can, but we can throw our arms at it really fast. And so it's not the body needs to support what the hands and arms are doing. If I, if I, if I just fix people's pivots, it's the simplest thing in the world to do. It's not that hard. We just we tilt and turn a little bit, we tilt and turn a little bit. But trying to fix everybody's mess of hands and wrists and arms and shoulders and all the upper body stuff, it's really hard to do. And so to me, I'm way more of a belly button up guy when it comes to control and contact and face and performing versus we got to have the pivots look perfect because the pivot doesn't hit the golf ball. It it helps and it supports, and I'll I'll move hips around and stuff, but it is not it is not the be-all end-all. It's not, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

And last thing selfishly from my perspective, Chase. And I act it's funny, I actually thought you were gonna hate my my takeaway and my back swing. I thought that you were gonna like really hate that. So I'm quite surprised. I think I said this to you, Chris. I was like, I bet you thinks that my takeaway is terrible. But um why do you think it is? Because I have been aware having seen my swing on video a little bit, I don't like to watch it that much, but having seen it on video a little bit, I am aware that I do do sort of flash the face open like at the start of the downswing. What what's your theory on why?

SPEAKER_00 29:01

Like, why do you think I'm doing that? Yeah, it's a good question. The why is sometimes tricky. You know, your story of why and and how how you do it and all that stuff becomes becomes tricky. Generally speaking, one thing I didn't say, generally speaking, across the line is a drawing pattern, is a hook pattern, generally. For about 90% of the students I work with, if I can get them across the line, they'll add more hooks. More laid off is generally more slices and fades. Generally, you're one that gets it across and then opens it coming down and actually wipes across it and hits fades. Most most players, if I cross them up, if we I'm guessing if we got Chris high and across at the top, he would probably hit more draws pretty quickly. It's just it's the way the club moves, and I can explain that. We can explain that in detail later.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

So just for interestingly on that, and sorry again, just I actually did used to hit more of a draw. There was a time when I did hit more of a draw, but sort of recently and working a bit with Johnny at our club, he was like, he feels like a fade is a better place for me. Um, but yeah, that that kind of might help explain a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah, for sure. And and again, the your story and what and that's the hard part with answering the why. Why do you feel like the face is open? Well, right now you're trying to, what's your intention? You're trying to hit fade. So the face is gonna want to open up a little bit. Um I I would just say my the thing that I would try to get you to do is understand the relationship of the arms to the chest. And these arms have to get it, has to get more forward. It can't just stay pinned across the chest forever. It's like throwing a frisbee. You gotta throw a frisbee, you gotta let the arm release, and you can't throw a frisbee where it just stays connected the whole time. And to me, that's part of your challenge. The face gets open fast, and then you don't you have no extra arm motion. And look, the club weighs 100 pounds coming down if we're swinging at it at a decent speed. And so to move it, we gotta move it some. And and especially if we're not squaring up the face, you know, adding some of that is never is never a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Yes. Well, fantastic. And and Chase, thank you so much. I think we're not gonna keep you much longer. I would like to take you up on what you said there about maybe creating a little video for Chris and I. And I personally love getting like drills. Um, you know, if you can show me some drills that are gonna help kind of to what you said, help I guess stop me from the the arms and the downswing, pinning too much to the chest and bleeding too much with the body. If you can think of some good drills that would really help with that, then I would love to give those a try. And I'm sure you would welcome that too, Chris.

SPEAKER_02 31:34

Yeah, no, definitely. If like I think because we've obviously sent you these videos and you said that you've given such like great kind of insight to what we could do to be better, like at from doing the reels and stuff like that. I'd love to like chop some stuff up as well. And uh I think all of our listeners and viewers would enjoy that as well. Yeah, no problem. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yeah, I would be glad to give you guys some more, like I would do an online lesson. I'd give you more context into what I'm seeing. And so then if yeah, if it works out, and again, it's and I know we we do an audio pretty much only podcast, and we'll get some coaches on that are trying to demonstrate and show, and it's really hard for y'all for you guys listening at home to understand that. And so I'll definitely, definitely give you guys um a couple of videos kind of overviewing kind of like what I'm referring to when I talk about the lead arm and and this and the for Chris for you that kind of that line up the shaft. I'll I'll give you some videos, some visuals that you can use.

SPEAKER_02 32:27

Well, I didn't know thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

This has been so insightful. And yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. And uh we would also gladly repost some of the stuff that you've got on your Instagram as well. Because some of those drills that you mentioned that you work with with some of your students. I know that you've got a lot of really, really good drills on there already. So thank you so much, Chase Cooper. Before we let you go, do you mind just sharing with our listeners where people can find you if they have further questions, maybe if they want to book in for a lesson with you or uh want to want to learn a bit more about what you're doing, and what would be the best way?

SPEAKER_00 33:03

And again, thank you guys for having me on. Um I I love what you guys are trying to do. I love your passion. Again, we're all just kind of golf nerds trying to trying to help, trying to selfishly get better ourselves and then help other people out. Um, best way to get in touch with me is on Instagram, Chase Cooper at Chase Cooper Golf. Um, I'm pretty active on there. Um my website's chaseboopergolf.com. Uh obviously, you know, Doc was on the podcast with you guys, and so your listeners already know him, but we we shoot uh you know a couple times a month um at Golf Beneath the Surface. Um I've I handle that account on Instagram too, but I'm not as active on there as I am on my own personal one. But yeah, feel free to follow on anything. And if there's any questions that any of you guys have, or or obviously you, you and Dave, you and Chris have have, feel free to let me know if I need to, you know, kind of um explain some of the stuff that I ran through pretty fast. Um but yeah, it was a pleasure speaking with you guys. Like I said, I love what you guys are trying to do, and it's these podcasts are fun, man. It's fun to talk to talk to a bunch of different people and get a bunch of different takes on this very nuanced, crazy game that we play. Yeah, of course. And if you're ever over in Scotland, you need to come visit us and we'll get some golf as well. Absolutely. Now, hey, Doc and I have been talking about doing doing some traveling golf schools. What better way than to come over to to the to to God's country, the golf, the golf gods country for sure. You know it. You know it. Thank you very much. No, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 34:23

We would we would happily make that happen as well. So just let us know anytime. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thanks again. Cheers, Doc Chase. Thank you. Take care. Well, thank you once again, Chase Cooper. What I loved about this conversation is how Chase somehow makes golf feel so much simpler, but without making it feel easy, if that makes sense. There's something reassuring, I think, about hearing that even good players congested the bad pattern. And it's sometimes very often effective is not rebuilding your swing, it's just understanding impact a little bit better. So we're gonna keep working on this stuff through the season. We're gonna share the drills and the updates on Instagram, and honestly, we will let you know if any of this actually affects our game. We are confident because Chase knows what he's talking about. So thank you once again for listening. We'll see you next time on How Low Can You Go.

SPEAKER_03 35:36

How low can you go?