Golf Monthly Top 25 Coach Barney Puttick takes an in-depth look at a Thorbjorn Olesen swing sequence. What can you learn from the rapidly rising Danish European Tour star?
This young Dane has already had a couple of top-10 finishes in the Majors, and is clearly going places. The Thorbjorn Olesen swing sequence is the epitome of a modern, dynamic movement, too. When you watch the accompanying video, you’ll see what a free-flowing movement it is, and just how good his angles are – he maintains his spine angle beautifully.
As you can see in the first photos, the angles at address are also excellent, and the takeaway is really neat. The shaft plane is parallel to the line of his feet and the toe of the club is pretty square halfway back. Some guys have the club a little bit closed at this point, but Thorbjorn is very conventional here.
He has a nice three-quarter coil-up, and then I really like the transition of his downswing, clearly shown in the fourth photo in each sequence. That’s a terrific position, because as the club drops back into the slot, although his hips are clearing, the shoulders are still in sequence with the shaft plane, not his hips. A lot of amateurs clear the hips well, but the shoulders will often join in too early and everything then gets too open.
People used to talk about pulling down with the arms during the transition, and the fourth picture in the top row certainly gives that impression at first glance. But for me, it’s more that the swing is flattening out slightly at this point. I encourage players to see it this way, rather than the ‘pull down’ concept, which I feel can lead to an overly steep contact. From this position, Thorbjorn will attack the ball from the inside, leading to a beautifully controlled gentle draw.
You can also see how he’s really set to ‘cover’ the ball from here. Impact is terrific, too, with his chest right over the ball. He then has excellent right-arm extension on the follow-through, which matches his left arm position on the backswing, before he turns through into a balanced finish.
The Thorbjorn Olesen swing sequence is one that looks set to carry him to the very top of the world game.
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