Chris Stroud - The Right Elbow

Chris Stroud discusses the importance of getting the right elbow in a good position at the top of the swing. He developed an "elbow board" that helps him keep his right elbow on plane in the backswing.


Transcript

When I'm hitting it well, I can always go back and see a few things. Am I keeping my head height on the way which keeps my angle? And then on the way down from the face on angle, am I close enough to 90 degrees? If not, you'll see--

I see.

--I'm hunched. This is pinched, and it gets real close. And then I've got-- I'm stuck.

Yeah. Go to--

And it's not necessarily stuck underneath the plane as much as it is I'm out of sequence. The club's way behind my turn. How am I going to get it back?

Go to the top again. I want to give people a perspective of how tall the clubhead is. You know, I'm 6'2.

You know, you're like-- your clubhead is like eight feet off the ground some. It's way up there.

Way up there. And to me--

That's big circle.

--for power and for my tendencies, I need that club to be as vertical-- I mean, if it starts getting flattened around my body, it is no good for me.

It doesn't suit you, anyway.

It doesn't suit-- I'm tall.

When I look at your backswing, you know, what I see, is I see this right elbow under control. And it's just right there.

That's it.

You can turn around and just drop it again.

That's it.

And to me, I just don't-- I've never-- you can't any better than that.

I've worked as hard as I can. My right elbow I spent two years on, my right elbow.

Oh, good thing-- good thing I picked it up then.

Yeah, I'm glad you saw it. So it means I've done the work. So I built this-- I was even going to patent it, but I didn't do it.

But I built this plane board I called the elbow plane. And I don't mean-- it's just this board I have a home. I built it two different times. The second time was little better.

I put this elbow pad on. And I basically go like this. The plane comes right down my elbow plane, up to the top, and it gives me enough space down here.

There's only two sticks that come in the ground. And there's just this big piece of plywood back here. And I'm able to get my elbow on there.

It will not let me push that way, which gets me that way, and then I end up correcting it the other way. So it taught me. It trained how to get my right elbow in the right position.

Very good.