Pablo Larrazabal's swing deconstructed

Pablo Larrazabal is coached by Damian Taylor. They teamed up in Febuary 2011, and Pablo has since gone from 384th to 87th in the world rankings. He beat Sergio Garcia in a play-off to win the 2011 BMW International Open in Munich. Nuff said.

Damian was a spicy player himself before being recruited by David Leadbetter to operate his DLGA Academy at Sentosa, Singapore in 2002, returning to the UK to coach Nick Dougherty full-time.

He tells us what Pablo has been working at down the range…

 

Good Points:

Perfect athletic set up from Pablo with a good body stack and his arms hanging nicely to allow him to have a classic orthodox grip with the club shaft perfectly angled straight up at 90 degrees.

Tendencies:

Pablo sometimes gets the ball position too far forward. This effects his body stack where his hips get too far forward towards the target and hands too far back causing the shaft of the club to be angled back.

 

Good Points:

Classic 'one piece takeaway' seeing the arms hands club and body move perfectly in sync to arrive at this first checkpoint.

Tendencies:

Grip end of the club moves before the clubhead, which see the right arm and hand a little too much 'on top' (too high). This gets Pablo a little out of sync to this first checkpoint.

 

Good Points:

Classic top of backswing position. Club shaft perfectly parallel to the ground, upper body wound up against the resistance of a stable lower half.

Tendencies:

Right leg straightens causing Pablo's weight to move into his right heel and losing stability with the lower half.

 

Good Points:

Maintains the stability in the lower half nicely and holds the angle very well between the left arm and club shaft which creates the 'lag' or 'load' which will generate tremendous power into the back of the ball at impact.

Tendencies:

Right knee gets a little out of position at this point and the right heel gets too much off the ground causing the hips to slide too much towards the target. From here Pablo sometimes struggles to maintain his body angles and also the stability in the lower half.

 

Good Points:

Perfectly square clubface with left arm and club shaft in a perfectly straight line delivering maximum power to the back of the ball for long and straight drives.

 

 

Good Points:

Classic balanced finish position with the hips facing, or just slightly left of target.

Tendencies:

Occasionally we see Pablo's lose a little bit of balance at the end of his swing, which is caused by the legs not being stable. The key to Pablo's swing is a stable lower half and good footwork throughout the swing. 

 

Related:

Scotty Cameron's brilliant putting tip