elbow more in front of him on the backswing, so the club pointed left of the target in a laid-off position at the top ( above, fourth image ). From there, he doesn’t have to reroute the club and has a much easier time getting his right elbow and arms in front of him on the downswing. The second adjustment was to post up on the left hip and rotate his body around it on the downswing (above, seventh image). When that hip slides towards the target and leaves his arms behind, his shoulders get shut and the path of the club becomes too much in
to out. Pavon needs his path to be more out in front of him so that his body can rotate and work left. It’s much easier to hit a fade with the shoulders open, says Gough, who also coaches another rising tour player, Ryan Fox. “Matthieu is in complete control of his shape right now,” Gough says. “Because he’s taken the left side out of play, he can swing hard down the left side of the fairway and he knows the ball is coming back. He’s not afraid to curve it, which is a good thing, because if you know what shape is coming, it’s really easy to play with confidence.”
the backswing, causing the shaft to cross the line and point right of the target at the top. He would also excessively slide his hips towards the target on the down- swing, trying to extract whatever power he could from his legs. This would cause his arms to drop too much to the inside – not a good position for a fader of the ball. As a result, his good shots would start to the right and curve further right, and his bad shots would be nasty double-cross hooks to the left. To stop hooking shots he was trying to fade, Pavon adopted two key swing feels. The first was to keep his right
GOLF DIGEST SOUTH AFRICA 111
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2024
Made with FlippingBook interactive PDF creator