Hunter Mahan

Age: 27 
Height: 5-feet-11
Driver: Ping Rapture V2
Ball: Titleist Pro V1
Driving distance (rank): 295.8 yards (34th)
Scoring average (rank): 69.72 (sixth)

When Hunter Mahan asked teacher Sean Foley for help, it was to improve his short game. But “the technical flaws you see in someone’s short game, you’ll see in the full swing, too,” Foley says. Specifically, Foley noticed Mahan wasn’t shifting his weight forward enough during the downswing, which prevented him from really smashing the ball.

“At impact, his weight would be 50-50 between his feet,” Foley says. “I’m looking for impact to be closer to 90 percent on the left foot. It was interesting because Hunter swung the club on plane beautifully, but he wasn’t really sure how to use his weight to compress the ball.”

Says Mahan, “I found out that I didn’t have enough lateral movement to my left side on the downswing. I was turning too much with my hips and staying on my right side. My impact wasn’t solid enough.” 

So how did Foley fix this energy leak?

He started from the ground up. When Mahan reached the top of his swing, Foley told him to pretend there was a pressure gauge under his left foot and to push down as hard as he could as he brought the club down. 

“From that point, it’s a function of moving laterally,” says Foley, who also works with PGA Tour pros Stephen Ames and Sean O’Hair. “As soon as Hunter gets his weight on his left side, all he has to do is pivot his hips and chest around his left leg.”  

Foley says the swing thought amateurs could use to copy this move is to thrust their belt buckle up and to the left of the target as they swing through the ball.

How has this move helped Mahan? In 27 tournaments in 2008, he had 63 drives longer than 320 yards (2.3 per event). In his first 24 events of 2009, he had 93 (3.9). Now when he needs another 20 yards, says Foley, “he can really smash it.”

Analysis by Sean Foley