‘The best setup tip you never hear,’ according to a Top 100 teacher 

Cameron McCormick, his instruction video complete, took a swing. Why not, he seemingly thought. Practice what you preach, as they say. 

He almost dunked the iron. 

“Get in,” McCormick pleaded.

“Get in.”

“Ohhhh,” he moaned after his ball apparently just missed the hole. 

So he knows of what he speaks, though his status as a GOLF Top 100 teacher and Jordan Spieth’s coach suggests that, too. Notably, he’d just been talking about a move to get him in position for a quality strike. He teased it well, too.  

“Here’s the best setup tip you never hear,” McCormick said on the video. “And I’ll give you the what and the why.”

With that, you should view the video, and you can do so here, or immediately below. Below that, we’ll review it. 

Cameron McCormick and ‘the best setup tip you never hear’

The “what,” McCormick said on the video, is simple. 

“As you’re taking your stance,” he said, “I want you to turn your elbow so it faces your side. So the pit of your arm is facing up to the sky.” 

Interesting. Why do it, though?

“In the backswing motion, this is the motion that your trail arm should be taking, somewhat of a bicep curl [in a direction behind you],” McCormick said in the video. “But yet when your elbow is out, the bicep curl will be performed this way [more pointed skyward], causing your right elbow to get swung away from your side, losing your swing connection. 

“So the best setup tip you never hear is designed to improve your swing connection and help you start flushing it.”

From there on the video, McCormick almost holed out. 

Let’s continue the McCormick tip conversation. Late last month, GOLF.com shared an article headlined “3 swing ‘death moves’ you must avoid, according to Jordan Spieth’s coach,” and that article can be found by clicking here, or by scrolling below. 

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Cameron McCormick calls them swing death moves, which is perhaps a bit morbid, but maybe shock value is necessary here. The consequences are grim, after all, at least in a golf sense. 

But there’s also hope, McCormick said.

There are elixirs, so to say, in keeping with the theme. 

The GOLF Top 100 Teacher and Jordan Spieth’s longtime coach was talking on a video recently posted to his Instagram page, and the focus was bettering scores through an understanding of the “death moves” — there are three in all — and the ways to avoid them. You can watch the video below, and below that, we’ll offer some thoughts.  

3 swing ‘death moves’ you must avoid, according to Cameron McCormick 

1. ‘Getting your arms stuck behind your body because they’ve moved too far behind your body’

A death move, for sure. How does it happen?

“When this right arm moves all the way to the side of your body relative to how far your body rotates,” McCormick said in the video, “you’re stuck.”

So what’s the fix?

On the video, McCormick, a right-hander, extended his right arm forward with the palm facing the target and placed his left wrist underneath his right elbow with his left palm facing behind him, then took an imaginary swing.   

“Develop a sense, using your golf hand, that your arm always stays out in front of your shoulder in your golf swing,” he said in the video. “So stuck, connected.”

2. ‘Staying in wrist extension too long in the downswing’

Doing so, McCormick said, leaves the club face open. 

So what’s the fix?

“You need to turn that logo back away from you, down to the ground,” McCormick said on the video, “ultimately closing the face, turning push slices into straight shots or draws.”

3. ‘An overactive, high-right shoulder, early rib-cage rotation with left-side bend’

This one, McCormick said, causes a “steep angle of attack, left club path, and is probably going to end up causing some of this lead wrist extension.”

The fix here?

“We need to feel like our hip bumps,” McCormick said on the video, “[and] our lat and our back muscles stay to the target as our trail shoulder drops under.”