Poulter proves simplicity is the key to long-term success

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Ian Poulter's left forearm is key to his consistent swing.

Ian Poulter capped off an absolutely crazy week in golf with a 4 and 2 victory against fellow Englishman Paul Casey to win his first PGA TOUR title at the World Golf Championships -- Accenture Match Play Championship. After some bold statements over the years by Poulter about his plans to challenge for the top ranking in the world, he has now backed it up with some great play in a very difficult event. This type of play over the last five days is exactly what Poulter was referring too and has now elevated him to the fifth-ranked player in the world.

Listen to Travis Fulton

PGA TOUR Golf Academy's Travis Fulton breaks down the keys to Ian Poulter's win at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play Championship on the PGA TOUR Network (XM 146, SIRIUS 209). Click to listen

It's interesting that a man who has his own clothing line that includes a certain flare for -- how shall we say it -- pastels -- has a game could be so simple and at times -- almost boring. Now I refer to "boring" in a good way as Poulter's game is one that doesn't really go up or down much, just very solid golf that can wear an opponent down. It's a strong way to compete at match play when you need to play a lot of holes to win the title.

Over the years, Poulter, and his swing coach David Leadbetter, have made Poulter's swing very consistent. One of the things I really like about Poulter's swing is how he rotates his left forearm. This well-timed rotation allows him to square the clubface at impact and leads to consistent shot making.

This topic is one we have discussed in week's past with players like Geoff Ogilvy - who over-rotate the left forearm resulting in an open clubface at the top of the swing and conversely, players like Dustin Johnson who under rotate resulting in a closed clubface at the top. As you can see, there are certainly options when using the clubface and all are manageable; however, from strictly a simplistic approach you have to prefer Poulter's ability to match the amount of clubface rotation to the swing's arc.

At the TOUR Academies, we work hard on this particular pattern with a lot of our students. Regardless of how you get the club to the top of the swing, over time you will figure out how to manage it and get yourself around the course. However, often times this process leads to compensations at address and/or during the swing. Most of the time, we encourage players to make it as simple as possible. Generally, matching the clubface angle to the arc during the backswing is a key component to achieving consistent ball striking like Poulter.

When rotating the left arm to the top of the swing, it's important to first understand the sequence of the swing plane. This sequence can be defined as "Upwards" and then "Back". Often when rotating the lead forearm, a player can perceive this as bringing the club head too far to the inside during the initial takeaway. Therefore, it's important to get the club head working upward first and then rotate the left forearm to the top of the swing. This forearm rotation countered with the shoulder turn will allow the club head to work back.

There are two key checkpoints that you can use and are represented in Ian Poulter's swing. The first is when the shaft reaches parallel to the ground. At this point, the toe should be angled slightly down -- say 11:30 on a clock-face -- if you were to look at the clubface from the player's perspective. For a player who over rotates the lead forearm, the toe point up at 12 o'clock and if it's closed, it will point too much downward around 10 o'clock.

The second checkpoint is when the hands reach shoulder height. This is roughly three-quarters of the way to the top when the shaft hasn't reached parallel yet. At this point, the clubface angle should be parallel to the left forearm resulting in a square clubface. If the club's toe points straight down, this is open and conversely, if the clubface is looking to the sky this would be considered closed. Once again, getting the angle of the clubface to match the left forearm's rotation is a great way to swing the club and can make things a whole lot easier, just like Ian Poulter's swing.

Who knows, get this down and you too could be hitting more boringly solid shots every weekend.

Just Because
The PGA TOUR is cruising right along as we have now reached the famous 16th hole at TPC Scottsdale -- host of the Waste Management Phoenix Open. This event is always a fun one and I am sure will give us lots of excitement as we continue to lead up to the first major of the year at Augusta in April.

Until then, I must say I am enjoying the Winter Olympics more than I expected. On Sunday, I was actually looking forward to a hockey event all day, which is very strange for me as I don't think I have ever watched an entire hockey game before.

Come on - NASCAR last weekend and a hockey match this week, I am not even sure who I am anymore.

Nevertheless, little did I know I still wasn't going to get to watch my first entire hockey game as like I am sure many of you missed over half of the much anticipated USA-Canada match-up. Come to find out after a little channel surfing, the biggest event to this point of the Winter Olympics was being televised on the sister network - MSNBC.

Now, with all due respect to Curling and Figure Skating, I continued to wait for NBC to switch its coverage to hockey. With a few minutes left to play in the third period, it finally happened as the U.S. pulled off the major upset over Canada. It wasn't quite "The Miracle on Ice" when the U.S. defeated the Soviets in 1980, but it was still impressive since it had been 50 years since our last victory against Canada.

U-S-A. U-S-A. U-S-A.

Travis Fulton is PGA TOUR Academy's Director of Instruction. His views do not necessarily reflect the views of the PGA TOUR. To learn more about the TOUR Academy, click here.