Well, wonder no more. After looking at several videos of Danny, I settled on these two. The first shows Danny at the WGC-Match Play earlier this year. Note from the shot tracker "trails" that Danny hits a draw as easily as he hits a cut. These swings are all at full speed.
Then I found this video that's about a year old but shows his swing in slo-mo.
A few things I noticed right off:
- Danny's swing is actually pretty short -- his hands are just a bit above shoulder height even with a driver -- and he doesn't get a lot of "width," which is a fancy way to say that he doesn't get his hands as far away from his body during the backswing as he could. This shows up in his stats -- although he's 6' tall, his ET regular season driving average is only 290 yards and he hits only 56% of his fairways. He does hit 71% of his GIR, which means his iron play is pretty accurate.
- He sets up with his weight more on his lead side and moves aggressively toward the target when he hits the ball. Perhaps because of this aggressive attack, he cocks his wrists early in his backswing -- a late wrist cock would require a slower backswing in order to keep control of the club.
- Danny also "re-routes" the club when he changes direction at the top of his backswing -- in other words, he drops the club a bit behind him (which some folks call "laying it off"). This move flattens his swing a little, which helps him unwind a bit faster but sacrifices a little accuracy. Rickie Fowler did this until Butch helped him reduce it.
- His finish is a lot higher than his backswing, which causes him to swing a bit in-to-out. That's not something most teachers would teach but it's not necessarily a bad thing. It lets him really extend his arms as he hits the ball, which helps him control the club face better than he would otherwise with all that body rotation.
Which just goes to show that the "right" way to hit the ball isn't necessarily the best way for any individual golfer. Danny Willett was the #1 amateur in the world in 2008... and if he keeps playing like this, he could end up being the Champion Golfer of 2015.
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