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Southland native Ryann O'Toole is known on the LPGA Tour for promoting and utilizing health and fitness tips.
Southland native Ryann O’Toole is known on the LPGA Tour for promoting and utilizing health and fitness tips.
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Being from Southern California, Ryann O’Toole knows how to make an appearance, which is what she did on Golf Channel’s “Big Break” in 2010. She didn’t win the competition but her looks, personality and overall game got her noticed.

O’Toole, who was born in Agoura Hills and attended San Clemente High and UCLA, turned pro in 2009 after recording 12 top-10 finishes during her time in Westwood. She won three times on the Symetra Tour during her ascent to the LPGA Tour where, as a rookie, she finished ninth in the 2011 U.S. Women’s Open and was selected by captain Rosie Jones to compete for the U.S. in the 2011 Solheim Cup, where she went 2-0-2. Through May of this year she had two top 10 finishes in 12 events.

Staying active has always been part of O’Toole’s life, and her dedication to fitness and a healthy lifestyle have garnered her other activities and sponsorships off the course. Growing up in an active family, she cites surfing as a longtime passion and release for her energy. Staying fit also is important to her golf game, and she recently spoke to Southland Golf about the importance of stability, flexibility, a short takeaway in her swing and the importance of a proper setup for putting.

Q: What muscle groups are the most important for the overall swing?

With the golf swing you absolutely need to have stability, first and foremost, and you need to have a solid base. Your legs and glutes need to be strong, but you also need to have separation of the upper and lower body. So start with a solid base and then create a torque on the way back; then you’ll be able to utilize your core on the way through. I think those are two opposing motions but very strong points. Working out your core helps keep your lower back strong. The reason why some golfers run into injury with lower back and instability is because they don’t have a good core and a lot of times that can create tightness.

Q: What kinds of things do you work on with your swing coach, Jorge Parada?

I have a lot of flexibility and my back has always been super flexible, so I’ve always got to work on shortening my backswing and keeping it more compact and tight.

On the downswing I feel like I’m exiting left, so a lot of my weight goes into my left heel and around versus sliding or anything like that. It’s a lot of stability in the lower half and working on proper footwork and weight transfer.

Q: What kind of stance and weight distribution do golfers need to put into practice?

Your weight distribution stays the same for all of your clubs, driver through wedges. That doesn’t change. The width of your stance obviously changes from wider to narrow as you go down to your shorter clubs. But the weight transfers between the right and left foot needs to be the same for every club though.

Q: For a driver, how high do you tee it up?

I tend to like to tee the ball fairly low on most drivers and sometimes I choose to play a lower ball flight. It gives less dispersion on the ball when it’s lower versus higher. I like to hit this lower shot because it doesn’t get as much variance. The higher the ball goes, a lot of times you get more left and more right movement, especially with the wind. I still get my distance hitting it low, so it works out well.

Q: What’s a good swing thought for you?

Everything is on the left side at the finish. You try and post up on the left side. You want to think that you’re touching the ground with your toes on the right side but everything is going through left.

Q: How important are the hips for creating power and consistency?

Having flexibility in your hip flexors and in your glutes, I think that creates a range of motion for a rotation. You can’t really make your hips strong but you can make your glutes strong, your quads, and hamstrings. But if you’re focusing on hips, it’s got to be about flexibility. A lot of times average golfers don’t have the flexibility in their hips and they don’t have the separation between upper and lower body. So a lot of times if you ask them to rotate their upper body and not move the lower, they can’t. It comes from not learning how to activate and being able to separate them.

Q: What are the biggest mistakes amateurs make around the greens?

The biggest thing I notice when I play with amateurs, young and old, is their putting setup is just awful. You’ll get one guy that pulls every putt and one guy that pushes each one. The problem is that they never get started on the correct line and thus never have a chance of having the ball go in.

I think, generally speaking, they almost always have their toe of the putter up. They don’t think about the common sense of having the putter sit flat on the green. A lot of times the putters aren’t even fit for them. They’re either too long, too short, so it’s like they just bought it off the rack and, ‘here we go.’ Or they’ve had it in their garage for ages and tried to get lucky and make some putts.

A lot of times people don’t understand, or haven’t been taught, the proper putting setup. Everyone’s different but there are general keys in there. Having the putter flat, having the hands more up, having your arms connected to your sides. Just little things, not having your stance wide open or dead shut. People start getting these funky tweaks to their putting and over time they wonder why they can’t make putts.