Do you want to improve your backswing?
Get your backswing so good that you can't help but hit a great shot?
Today, I'm going to help give you the tips and a great drill that's going to help you
become a better golfer, with the best golf swing and the best-looking backswing you could
possibly make.
My name is Matt Walter.
I'm the PGA Teaching Professional here at Vanderbilt Legends Club, and today, I want
to give you a pointer where we can absolutely nail down this backswing.
It can get rid of all the confusion that goes with it, and where the club needs to go, and
all this other stuff.
So, real quick and real simple.
There's two things you need to know.
Your body, torso, armpits to knees, that torso range controls your body's turn.
Your arms, from shoulder to hands, they control the vertical, so they're going up and down.
I see too many players come through my door, where they'll set up and make a backswing,
and their shoulders get flat, and then dip down.
And you know what that turns into?
That turns into the great old over-Mr.-Top, and we're chopping wood like lumberjacks.
So, the first part is, we have to control our turn.
So, when we talk about controlling our turn, we're trying to follow our spine and keep
a good axis, tilt as we rotate, so our shoulders are still pointing down towards the golf ball
as they turn over our right foot.
So, I want your right foot to line up with the shaft, and you get well behind it, you
get a nice big turn.
It really helps your body get behind the golf ball and create some good power and some good
linkage.
Now, where I'll see players get in trouble, like I already mentioned, they'll get their
shoulders flat, they'll try and dip.
If we can't get the backswing to turn correctly, we get ourselves in a lot of trouble because
then our arms have to correct and make up for that lack of rotational turn.
So, our arms control this.
And so, simply put, our arms have to get used to doing that, where our hands hit our sternum
and our shaft matches our spine.
If we can get to here with our arms, our body can then rotate.
Bam, twist.
Now, that version, for me, isn't perfect because I'll set it and sometimes it won't be perfectly
on plane, so we'll have to make sure that when we go here to here, the golf club is
planed correctly and it's not steep, but pointing down to the golf ball, the butt of the grip's
pointing to the ball, before we start our hit.
Now, there's two ways to do this drill, where we're separating your body from your arms
to create a good backswing, or improving it, especially.
When we get set up, the first version...
And, again, these two, you may find yourself more enjoying one than the other, and that
probably just depends on how deficient you are in one.
For those that struggle with a good turn, I want you to get set up, turn your body,
then lift your arms.
From here, we swing through and hit our shot.
For the other, if that one's not what you're working on, you have a hard time getting your
arms up in the right position, set the club up here first, hands in front of your sternum,
club matching your spine, then turn your body trying to hold that position, and now you're
at a three-quarter position.
Both have put me in a good three-quarter place.
And in our drill, we separate it out, and then hit the golf ball.
So, it looks something like this.
We get set up.
Again, I'm going to do the one that I work on for myself, where we go, set up, turn,
lift, hit.
Then, as we get good with two stops, we reduce it down to one stop.
We'll get set up, turn, and now I'm going to hit it after I finish my swing.
And so, now we go down, and then from there, it's a full golf swing.
The other version, this is for the players that need to work on their arm-lift.
And this one's not for me, so I'm not as good at this one.
Set the arms up, turn, hit.
And then, once we get good from there, we can set our arms up, turn back, and swing
through.
So, then we go, set, and then I want to hit it from here, turn through.
But, as you can tell, for me, that's not my coup de gr�ce.
I'm not as solid on that one, so I work on the one where we set our hips first, lift
our arms, and swing through, because I usually have to get a better turn.
So, it's twist, up, and through to impact.
So, there are two different versions of the same drill.
You get good at this, you'll improve your backswing, and it'll make the downswing significantly
easier.
I hope this drill helps you, and I look forward to seeing you next time.