Golf Backswing

Golf Backswing - How to Stop Over-Swinging

Without the body loaded correctly during the early stages of the golf backswing, any golfer will tend to over swing as their brains don't have a sense of muscular tension that would signal the beginning of the downswing.  This causes them to keep swinging well past parallel in their backswings and the golf swing becomes much more complicated.

This is frustrating because golfers who struggle with this have been told hundreds of times by their golf instructors to just "stop here" or just "shorten it up!" If it were that simple, they would just do it!  The key to fixing this problem is to properly load the right leg and core muscles during the backswing during the takeaway for most golfers. This acts as a signal for the brain to reverse directions as the muscles can't support much more load without becoming uncomfortable.

Try this during the takeaway. Try and focus on rotating and "torquing" your right leg and hip by feeling as if they remain stationary as you begin to rotate. If you feel the tension early in the golf swing, by the time you get to the top, you will be unable to swing back any further with your arms.  When you do this, you're going to feel fully loaded up by the time your arms get parallel to the ground, so it will make it impossible to overswing.

Practice "over-doing" this for a few days and notice how much shorter your golf backswing becomes!

How to Hit the Perfect Sand Shot in Golf

The Perfect Sand Shot in Golf

When it comes to hitting sand shots most golfers get terrified of the proposition of launching the golf ball over the green.  The reality is that bunker shots are the easiest shot in all of golf to learn. All you need to is learn these three simple keys.

Sand Shot Critical Key Number 1 - Loft

The most important key in hitting the perfect sand shot is learning how to get the face open enough at address and keep it open throughout the golf swing.  If you don't have enough loft on the club you will be forced to take a short slow swing and will have a difficult time moving enough sand to get the ball out of the sand trap. This is because you don't actually hit the golf ball in a sand shot, instead you use the force of the sand propelling the ball upward to move the ball up and onto the green.  The sand is quite heavy and that requires that you swing relatively fast in order to move enough sand to launch the golf ball up in the air. 

However, if you swing fast and don't have enough loft on the club the ball will fly over the green.  So setting up with enough loft is critical, and there's a simple drill in this video that will show you how to keep the club face open throughout the entire backswing so you can make an aggressive swing without the fear of launching the golf ball over to green.

Sand Shot Critical Key Number 2 - Speed

As I mentioned in before, one of the main keys in the perfect sand shot is having speed so you can move enough sand to the ball up in the air.  Having enough loft goes hand-in-hand with having enough speed.  You need a lot of loft in order to afford you the ability to be aggressive on your sand shots. This sand shot golf instruction video gives you one simple image to learn how to have enough speed on your bunker shots.

Sand Shot Critical Key Number 3 – Divot

The last thing you have to do is make certain that you take out the “box of sand.”  As discussed in the sand shot video, practicing taking out the box drill will teach you to where to start your divot and where to have the divot exit in the sand to the take out the proper amount of sand each time.  As you'll see having the proper amount of bounce and having the face open enough, is critical to taking out this perfect divot each time so you get the golf ball to come out nice and soft with a lot of spin.  Most amateur golfers tend to dig too deeply and the divot box drill will keep you from making this costly mistake.

If you can master these three simple keys you will have no problem getting out of the sand trap any time. If you want to see the entire "How to Hit Sand Shots" section from the DVD "Short Game Made Simple", click here!

The Perfect Golf Swing - Lag and How to Get More of It!

If you're like most golfers, you find that developing more lag in your golf swing is a struggle. You know that you need lag in the perfect golf swing, but exactly how do you get it? First, there's one thing that you MUST NOT DO...

DON'T TRY AND HOLD ON TO LAG

This is one of the worst mistakes you can ever make in the golf swing. If you had to have a mantra about the perfect golf swing it would be this: "You never try and HOLD a position in the perfect swing, you are always MOVING THROUGH positions."

Creating lag adheres strictly to this rule. One of the most common mistakes a I see golfers make in perfecting their golf swings is trying to create a significant lag angle at the top of their backswings and then "hold on to it" throughout the entire downswing.

The opposite should be your goal. You should NOT have your wrists fully set at the top of your golf swing so that they can set MORE during the downswing. When your wrists are fully cocked at the top, they have nowhere else to do during the downswing but to cast the club. In an effort to avoid this, golfers are taught by their instructors to "hold on" to the angle. the problem is this is not possible. There are far too many forces at work physics wise to make it impossible to hold onto the angle.

For instance, a driver swung at over 100 mph effectively weighs 100 pounds through impact because of the centrifugal force. If you think the you can physically hold onto this much force your sadly mistaken. Because of this there is only one logical solution. You need to have your wrists not fully set at the top swing so that they can downcock in the downswing so that as you're moving into positions later in the downswing where it's critical to have lag you have it in spades where you need it most.

The down cock is a critical move in the downswing that nearly every tour player on the planet uses to create the proper amount of lag and downswing. Some do it more than others but the critical component is that they all but created out cocking motion rather than trying to hold on to the angle that they created at the top of the backswing.

When you properly down cock your wrists like this student you see in the video below you will have more lag than you know what to do with and be much further along the path to building your perfect golf swing.



When you're ready create lag like this in your perfect golf swing click here to learn exactly how this student of mine built this much lag in his golf swing and how you can too.

Make Your Divots Start in Front of the Ball and Achieve the Perfect Golf Impact Position

Achieving the Perfect Impact Position and Divots that Start in Front of the Golf Ball

The impact position is everything in golf. How far your hands are in front of the golf ball, angle of the club face, the club path and more factors all determine where that little white devil flies. If you're like most amateur golfers, you struggle with getting your divots to start in front of the golf ball and that leads to a lot of less than perfect shots.

The Key to the Perfect Divot

In the image below, you can see that I have a lot of shaft lean at the moment of impact. In fact, my hands are actually TOO FAR out in front of the ball, but most amateurs would kill for this position, so I'm going to teach you how to get into the perfect impact position with this nice flat left wrist in the video below.

Plenty of shaft lean here!

It is clear to see in the image above that I have the handle of the golf club well ahead of the clubhead. This is what shaft lean looks like and is the main reason better golfers hit the ball much further than amateurs. By having my left hand in this position at impact, I've delofted the club significantly to the point that my 7 iron here is now effectively a 5 or even 4 iron. Since loft is the primary determinant of how far the golf ball will travel, learning how to deloft your irons like this at impact will not only make your divots start in front of the ball but also allow you to hit your irons 2-3 clubs longer than you currently do!

Most golfers don't realize that the left side of the body and the left arm in particular is responsible for a lot of the impact alignments you see in the professional golfers on the PGA TOUR all the time. Because most golfers are right handed, they become very right side dominant and never learn how to use the left hand to create the perfect impact position.

This video shows you exactly how to create the ideal impact position by giving you a simple swing drill that will allow you to train the left hand independent of the right. This is critical. You must isolate movements in order to learn them more efficiently, so taking the right hand off the club will make this process much easier. 

To see the full video with more tips and drills on how to get your divots in front of the ball, go to: ttp://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/swingfundamentals/golf-divot.php

How to Grip the Golf Club

No discussion on building the perfect golf swing would be complete without a discussion on how to grip the club. The grip has been discussed so much in golf instruction circles that I think most golfers are completely confused as to how they should grip the golf club and why they should grip it that way.

There are a few requirements for the golf grip in the perfect golf swing. 

First and foremost, the grip should be taken in such a way that allows the golfer to most easily square the club face at impact with minimal to no manipulation. After all, what good is a great golf swing that slices the ball into the woods?

Second, the golf grip should be taken in such a way that the golfer can apply leverage to help maintain lag. Many golfers that I see in daily golf lessons tend to have a very weak left hand grip on the golf club. This places the pad of the left hand to the side of the club shaft rather than on top of it, making it impossible to use the bones of the forearm and wrist joint for leverage. Here is a great golf instruction video and article on how the golf grip will effect your golf swing lag.

Third, the grip should allow the golfer to hold the club securely without requiring a great deal of muscular tension. Setting the hands up correctly on the club with minimal tension will allow the golfer to have the wrists relaxed during the golf swing which is critical for increasing the lag during the downswing and allowing the club to release naturally and freely with great speed.

So, those are the three requirements for the perfect golf grip, what does it look like?

This image is taken from the RotarySwing Tour golf instruction book written by Chuck Quinton. The book goes into painstaking detail about to take the proper golf grip. 

What you want to observe here is the red line that is drawn from the space between the right thumb and forefinger. Or, more simply put, it runs parallel to the right thumb. This is where most golfers go very wrong with the golf grip. They tend to have a very weak grip where this line is pointing more at their face rather than toward the right shoulder. This makes it much more difficult to square the club face at impact as the right hand has to aggressively rotate through the hitting area. Obviously, this doesn't meet requirement number 1 of the perfect grip.

However, having the right hand positioned as pictured above makes it much easier to square the clubface at impact. Now, let's take a look at the left hand.

Like the right hand, the red line points toward the right shoulder, only not quite as far. That is because the two lines formed by both hands should run parallel to each other when gripping the golf club. This meets requirements numbers 2 and 3. 

Having the left hand in this position that would be considered slightly stronger than neutral allows the left hand to apply leverage to the butt of the golf club while also allowing the golfer to hold the club lightly. 

Meeting these three requirements for the golf grip make it much easier to start building your perfect golf swing step by step. Starting out with a poor grip will make it necessary to build compensations into your golf swing that will cause you more problems down the road, so it's best to start out with it right from the beginning. If you need to rework your grip, watch these videos that go more in depth on how to grip the golf club.

1. http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/swingfundamentals/golf-grip.php
2. http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/advancedgolftechnique/secret-pinky-golf-grip.php
3. http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/impact/golf-grip-proper.php
4. http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/golfbiomechanics/golf-grip-instruction-myth.php
5. http://www.rotaryswing.com/golf-instruction/golfequipment/bombyourdriver/golf-grip-how-to-lag.php

Perfect Golf Posture

What is Perfect Golf Posture at Setup?

Posture is an often overlooked aspect of the golf swing. It seems that most amateur golfers believe that it doesn't matter how the setup to the ball, just how they swing the club. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Your setup posture has a dramatic impact on your ability to move freely and produce power in the golf swing. One of the most common issues we see in the golf setup is for golfers to have a spine that is very rounded. A rounded spine at address makes it nearly impossible for you to make a full shoulder turn in the backswing, dramatically limiting your ability to make anything near a perfect golf swing.

In order for the spine to rotate freely and fully, it must be setup in neutral. As you can see in the image of the spine to the left, a neutral spine alignment actually has a lot of curvature in it. It is shaped this way to absorb shock, but most importantly, it is in this position that it has the highest range of mobility.

Many golfers setup with poor posture by rounding their shoulders at address. This setup position is increasing flexion in the thoracic spine.

The thoracic spine is the mid to upper back and this is where the majority of the rotation comes from in the upper trunk.

With the spine "hunched" forward, you severely limit your ability to rotate in the spine and will have a very difficult time making a perfect shoulder turn.

Therefore, learning how to setup to the golf ball with perfect spinal posture is an extremely important fundamental and yet another requirement for making the perfect golf swing.

This golf instruction video talks about how to setup to the ball correctly and shows you the most common setup faults.

Building the perfect rotary golf swing starts with a good setup. Once you're ready to take the next step in building your golf swing, visit http://www.rotaryswing.com!

Golf Swing Lag - The Most Important Fundamental?

Is Lag the Most Important Fundamental in the Golf Swing?

When you think of two of golf's best ball strikers of all time: Ben Hogan and Sergio Garcia, there is only one thing that comes to mind - Incredible lag! Most all professional golfers on the tour today have waaaaay more lag than the typical amateur golfer, so that begs the question: Is lag the biggest difference between you and a tour pro?

Now, there are a lot of things that go into building the perfect golf swing, but lag should be considered near the top of priorities, but why? The most important reason you need lag in your golf swing is simple:

60% of club head speed comes from the release of the lag angle!!

That's right, nearly two-thirds of your club head speed comes from the release of the right wrist angle in right handed golfers. In fact, using the RotarySwing.com FlightScope X2 launch monitor, we have shown that in the swings of all our professional and low handicap golfers, the golf club accelerates from about 20 mph to over 90 mph with a 6 iron in the last three feet just before impact!

You've heard it millions of times before, "You want a late hit." Having lag is what allows it to happen. Without it, you must try and make up for the powerful leverage that comes from the angle formed by the right wrist and club shaft with some sort of contorted body effort.

Not only is this way less efficient, but makes you less accurate and makes you susceptible to injury.

The Perfect Golf Swing is an EFFICIENT Golf Swing

If you go back to our set of requirements for the perfect swing, efficiency was in our list of the 5 most important requirements. Without lag, you have to come up with some sort of body movement to make up for the up to 60% loss of club head speed. What body parts can you move in your golf swing fast enough to make up for this loss? None of them!

That's because the right wrist is the last contributor to clubhead speed. It's the last thing touching the golf club and has the most direct and immediate impact. If you spin your hips 3 times faster than they are currently moving now, you can swing the club faster, but there is a lot lost in the transfer of energy from your hips to the time it gets to the golf club.

So, if you want lots of club head speed with very little effort, you better start working on your lag and I have the perfect drill to help you do it. But first, let's look at a golf student of mine from today that used this lag drill and see what kind of results she got with 10 minutes of work:

Yep, 76.5 degrees MORE LAG from one drill and in only 10 minutes. Would you be happy with these results? I thought so.

To increase your lag like this, check out my RotarySwing Tour Lag and Golf Swing Shaping Drill.