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The Most
Important Thing about the Backswing...
In past articles have explored the most important thing
about grip, posture and aim in the pre-swing stuff.
This issue will see the club into the backswing.
Picking the most important thing about the backswing is a
little like choosing the most important part of your house.
What good is a roof without walls? How about no
windows, a dirt floor, or no front door? You get my
point – it all fits together as a whole.
First, what good is a backswing? In his book "The Golf
Swing of the Future," Mindy Blake proposes that we don’t
really need a backswing - why not just start at the top?
It makes sense until you try it; get ready to loose 20% of
your distance. The reason is that the backswing is a
coil of the upper body into the resistance of the lower
body. A good dynamic coil cannot be held for more than
a second before begging to unwind. Standing frozen at the
top is not being fully coiled.
The take away not only establishes that coil, it also sets
the rhythm and tempo of the swing as well as the swing
plant, pretty important for good shot making. Having
established that a backswing is necessary on to the task of
finding the most important element of it. To do that,
I looked back to the most abused swing faults I have seen in
my years of teaching then rate them from least to most
prevalent.
#11 - The arms outrace the turn and end up someplace behind
the golfer, out of position Result: Poor contact and off
line shots.
#10 - Dipping the body forward or standing in the backswing.
Result: Movement of the centre = fat and thin shots.
#9 - Swaying the head and upper body to the right (right
hander golfer), turning too level and swinging around the
body baseball style. Result; Bottom of arc in front of
the ball = miss hits.
#8 – Fanning the face open. Result: Usually causes
over-the-top weak slices.
#7 – Hooding the clubface going back. Result: Lots of
problems, not the least of which is poor pitching.
#6 – Stiffening the right leg going back, overturning the
hips. Result: Can cause problem #2 of whipping the
club too much inside, which usually causes looping out and
over coming down.
#5 – Poor tempo, either too quick and jerky, or much too
slow. Result: Inconsistency.
#4 - Lifting the club, arms only. Result: No coil =
too steep coming down = pop up, weak slice.
#3 - Poor wrist cock that usually translates to NO wrist
cock which manifests as a very bent left arm, arms pulled in
usually comes from a poor grip in the palms. Result:
Loss of distance.
#2 - Whipping the club too inside too soon, caused by
thinking the club should go inside quickly, or from over
turn (See #6). Result: Over-the-top slices and pulls.
The grand winner, the most often screwed-up part of the
backswing is:
#1 - Reverse pivot, which means the hips and legs slide to
the right, which makes the upper body tilt to the left,
causing the weight to go to the left foot.
From this position you are doomed. The reverse usually
comes from trying too hard to keep the head down (look at
the ball, don’t smell the ball!) and trying to shift the
weight with the hips sliding (incorrect). Result: Slice.
So the most important thing about the backswing is:
Turn back to where the left shoulder is lined up above the
right hip (arms in front of chest), weight on the inside of
the back foot.
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