Rotating Away From Target In The Golf Back Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Rotating Away From Target In The Golf Back Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

If we’ve now worked into this position where at the set up we're going to have a slightly soft right elbow so the right handed golfer addressing the ball, right elbow is just slightly soft, that should encourage the turn away from the ball to be better and it should encourage a fuller backswing turn. It is really important that at this stage that we don't let the hands and arms take over the swing again. For some golfers in this position, they just feel like they can just lift their arms and fold their arms, up this way and that will allow that right elbow to continue its bend.

But that's really not the reason for doing that in fact it's almost exactly the opposite of the reason why we're doing this. We’d like to be able to have that right elbow in that nice relaxed position, to then encourage and maintain a big shoulder rotation. The shoulders are where we get the power from. So the soft right elbow should be accompanied then by a big shoulder rotation. Now particularly noticeable is bringing the left shoulder underneath the chin; so from a good address position if we can bring that left shoulder underneath the chin that tells that we've fully wound up the shoulders and the body. Now you can actually hear in my voice that starts to create a little bit of tension but that tension is good tension. That's winding up the elastic band, winding up the spring to then generate the power for the downswing. If I swing back and I just bend my right arm and get back to here, there's no change in my voice, there's no tension in this position. So really we want to work the shoulders around in the backswing, then let the right arm break into a good position as well. So shoulders into the backswing then let the right arm break into a good position. Now we've got maximum shoulder rotation plus maximum arm left therefore we’ve got maximum power for the downswing. So it's a big old wind up and turn to the top, then a nice big release of the lower body to generate maximum power. So just because you're right elbow is flexed to set up does not mean you’re golf swing should just be lifting and picking it with the arms. Make sure you using a nice solid shoulder rotation to generate maximum power in conjunction with that soft right arm.
2016-08-24

If we’ve now worked into this position where at the set up we're going to have a slightly soft right elbow so the right handed golfer addressing the ball, right elbow is just slightly soft, that should encourage the turn away from the ball to be better and it should encourage a fuller backswing turn. It is really important that at this stage that we don't let the hands and arms take over the swing again. For some golfers in this position, they just feel like they can just lift their arms and fold their arms, up this way and that will allow that right elbow to continue its bend.

But that's really not the reason for doing that in fact it's almost exactly the opposite of the reason why we're doing this. We’d like to be able to have that right elbow in that nice relaxed position, to then encourage and maintain a big shoulder rotation. The shoulders are where we get the power from. So the soft right elbow should be accompanied then by a big shoulder rotation. Now particularly noticeable is bringing the left shoulder underneath the chin; so from a good address position if we can bring that left shoulder underneath the chin that tells that we've fully wound up the shoulders and the body.

Now you can actually hear in my voice that starts to create a little bit of tension but that tension is good tension. That's winding up the elastic band, winding up the spring to then generate the power for the downswing. If I swing back and I just bend my right arm and get back to here, there's no change in my voice, there's no tension in this position. So really we want to work the shoulders around in the backswing, then let the right arm break into a good position as well.

So shoulders into the backswing then let the right arm break into a good position. Now we've got maximum shoulder rotation plus maximum arm left therefore we’ve got maximum power for the downswing. So it's a big old wind up and turn to the top, then a nice big release of the lower body to generate maximum power. So just because you're right elbow is flexed to set up does not mean you’re golf swing should just be lifting and picking it with the arms. Make sure you using a nice solid shoulder rotation to generate maximum power in conjunction with that soft right arm.