How important is it to turn my shoulders at the start of the golf swing? Now the shoulders play such a major role in the backswing you need to ensure that they get off to the best possible start. However, they need to move in the correct sequence. Now the backswing follows a sequence of the hands, the arms and then the shoulders moving away from the ball. If you start the golf shoulder turn too early, the club will often dip on the very inside path. If you get set up perfectly to a golf ball but then just move the shoulders, what will happen is the club will move on the inside of the body which will cause problems later on in the swing.

What you want to be doing is making sure that the club travels away from the ball, nice and low to the ground by first moving the hands, then the arms will follow, but all these are powered by the shoulders. As long as you reach a position where the club travels back nice and wide or to a position where the club is parallel to the ground, the arms extended and the club pointing directly away in this manner, then the shoulder should have turned into the correct position. So when you’re over this ball, make sure that the hands, the arms and the shoulders work away as one unit. Don’t just take the hands away, don’t just lift the arms; go with the hands, the arms and the shoulders in one unit.

If you have a look at this front on view, you’ll see that my hands, my arms and my shoulders form this triangle. If you can take that away, keeping that triangle together you’ll have had a very effective takeaway. And then from there the wrist will hinge and the shoulders will turn and continue to rotate. As the shoulders continue to turn and rotate that builds power during the backswing that will enable you to produce a bit of punch and a bit of acceleration through the ball. So turning the shoulders away during the backswing is very, very important but you need to ensure that the golf shoulder turn is done in the correct sequence and along with other parts of the body.