Use Alignment Sticks To Improve Your Golf Club Takeaway Path (Video) - by Pete Styles
Use Alignment Sticks To Improve Your Golf Club Takeaway Path (Video) - by Pete Styles

So here’s a really nice tip to help you improve your backswing using alignment sticks or as I’ve got just down here just golf clubs, you’ve always got a couple of spare golf clubs in your bag of when you go to the range, so we’ve got two clubs laid down here. Now the first one is pointing at our intended target, that one is effectively an extension of the ball to target line. And I’ve put another one in here same distance away from my golf ball, at about 10 degrees off set, so this inside club points about 10 degrees to the right of my intended target. Now I’m going to use these clubs to help me work on a good backswing takeaway line, so as I set up to the golf ball I’ve actually got a really big visual aid to help me understand the correct backswing path. The first part of my backswing should pretty much go straight back to the top of these golf clubs so to the butt end of these golf clubs, about two feet back from my golf ball. I’m going to take the club nicely back on line, then my clubs going to start working along the inside club path, up to a nice halfway back position. So I bring the club straight back and then I deviate slightly inside, now it’s going to be a nice gentle curve, it’s not necessarily going to be a straight back and then a doggle again. But the temptation here is to feel I want to bring the club nicely down on the inside to encourage an in to out swing path. So as I can stand behind my golf ball here, I can look down my intended target, and I can visualize how this club, the club I want to follow is swinging slightly out to the right of my intended target.

Now as I set up, I work on bringing the club straight back and then following the inside line, and that’s going to be a really good visualization technique that when I go out into the golf course I can feel the club coming down on the inside line as well. Couple of other key points that I can work on in this part of my takeaway, is I could feel that my left arm stays nice and tight and against my chest, quite a good exercise to feel the left arm staying against the chest, just grab it with your right hand and then pull the club back. So I grip the club with my left hand, I grip my left arm with my right, and I use my right hand to pull the club back and actually I can see it following the same line as well. It comes straight back and then it comes nicely on the inside line. And that’s a great way of feeling the club coming back on the right line. From this position once I’ve got the club coming back on the right line, I want to create a nice early set in my wrist so I get to what we class as an L shaped position coming back through here I’ve got a nice L shape, that will be a nice early set. And also I want to make sure that in this phase of my swing I don’t create too much tension, I’m not going top grab on to the club too tightly, so I could actually just create a little bit of a waggle before I take the club away, so in my set up position nice and soft in the hands, little bit of a waggle, and then work on taking the club back in exactly those key positions to create the right swing path back which should encourage the correct swing path down. If you can work on those exercises and those drills that should really encourage you to have a better takeaway path. 2015-10-09

So here’s a really nice tip to help you improve your backswing using alignment sticks or as I’ve got just down here just golf clubs, you’ve always got a couple of spare golf clubs in your bag of when you go to the range, so we’ve got two clubs laid down here. Now the first one is pointing at our intended target, that one is effectively an extension of the ball to target line. And I’ve put another one in here same distance away from my golf ball, at about 10 degrees off set, so this inside club points about 10 degrees to the right of my intended target. Now I’m going to use these clubs to help me work on a good backswing takeaway line, so as I set up to the golf ball I’ve actually got a really big visual aid to help me understand the correct backswing path. The first part of my backswing should pretty much go straight back to the top of these golf clubs so to the butt end of these golf clubs, about two feet back from my golf ball. I’m going to take the club nicely back on line, then my clubs going to start working along the inside club path, up to a nice halfway back position. So I bring the club straight back and then I deviate slightly inside, now it’s going to be a nice gentle curve, it’s not necessarily going to be a straight back and then a doggle again. But the temptation here is to feel I want to bring the club nicely down on the inside to encourage an in to out swing path. So as I can stand behind my golf ball here, I can look down my intended target, and I can visualize how this club, the club I want to follow is swinging slightly out to the right of my intended target.

Now as I set up, I work on bringing the club straight back and then following the inside line, and that’s going to be a really good visualization technique that when I go out into the golf course I can feel the club coming down on the inside line as well. Couple of other key points that I can work on in this part of my takeaway, is I could feel that my left arm stays nice and tight and against my chest, quite a good exercise to feel the left arm staying against the chest, just grab it with your right hand and then pull the club back. So I grip the club with my left hand, I grip my left arm with my right, and I use my right hand to pull the club back and actually I can see it following the same line as well. It comes straight back and then it comes nicely on the inside line. And that’s a great way of feeling the club coming back on the right line. From this position once I’ve got the club coming back on the right line, I want to create a nice early set in my wrist so I get to what we class as an L shaped position coming back through here I’ve got a nice L shape, that will be a nice early set. And also I want to make sure that in this phase of my swing I don’t create too much tension, I’m not going top grab on to the club too tightly, so I could actually just create a little bit of a waggle before I take the club away, so in my set up position nice and soft in the hands, little bit of a waggle, and then work on taking the club back in exactly those key positions to create the right swing path back which should encourage the correct swing path down. If you can work on those exercises and those drills that should really encourage you to have a better takeaway path.