Golf Arms At Impact Indicate Efficiency Of Your Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Arms At Impact Indicate Efficiency Of Your Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

So if we know how important the arms are in the set up position, stands to reason they're quite important to get your arms right at the impact position as well. So the point we hit the golf ball we’ve got to have the hands and arms in a great position. The first thing we’d like to look at is what should that impact actually look like? So from the front of you I've just got a mid-iron taking a six here, taking my address position and then turning into my impact position. Now impact here what we would like to see is the left arm is quite strong and quite straight, there's no bend in the left arm, that’s actually quite a common mistake for a lot of golfers. So the left arm is going to be quite straight. The right arm just has a tiny little kink in it, but quite importantly that right arm is straightening very quickly, it’s bending as it’s coming down and then its straightening really quickly and just after impact the right elbow would be quite straight, but at the point of impact it might just have a tiny little kink still left in it. We’d notice that the elbows are quite close together and not pointing downwards, so we’re not out here and also the upper arms are quite tight to the torso. So the hands and arms are in a really great position as they come through here avoiding this sort of position which is quite a weak position which we do see a few golfers getting into that poor habit.

Now one of the great ways you can check this is actually take an impact bag, you get impact bag from most pro shops $20 or whatever, stuff it full of towels and rags and then just gently tap into the side of bag. And I do stress, you don’t need to hit the thing particularly hard to see your impact position, which sometimes you see people over hit these bags injuries, broken golf clubs, that sort of stuff stem from that. But just tap into the side of the bag 25% of your normal power. So we’re going to swing back, we’re going to hit into the side of the bag and at impact we can then check is my left arm straight, the right arm got the tiny little kink in it, elbows are down, fore – upper arms pressed into the side of the torso swinging and hitting. And you might notice that you're not quite in the correct impact position when you actually hit the golf ball or you want and try and tighten up that impact position. The other little exercise we can do to check on what your impact position should look like, is actually you want to reverse the swing. So still won't miss out certainly a big section of the backswing, start in the set up position and go through to the impact position without the backswing. So we get into set up here and then we turn the hips and push the hands forwards there. So that’s my set up position, that’s my impact position, so set up then I turn my hips and push my hands forwards and that’s impact. So you notice that I don’t start like this and likewise when I'm at set up I don’t do this to go to impact, I just turn. So my elbow stay close, stay down, upper arms squeezed into the torso, there's my impact position. And if you can improve your impact position, you should definitely improve you strike, because an awful lot of shots both fat and thin are caused by potentially good swings, but then poor impact positions. So great backswing, nice coming down to the golf ball at the last minute, the elbows bend, we top the golf ball and it scruffs across the floor. If that happens just have a little look back, have a little rewind in your brain, what did I do at the point of impact? Can I see that I've hit the top of the ball and my arms have been pulled in and did that happen at the point of impact? If it did, go back to doing those impacts drills, change your arms at impact to improve your golf. 2015-11-03

So if we know how important the arms are in the set up position, stands to reason they're quite important to get your arms right at the impact position as well. So the point we hit the golf ball we’ve got to have the hands and arms in a great position. The first thing we’d like to look at is what should that impact actually look like? So from the front of you I've just got a mid-iron taking a six here, taking my address position and then turning into my impact position. Now impact here what we would like to see is the left arm is quite strong and quite straight, there's no bend in the left arm, that’s actually quite a common mistake for a lot of golfers. So the left arm is going to be quite straight. The right arm just has a tiny little kink in it, but quite importantly that right arm is straightening very quickly, it’s bending as it’s coming down and then its straightening really quickly and just after impact the right elbow would be quite straight, but at the point of impact it might just have a tiny little kink still left in it. We’d notice that the elbows are quite close together and not pointing downwards, so we’re not out here and also the upper arms are quite tight to the torso. So the hands and arms are in a really great position as they come through here avoiding this sort of position which is quite a weak position which we do see a few golfers getting into that poor habit.

Now one of the great ways you can check this is actually take an impact bag, you get impact bag from most pro shops $20 or whatever, stuff it full of towels and rags and then just gently tap into the side of bag. And I do stress, you don’t need to hit the thing particularly hard to see your impact position, which sometimes you see people over hit these bags injuries, broken golf clubs, that sort of stuff stem from that. But just tap into the side of the bag 25% of your normal power. So we’re going to swing back, we’re going to hit into the side of the bag and at impact we can then check is my left arm straight, the right arm got the tiny little kink in it, elbows are down, fore – upper arms pressed into the side of the torso swinging and hitting. And you might notice that you're not quite in the correct impact position when you actually hit the golf ball or you want and try and tighten up that impact position. The other little exercise we can do to check on what your impact position should look like, is actually you want to reverse the swing. So still won't miss out certainly a big section of the backswing, start in the set up position and go through to the impact position without the backswing. So we get into set up here and then we turn the hips and push the hands forwards there.

So that’s my set up position, that’s my impact position, so set up then I turn my hips and push my hands forwards and that’s impact. So you notice that I don’t start like this and likewise when I'm at set up I don’t do this to go to impact, I just turn. So my elbow stay close, stay down, upper arms squeezed into the torso, there's my impact position. And if you can improve your impact position, you should definitely improve you strike, because an awful lot of shots both fat and thin are caused by potentially good swings, but then poor impact positions. So great backswing, nice coming down to the golf ball at the last minute, the elbows bend, we top the golf ball and it scruffs across the floor. If that happens just have a little look back, have a little rewind in your brain, what did I do at the point of impact? Can I see that I've hit the top of the ball and my arms have been pulled in and did that happen at the point of impact? If it did, go back to doing those impacts drills, change your arms at impact to improve your golf.