Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro

There are number of fixes that you can use to help eliminate backswing sway. Now I’ve already spoken about focusing on the right knee position and we’ve also used a fantastic alignment stick drill to get a sensation if you are moving off the ball. But if you’re on the course and if you’re on the driving range, there’s a lot more other things that you can do to help stop that swaying motion away from the ball. A fantastic way, a really simple way and a great way for you to take this out to the course as well is to focus on your sternum position and your weight distribution.

Now a great drill that you can use if you get yourself set up to a golf ball, if you can draw a line on the grass or a line on the mat this is even better but I’m just using alignment stick for example here. I’m getting my ball pretty much on that line just to the right hand side for this example but you can get it bang on the line then that would be useful. If you get yourself set up and turn away from the ball and focus on your bodyweight being very centered, so you don’t want it moving right, you don’t want it moving left, you want to keep it very, very centered. And when your sternum position is directly over that line, as you turn away, you want to be feeling like your left shoulder is now over that line.

Now if you turn away and all of a sudden that left shoulder feels like it’s outside that line, then you will have swayed off the ball. In general terms on the backswing you will move slightly back. The spine angle will tilt away. But for this drill to really try and eliminate that sway, if you turn away sternum on top, shoulder on top and then as you move through sternum on top again. What this will do, it will allow you to get a sensation of keeping your bodyweight nice and centered. If your bodyweight is centered then the amount of sway off to the right hand side that you can have within your backswing will be severely limited and this is a great drill to use on the course as well because it’s so focused on keeping the sternum position.

It’s a nice simple swing though and it can certainly help you strike the ball much, much better. So we have the right knee held in, we have the alignment stick drill and now we have a drill where you can keep very, very centered with your bodyweight. And all three of these will really help you not sway away from the ball in the backswing.