Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro

We need to be able to find your perfect length of golf backswing, now please understand that this is not the same for everyone. We’ve already spelled out one ideal length of backswing would be, but for you as an individual this will be very, very different. Because the fact is when people are taking the club back and when they are tuning away from the ball, people have different amounts of flexibilities, they may have injuries and they may have things which they don’t want to appear within their golf swing. For example if you try and emulate a full toe length backswing where the shoulders rotate at least 90? and then sometimes even more away from the ball, getting the arm stretched up really nice an high then issues can start to become apparent.

A lot of people don’t have the flexibility and the technique to push their backswing that far and what tends to happen is as they move on to that position, either the body lifts upwards to try and force the arms and shoulders into that position or the right hip turns around too much and the right leg straightens out excessively at the top of the golf swing as well. So what we need to do for you is find out your ideal position, swinging within the constraints of a stable backswing as well. Now the best way to do this is if you get a golf club and you pop it just across your chest like this, get your lower half nice and set and get the feeling that the right knee is kicked inwards very, very slightly and is held nice and firm.

Now from that position, hold the right knee, keep the right knee exactly where it is, allow the right hip to rotate away a little bit that’s absolutely fine and then rotate the shoulders as much as you can. Now you may find that you can only get to it here, now from this position if you turn your right hip a little bit more you can get a little bit more backswing turn as well. Finding the ideal length of backswing for you needs to be built around the physical constraints that you already have, if you do not have the flexibility to turn up to that full toe length backswing then don’t try and force it, to get up there you’re going to have to work on your flexibility and you’re going to have to work on your technique. By using this drill you’ll be able to find just how far you can swing without becoming unstable.

So that posture, right knee kicked in, allow that right hip to turn away and then rotate your shoulders as much as you can. And if you can get on to this position with the shoulders nice and turned you can take the grip of the club, lift up into that full backswing position and just hold it for a moment and then of course if you want to increase that distance of the backswing length that’s where work on your physical conditioning and technique will come further into play.