Making The Perfect Start To A Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Making The Perfect Start To A Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now we know that every golf swing has to start somewhere. And some would argue that the first 18 inches moving back away from the golf ball are the most important 18 inches throughout the entire swing. Because anything you do well here will stand you in good stead for the rest of the golf swing, but likewise anything you do incorrectly here is going to be hampering you throughout the rest of your golf swing. So its very important in this first 18 inches coming away from the golf ball that we get the motion correct. Now, lets discuss why its important and how its important. From a good address position you’ve done everything right here to get yourself in a really solid place, but we need to make sure the right parts of your body are taking the golf club back in the right way. But also not just moving the right things correctly, but keeping a lot of other things still. As golfers we work incredibly hard to keep some stuff still, and that’s why golfers will sometimes make the game look quite easy. You look at the worlds best players, they seem to make an effortless smooth movement, and its because they are working incredibly hard to keep a lot of their body from moving.

So in a good address position we’d like the upper body and the big muscles to work the club away in the right fashion, but we want the lower body to make sure everything is quite stable, we want the smaller muscles, particularly the hands and the arms to do very little. If the hands and arms get too involved, the legs get too unstable we can really start to cause ourselves some quite serious problems. So the big muscles are working the club away, the hands and the arms are staying very still and the bottom half doesn’t do much at all. So when you are setting up to the golf ball, feel like the left shoulder creates the turn, the leg stays still and the hands and arms are quite passive. And if you can understand the importance of that first 18 inches, and you can work hard on the body doing the right thing in that phase you should be on your way to making a much more successful backswing and hitting much longer straighter golf shots in the longer term. 2015-10-16

Now we know that every golf swing has to start somewhere. And some would argue that the first 18 inches moving back away from the golf ball are the most important 18 inches throughout the entire swing. Because anything you do well here will stand you in good stead for the rest of the golf swing, but likewise anything you do incorrectly here is going to be hampering you throughout the rest of your golf swing. So its very important in this first 18 inches coming away from the golf ball that we get the motion correct. Now, lets discuss why its important and how its important. From a good address position you’ve done everything right here to get yourself in a really solid place, but we need to make sure the right parts of your body are taking the golf club back in the right way. But also not just moving the right things correctly, but keeping a lot of other things still. As golfers we work incredibly hard to keep some stuff still, and that’s why golfers will sometimes make the game look quite easy. You look at the worlds best players, they seem to make an effortless smooth movement, and its because they are working incredibly hard to keep a lot of their body from moving.

So in a good address position we’d like the upper body and the big muscles to work the club away in the right fashion, but we want the lower body to make sure everything is quite stable, we want the smaller muscles, particularly the hands and the arms to do very little. If the hands and arms get too involved, the legs get too unstable we can really start to cause ourselves some quite serious problems. So the big muscles are working the club away, the hands and the arms are staying very still and the bottom half doesn’t do much at all. So when you are setting up to the golf ball, feel like the left shoulder creates the turn, the leg stays still and the hands and arms are quite passive. And if you can understand the importance of that first 18 inches, and you can work hard on the body doing the right thing in that phase you should be on your way to making a much more successful backswing and hitting much longer straighter golf shots in the longer term.