Your shoulder turn is the engine of your golf swing.

When you make a good shoulder turn going back away from the ball, you’ll have the potential to strike an accurate, powerful shot when impact rolls around. On the other hand, if you fail to turn your shoulders properly, it’s going to be tough to produce the kinds of shots necessary to play good golf. In this article, we are going to walk through all of the various elements related to the shoulder turn. In the end, we hope you have a clear understanding of this topic, so you can head to your local driving range and get down to work.

Unfortunately, the shoulder turn is an area of the swing which gives the average golfer plenty of trouble. The typical golfer does not do a great job of turning his or her shoulders during the backswing, which makes it difficult to produce a proper downswing. You might think that failing to turn the shoulders far enough is the biggest issue, but that is not necessarily the case. Sure, making a big shoulder turn can be a good thing, but only when it is done properly. For some golfers, the problem is actually turning too far, as forcing yourself into a particularly long shoulder turn can lead to a long list of issues. The goal is to find the right turn for your swing – one that offers plenty of potential for power while also being repeatable shot after shot.

All of the content below is based on a right-handed golfer. If you happen to play left-handed, please take a moment to reverse the directions as necessary.

What Success Looks Like

If you simply tell yourself to ‘make a good shoulder turn’ before starting your swing – without any further direction as to what that means – you’d be lost. It’s great to say that you are going to strive for a good shoulder turn on each of your swings, but what does that mean, exactly? If you are going to produce anything of value in your golf swing, you need to have very specific goals in mind when you get started. Only by knowing exactly what it is to make a good shoulder turn will you be able to do just that.

The list below highlights the key elements of a successful shoulder turn in the backswing.

• Staying balanced. The first point on our list doesn’t actually have anything to do with your shoulders specifically – but it is one of the most important things to monitor in your entire golf game. As you turn your shoulders away from the target, it is essential that you remain nicely balanced. If you allow your turn to pull you off balance in one direction or another, it will be difficult to get back into position by the time impact rolls around. And, even if you do get back into position, you’ll still struggle to produce the kind of power you would have been capable of otherwise. As you get down to work on improving your shoulder turn, always keep the matter of balance near the front of your mind. It’s never a good idea to sacrifice balance for the sake of a bigger turn – rather, you want to make the best turn you can make while keeping your balance in check.
• Back to the target. Ideally, you’d like to keep your approach to the game of golf as simple as possible. When it comes to the shoulder turn in the backswing, one of the ways you can keep things simple is to think about turning your back to the target. If your back is facing the target at the top of the swing, you can feel good about what you’ve done. There are other points to monitor, of course, but that is a great start. When you arrive at the top of your swing and your back is facing the target, you’ll know you have turned nicely, and you should have plenty of potential power waiting to be unleashed on the way down.
• Smooth tempo. There should be a nice rhythm to your backswing which sees your shoulders turn at roughly the same speed throughout the motion. You don’t want to start quickly away from the ball, only to slow down as you near the top. Likewise, you don’t want to get off to a sluggish start, only to speed things up as you rush to get into the transition. When you watch golf on TV, have you ever noticed how smooth the average professional looks when making a swing? That’s no accident. Good players know how to use a smooth, flowing motion to make it through the backswing and get into position for the downswing. As you work on improving your shoulder turn, be sure to pay close attention to the tempo that you use to rotate away from the ball.
• Eyes on the ball. Okay – so this is probably one of the first tips you ever received when you were getting started in the game of golf. It certainly is an old tip, but that doesn’t make it any less relevant. You need to keep your eye on the ball because it is much harder to make good contact if you aren’t actually watching the ball during the swing. Also, keeping your eyes on the ball throughout the swing is going to help you to keep your head steady, and a steady head position is essential for quality ball striking. If you find that you have difficulty keeping your eyes on the ball as the swing develops, consider drawing some lines or something else or your ball to hold your attention. If you make the same type of marks on each of your golf balls, you’ll get into the habit of watching that mark as you make your swing.

When a player is making a good shoulder turn, it won’t stand out from the rest of the swing. It will just look like the shoulders are working in concert with the rest of the body to rotate back and through and propel the club through the hitting area. Unfortunately, it’s common for amateur golfers to have trouble with this part of the swing, and that means everything else in the swing will be thrown off as a result. As we move forward with this article, we’ll offer some advice on how to get back on track with your shoulder turn.

Where It Can Go Wrong

There are a few common mistakes seen across a large number of golfers when it comes to the shoulder turn. Yes, each golf swing is unique, but that doesn’t mean every golfer makes his or her own mistakes. It’s easy to find patterns with regard to swing errors in this game, and there are a few that stand out above the rest when it comes to shoulder rotation.

Let’s work through a few common errors so you can think about whether or not any of these mistakes are standing in your way.

• Chin down. This is one of the sneakiest swing problems in all of golf. Earlier in the article, we mentioned that you need to keep your eyes down on the ball throughout your swing. Keeping your eyes down is a good thing, but that doesn’t mean you should be pushing your chin down into your chest to force your head down as far as possible. If your chin is down at the start of your swing, your left shoulder won’t have anywhere to go as it turns to the right. That means you’ll either need to turn your head to the right along with your shoulders, which is not ideal, or you will have to cut your shoulder turn short – which is also not a good outcome. At address, pay attention to the position of your chin and make sure it is comfortably up away from your chest. Once set in that position, be sure to keep your chin up during the rest of the swing, while your eyes remain focused down on the ball. If you’ve been playing for years with your chin pushed down into your chest, you may be surprised to find just how freeing it can be to move your chin up and out of the way.
• Not giving yourself enough time. Many amateur golfers simply don’t give themselves enough time to complete the backswing. While you might feel like you need to move through the swing quickly in order to generate power, rushing is never a positive thing in golf. You need to be patient in the backswing, letting your turn develop naturally until your back is facing the target and you are ready to rotate through toward the target. The driving range is the best place to work on taking enough time during your backswing. It will be tempting to rush while on the course, so work on letting your swing develop slowly during practice – with any luck, that work in practice will translate to the course and you’ll be able to stay within your rhythm even when the pressure is on.
• Losing your lower body. At address, your knees should be flexed, and your lower body should be doing a good job of supporting your upper body. Of course, that kind of solid stance is only going to be useful if you manage to maintain it throughout the rest of the swing. If you come up out of your stance – but straightening your knees – you’ll lose the stable platform and it will be difficult to rotate properly. If you are struggling to keep your knees flexed throughout the backswing, try putting your club down and make some practice ‘swings’ by just turning back and through. Pretend that you have a club in your hands and work on your rotation while not allowing your legs to straighten up prematurely.
• Poor takeaway move. It almost doesn’t seem fair that your golf swing can go wrong so quickly after it begins. The takeaway phase of the swing only lasts for a few inches as the club moves back away from the ball, but how you perform in this area is crucial. If you get the takeaway wrong, you may not ever manage to get back on track. The biggest problem seen in this part of the swing is using the hands too actively to move the club. Rather than using your hands and wrists to move the club back from the ball, you should be starting things off by turning your shoulders. This will get your shoulder turn underway right from the very beginning of the swing, while your hands and wrists stay out of the action for now. If you were to get your hands involved at this stage, it would be likely that you’d end up forcing the club to the inside of the proper line – which is a mistake that is hard to escape later in the swing. Also, since the club would be getting a head start as compared to your shoulders, you would probably struggle to make a complete shoulder turn before you change directions and begin the downswing. It may take some time to break this habit but learning how to start your swing with a turn of the shoulders is a valuable step in the right direction.

As is the case with just about every part of your golf swing, there are a lot of ways in which the shoulder turn can go wrong. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to build a good turn, but you will need to work at it.

Proper Practice is the Key

For a complicated game, golf can be pretty simple. When it comes down to it, improving your performance on the links requires nothing more than focused, consistent practice. While the improvements you achieve through practice might not be as rapid or dramatic as you would like, each little step takes you a bit closer to reaching your goals. When it comes to the shoulder turn, the story is the same. Make this part of your swing a focus during practice sessions and there is every reason to believe that success will follow in time.

But how do you practice your shoulder turn? The following tips should help.

• A two-part practice swing. One of the easiest drills you can use to work on your shoulder turn is a practice swing drill during which you won’t hit any golf balls. While at the range, take any one of your clubs from the bag and start to make some practice swings. During these swings, you are going to stop and pause for a moment at the top before continuing into the downswing. The simple step of adding a pause to the top of your swing will help because you’ll be able to evaluate the performance of your shoulder turn based on the position you are holding. Did you manage to stay balanced properly? How far did your shoulders turn? Where is your head positioned? Take note of what you did well, what you didn’t do so well, and make changes as necessary. Even just a few two-part practice swings at the start of each range session can help to remind you that a good shoulder turn is an essential part of the swing.
• Hit more drivers. That’s right! Another good way to practice your shoulder turn is to hit more shots with what most golfers would consider to be the most exciting club in the bag. When you hit your driver, you need to make a big turn because you are making such a long swing. If you spend too much time hitting wedge shots during practice, you might fall into the trap of shortening your shoulder turn, even though that is not your intention. Make no mistake – it’s still important to practice with your short clubs. However, be sure to mix in plenty of longer shots with your driver and fairway woods. This will help you gain confidence with those long clubs, and it will also benefit your turn.
• Try to turn it over. During your next practice session at the range, try to mix in a few draws as you work your way through a bucket of practice balls. Even if you usually hit a fade, try to turn the ball over from right to left as a way to hopefully improve your shoulder turn. A good turn is typically required to hit a draw, while you might be able to get away with less turn when playing a fade. What if you already play a draw as your standard ball flight? Try to turn the ball a little more to the left than normal, even if you wouldn’t plan to use such a ball flight on the course. Simply working toward the goal of drawing the golf ball will help you strive for a better turn.

As you continue to focus on your shoulder turn, it’s likely that you will come up with some of your own practice methods. You’ll come across something during a practice session – maybe by accident – which will feel good and will lead to a good turn. Feel free to explore your own ideas and eventually you can develop a practice routine that leaves you ready to make great turns all throughout each round you play on the course.

Losing Your Way

Your goal, of course, is to prepare yourself in practice so you can make great shoulder turns when hitting shots during your rounds. Unfortunately, this is golf, and things are bound to go wrong at some point. One of the most important skills you can develop is the ability to fix whatever is going wrong in the middle of a round. The sooner you can get back on track, the less damage will be incurred on your scorecard.

If you feel like your shoulder turn is letting you down during a round of golf, the first step you need to take is to slow down. Without a doubt, the biggest cause of trouble with the shoulder turn on the course is rushing through the swing. A rushed swing doesn’t give the shoulders time to get into position. Take a deep breath before your swings, do your best to calm your nerves, and focus on the task at hand.

In addition to slowing down, taking a bit more club for most of your shots may also help you improve your turn. These two things are related, as players who don’t use enough club to comfortably cover the distance will tend to rush in an effort to swing hard and produce maximum speed. Don’t put yourself in that position. Rather than basing your club selection on a best-case scenario of hitting the shot perfectly, give yourself a little margin for error. Use one extra club on many of your approach shots and make a smooth swing which features a nice controlled turn.

Above all else, you can’t panic and try to make drastic changes to your swing in the middle of a round. If the swing you built on the practice range was working relatively well in that setting, there is no reason it can’t work on the course, as well. Get back to your fundamentals, don’t let your poor shots shake your confidence, and keep giving full effort on each shot. Eventually, you should be able to pull out of your struggles and get your game back on track once again.

A proper shoulder turn is one of the key fundamentals in the game of golf. We hope the information provided in this article will help you use the shoulder turn more effectively in your swing. Making strides in this area can not only lead to cleaner ball striking, but also improved distance and elevated confidence. Nothing comes free in this game, however, so get down to work on the range as soon as possible. Good luck!

So now let's look at how a full shoulder turn can really help you with your golf swing and maybe try to eliminate some of those slice shots you might be hitting. For a right-handed golfer, when you make a full back swing, you should see your left shoulder come right the way around, so almost two points with the ball. So it's a 90-degree shoulder turn in relation to where your target line is.

Now, the good little tip to see when you can get this right is take a golf club, place it over your fore–over your upper arms here, almost over your shoulder so it points toward a target. Now, tilt forward to your golf posture and try and turn your shoulders until you see the club handle point down towards where the golf ball is. And that would tell you whether you're getting a good 90-degree rotation of shoulders or whether you're shorter than that or maybe even too far around, which might result in some collapsing down here with the legs. So, over your shoulders, turn it around, try and point it down towards the golf ball keeping the head quite still and the legs quite still also.

Just showing it out from a different angle this way from here where the club points towards the target, rotate the shoulders so the handle points down towards the ball. Try and resist any lifting action or even any dipping action going on with the legs here. Nice little rotation round. And the reason why that's quite important is when you rotate correctly, your hands will move round into a good position at the top allowing you to come back down into a good position on the way down.

The reason why lack of shoulder rotation results in some slice shots is if you don't quite turn your shoulders, often the club will be out too far in front of you and then come forwards and over the top, the classic over-the-top slice position. Whereas a better shoulder rotation will often set the hands a little bit more behind you, allowing the club to come down behind you, resulting a little bit more of an inside swing approach towards the ball, maybe hitting draws, certainly straighter shots and avoiding the over-the-top slice. So, good shoulder rotation of the back swing is essential for improving your golf.