Senior Golfer 5 - Complete the best shoulder turn possible (Video) - by Pete Styles
Senior Golfer 5 - Complete the best shoulder turn possible (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think one of the most obvious features of a golfer's swing as they progress in age is often their swing will get shorter. If you look at the old past champions and now playing champions to all seniors golfers, they'll often have slightly shorter, more restricted motions as their body becomes less flexible that shorten their swing off. And the one area that requires as much flexibility and turn as possible is the shoulder movement.

So, if I bring David back onto the mat again. Hey, jump onto the mat setting up to the tee peg and standing in your normal address position. That's good. And now if I can get you to turn to the top of your backswing and hold the top of your backswing. So we see how far around the shoulders can come here.

Now, as much as possible, you want to get the shoulders round to around to up to 90 degree turn which is good, but we don’t want to give up too much down here in the hip and the knee. That's actually quite a good full backswing. And David's a regular golf. He plays quite a lot. So he's able to make that turn because it's a movement he's used to making. If you could just bring the golf club back down to the start again. Good.

And just shuffle across to that side of the mat, I'm going to come and stand up next to you, and we'll take our golf clubs now and place them over our shoulders holding on to the club that sits on top of your shoulders and then tilt yourself forward to your golf posture, and then try and point the handle of the golf club down towards where the ball would normally be sitting. And this is a really good exercise to see how much flexibility you've got.

And you can see now that David can bring the club around to 90 degrees which is good. And you're giving up a little bit of his knees and his hips, but I think we can allow that of golfers over a certain age. If you can just turn up back around to a good start position again, David. Again, tilting forward to posture. And now try and do less with your knees and your hips so you don’t have any movement down there and turn again. This time, it's a lot more restrict and it's a shorter rotational movement as we lock the legs out. So, I think what we'd find for most golfers of a certain age would allow the leg action to move a little bit to allow this full shoulder rotation.

So, again, back to a normal position again and one more turn, try and get your shoulders around to 90. You can use your legs this time. And we can get right the way around to a 90 degree shoulder rotation, shaft pointing down towards the golf ball and that's going to be a full turn.

If you can get that 90 degree shoulder rotation, you can get around to point the shaft down towards the golf ball. You're not giving up much power. You're not really giving up much in terms of distance. If you're struggling to get around, you can only get around to 45 degrees, try and work on a little bit more flexibility to get around a bit further if you can without causing yourself any back problems.

 2012-09-18

I think one of the most obvious features of a golfer's swing as they progress in age is often their swing will get shorter. If you look at the old past champions and now playing champions to all seniors golfers, they'll often have slightly shorter, more restricted motions as their body becomes less flexible that shorten their swing off. And the one area that requires as much flexibility and turn as possible is the shoulder movement.

So, if I bring David back onto the mat again. Hey, jump onto the mat setting up to the tee peg and standing in your normal address position. That's good. And now if I can get you to turn to the top of your backswing and hold the top of your backswing. So we see how far around the shoulders can come here.

Now, as much as possible, you want to get the shoulders round to around to up to 90 degree turn which is good, but we don’t want to give up too much down here in the hip and the knee. That's actually quite a good full backswing. And David's a regular golf. He plays quite a lot. So he's able to make that turn because it's a movement he's used to making. If you could just bring the golf club back down to the start again. Good.

And just shuffle across to that side of the mat, I'm going to come and stand up next to you, and we'll take our golf clubs now and place them over our shoulders holding on to the club that sits on top of your shoulders and then tilt yourself forward to your golf posture, and then try and point the handle of the golf club down towards where the ball would normally be sitting. And this is a really good exercise to see how much flexibility you've got.

And you can see now that David can bring the club around to 90 degrees which is good. And you're giving up a little bit of his knees and his hips, but I think we can allow that of golfers over a certain age. If you can just turn up back around to a good start position again, David. Again, tilting forward to posture. And now try and do less with your knees and your hips so you don’t have any movement down there and turn again. This time, it's a lot more restrict and it's a shorter rotational movement as we lock the legs out. So, I think what we'd find for most golfers of a certain age would allow the leg action to move a little bit to allow this full shoulder rotation.

So, again, back to a normal position again and one more turn, try and get your shoulders around to 90. You can use your legs this time. And we can get right the way around to a 90 degree shoulder rotation, shaft pointing down towards the golf ball and that's going to be a full turn.

If you can get that 90 degree shoulder rotation, you can get around to point the shaft down towards the golf ball. You're not giving up much power. You're not really giving up much in terms of distance. If you're struggling to get around, you can only get around to 45 degrees, try and work on a little bit more flexibility to get around a bit further if you can without causing yourself any back problems.