Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
During this video tip we’re going to have a look at whether your left heel should lift during your backswing as a lady golfer. Now initially the answer to that is going to be no, you should keep your left foot on the ground. The reason for that is during your backswing, you were trying to generate coil in your golf swing, which just really means you’re trying to generate twist within your body. So if we look at how your backswing works, you’re going to work on rotating your upper body 90 degrees to the right on the backswing. So as you rotate your upper body 90 degrees to the right, you’ll create more twist in your torso, if your hip position remains less than 90 degrees. So you should rotate your upper body to 90 degrees right, but your hip position should only move to 40-45 degrees. So we get this difference in shoulder position and hip position. This creates the twist, the coil in your backswing, and now you’re going to be able to drive that coil into the downswing to create a lot of power and club head speed. That’ll give you a lot of distance during your shots.
However we’ve got to look at, if you have the flexibility to be able to do that. So if by keeping your left foot on the floor, you find you can’t really make a good shoulder rotation, because you find it difficult to separate the turn of your hips and your shoulders, then it would be advisable to just allow the left heel to rise slightly. The reason for that is, when you just lift our left heel, it allows your hips to turn slightly more on the backswing. And really the main thing that we want to generate with the backswing is a good shoulder rotation. So if you find that by keeping the left foot flat, you can’t really rotate the upper body and you’ll start into swinging more with your arms by lifting your arms up making of a chopping action. You’re going to have a lot of problems with that, you won’t generate power and you’re going to tend to present the club back down very vertically so it’ll hit the top of the golf ball, you’re not going to get a good consistent strike and you’re not going to hit the ball into the air, you’ll tend to see a lot of low shots.
So in order to allow the shoulders to rotate, if by not lifting the left heel and allowing the hips to turn a little bit more, you can allow the shoulders to rotate that little bit more round, get in the back, flat to the target, then I’ll advise you to do this because it’s going to allow the club to swing at a much flatter angle. The club will approach the ball at a much gentler and shallower angle and you’ll hit the side of the ball much more often. Getting the rotation in on the downswing, will also allow you to deliver full club head speed into the ball and create distance. So initially I would say the left hip, the left foot should try to stay flat on the floor, provided you can rotate your shoulders to a good 90-degree position. But if the hip – if the foot stays flat on the floor, the hips will be restricted to only moving to 45. If it becomes difficult to create this much flexibility, this much turn, then just allow the hip to lift slightly – the foot to lift slightly and allow the left hip to rotate a little bit more allowing the shoulders to generate that full backswing rotation.
2013-08-12 Natalie Adams – PGA Teaching Pro
During this video tip we’re going to have a look at whether your left heel should lift during your backswing as a lady golfer. Now initially the answer to that is going to be no, you should keep your left foot on the ground. The reason for that is during your backswing, you were trying to generate coil in your golf swing, which just really means you’re trying to generate twist within your body. So if we look at how your backswing works, you’re going to work on rotating your upper body 90 degrees to the right on the backswing. So as you rotate your upper body 90 degrees to the right, you’ll create more twist in your torso, if your hip position remains less than 90 degrees. So you should rotate your upper body to 90 degrees right, but your hip position should only move to 40-45 degrees. So we get this difference in shoulder position and hip position. This creates the twist, the coil in your backswing, and now you’re going to be able to drive that coil into the downswing to create a lot of power and club head speed. That’ll give you a lot of distance during your shots.
However we’ve got to look at, if you have the flexibility to be able to do that. So if by keeping your left foot on the floor, you find you can’t really make a good shoulder rotation, because you find it difficult to separate the turn of your hips and your shoulders, then it would be advisable to just allow the left heel to rise slightly. The reason for that is, when you just lift our left heel, it allows your hips to turn slightly more on the backswing. And really the main thing that we want to generate with the backswing is a good shoulder rotation. So if you find that by keeping the left foot flat, you can’t really rotate the upper body and you’ll start into swinging more with your arms by lifting your arms up making of a chopping action. You’re going to have a lot of problems with that, you won’t generate power and you’re going to tend to present the club back down very vertically so it’ll hit the top of the golf ball, you’re not going to get a good consistent strike and you’re not going to hit the ball into the air, you’ll tend to see a lot of low shots.
So in order to allow the shoulders to rotate, if by not lifting the left heel and allowing the hips to turn a little bit more, you can allow the shoulders to rotate that little bit more round, get in the back, flat to the target, then I’ll advise you to do this because it’s going to allow the club to swing at a much flatter angle. The club will approach the ball at a much gentler and shallower angle and you’ll hit the side of the ball much more often. Getting the rotation in on the downswing, will also allow you to deliver full club head speed into the ball and create distance. So initially I would say the left hip, the left foot should try to stay flat on the floor, provided you can rotate your shoulders to a good 90-degree position. But if the hip – if the foot stays flat on the floor, the hips will be restricted to only moving to 45. If it becomes difficult to create this much flexibility, this much turn, then just allow the hip to lift slightly – the foot to lift slightly and allow the left hip to rotate a little bit more allowing the shoulders to generate that full backswing rotation.
