In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will lead you through an understanding of how your left arm should be positioned at the top of the golf backswing for the right-handed golfer. Matt and Pete understand that there is an ideal position for the lead arm at the top of the backswing but also understand that golfers have different degrees and levels of flexibility which therefore means that this preferred position is not always achievable for every golfer. Matt and Pete will therefore provide some flexibility exercises to encourage a more desirable position at the top of the golf backswing.
Right Pete as we know throughout the golf swing there are some key positions that we would like to hit to make our golf swing a little bit more functional and one of the things that I always get asked in lessons is should I be keeping my lead arm straight on the backswing. So for a right handed golfer should this left arm stationed right in the back swing should it and why should it I want to say. Sure yes OK big controversial because some people would that would allow it to bend if they if they were coaching. Personally I prefer and I see a lot better results if we can keep that lead on straight because I keep coming back to the concept of if you can because if a golfer physically can't use a physical limitation injuries illness or whatever you can play perfectly well you know the ball in the arm but actually most golfers if the learning from scratch you're looking for advice on how to improve keeping that lead on straight I feel is a great way of improving your level of confidence thing excellence creating more within the golf incredible power in the golf swing if you can yes you should keep your left arm striaght. Excellent, so we want to keep it straight and why would we we're going to keep it for more consistency? What's going to happen if we don't keep it?
One thing we look at the address position in the address position we set up for the right handed golfer that lead arm my left arm is straight. Yes and strike position here if I can turn back and come back down to impact I guess I'm going to be more consistent if it was straight. If I got rid of the elbow hinge and joints you know I can if we were building robots you would put a straight line in here we would put it in yeah a little iron byron exactly that yet although I have written it's a golfing test drove all the people use the test equipment is a straight line with a hinge of the wrist so if. You you know if we can get rid of that human defect I'm going to call it of the eye and the arm then if we can get that in for good talk about screwed up left elbow for just right for more consistently and actually maintaining quite a straight line all the way through to pointing it out you know it's one thing in a locker room then it can bend into a finish OK A lot of ball. Because we'll see that less arm speed at the end of the swing just a question of when did it bend and when should it right along OK So you took on a point like that as well obviously with flexibility some people may not be able to do it but if you were to give us a drill that would help us feel this left arm staying straight to what could we do would it be cathartic to drill you like this driving to your client I think this is the sort of warm drilling various formats of that drill. So I think the 1st thing would be just the best thing for the mirror or a patio door somewhere where you can see yourself in initially work on bringing the hand down here and just grab hold of your left thumb or your lead arm thought and then use your rear arm. So I actually pull up and out of the way and that will give you a concept of what I should feel like this nice try and also give you some idea of the flexibility that's required of us here to create that turn, and if you're not very flexible you'll get stuck in you're arm will start to bend and I was always like that.
Even if you were doing that and if I just run around here if you were to swing and it stayed at a place where you only got so that as opposed to here. That's still OK because this is maintained as it's going for? I think that's a long enough swing for most golfers to play with function late we could get to higher faster to get the flexibility is required the what we don't want to see is somebody forego the left arm just trying to get my club but you know the one this is going to be a weak position because of the very thing think I'm just position for the downside to once was still not going to few times just in America without the club and then you can take the club then you can swing it back again see how far back you can get and if it's just the pacing length when to start with that's fine but that's built off of the golfer to create more flexibility because don't forget my every golf swing is a stretching exercise yet definitely there for the golf becomes the range of a couple of 100 shots with a couple of 100 practice swings in it per week and doing lots and lots of stretching exercises left arm flexibility so it's like I want to maintain will improve then the golf swing will feel wider it will feel softer on the follow through and ultimately I think I'll begin to have a ball further more consistently with that lead on the right definitely So let's see you pick one away for us if we can keep that right left arm and hopefully we should say within the swing into going to strike the count push that back wide to the top and then if you watch that all my top level the 2nd body does it feel as if someone is almost grabbing your arms and pulling your way a bit here what you do and it's only just Decency Act a way of pulling that white 3 away from the golf wall. And then back through to a big full finish and again I can feel my left arm bent at the end but it's been 97 I golf swing in a strike got a hit all the way fast for white so there are times that my arm was restless wide low to speak with a nice strike if you got through it. So if you want to see that you're trying to keep your left arm straight in your backswing number one check if you was flexible to do it and then the person drill Pete described that I was a grab having taking the last moment seeing that you could get it and like we say it doesn't have to be long it's a long as you can physically go without feeling too much stress and too much pain through that. Gives it a go and see if it can help you improve your golf swing.