Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro

If the ideas we’re trying to create now are involving keeping the golf swing as simple as possible it's really important we understand how the backswing, which is actually a very complicated series of motions, how can we keep that as simple as possible both mentally and also physically. Well, for a golfer that setup to the golf ball in a nice position there is lots of different things that could move the club back. We can move it back with our wrist, we can move it back with our hands, we can move it back with our arms or we can move it back with our shoulders.

What we generally find for golfers to keep this golf swing simple the shoulders are the best focal points because if you move your shoulders everything else kind of moves along with it but if you move your hands, your hands, your wrists everything independently you have to move lots of other contradictory things; but actually when you turn your shoulders everything will go together. So, if a golfer that’s struggling with too many different swing thoughts they want to keep it simple, this idea of turning the shoulders is the best one.

Turning your front shoulder underneath your chin will actually set the stage for a pretty descent backswing. So from a good address position and posture take your front shoulder and pull it around underneath your chin and often you'll find that when you do that the hands and arms go up to a descent position as well. So, from the front arm camera view here focus on putting the shoulder round underneath your chin and a good practice exercise to make sure that you're engaging your shoulders in the backswing and it isn't simply a hands and arms chop would simply be to place the golf club over your shoulders. This way leaning forwards to a nice posture position and then focus on trying to point the handle from the flag to the golf ball back to the flag again.

So, we get the handle pointing at the flag, turn it down so it points to the golf ball and turn it back around to point to the flag again and that’s going to give you the idea of starting the back swing with your shoulders and if I take my right hand off here and I start my shoulder you can see my right hand naturally moves away and starts the golf swing. Whereas if I have my hands here, turn the shoulders I've started my golf swing. If I don’t use my shoulders my hands and arms can move; but they break into quite an awkward, uncompromising position and then it's a bit of a lift with the shoulders from there.

So to keep your golf swing super simple, nice and connected in one easy simple swing thoughts; left shoulder pointing down towards the golf ball underneath the chin is a great way of making your golf swing start correctly by focusing on your shoulder turn.