The Keys To A Good Transition – by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer
The Keys To A Good Transition – by PGA Pros Pete Styles & Matt Fryer

In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will show you the fundamentals to a correct golf swing transition. Creating a transition is a very important part of the golf swing as it is the area where the golf club changes from travelling backwards in the swing, to travelling forwards in the swing. Done correctly, this can be a great source of power and consistency. However, done incorrectly, any golfer can make many mistakes in this important part of the swing - mistakes that are almost impossible to correct in the downswing. These mistakes will ultimately result in poor golf shots.

So in the golf swing we know that we have a back swing we have a downward swing and there's something in the middle that sometimes goes a little bit wrong with quite a lot of our amateurs that we see in for lessons play and that is the transition of the golf swing. Firstly what is the transition? It's effectively exactly that make the change between going one way and going another way and would like it to be is smoothing controlled consistent and to not throw with either the back swing of the downswing on line but unfortunately sometimes in that transition the change between back swing and downswing get rushed get hurried and is done in the wrong way. Therefore in fact predominantly the downswing OK and I'm am I right in thinking that my hands start the transition on the way down that's to the right school of thought and not quite right. Now leave this one to me Matt. OK so if we've got you set up nicely we're going to turn to the top we get the opposition here that's ideal we start down with the hands pretty common thought because I want to hit back to my right and the right handed golfer wants to hit that golf ball but you can see when that happens the club changes its angle. Now it might point out that the back swing going one way and the downswing coming down a looks familiar but not the same swing either this change the reaction looks familiar because that's pretty much bread and butter for a lot of golfers as they change that downswing they come out to in and they have a lot of bad shots. So if we're going to do it the right way then what will we would be looking for where's it's starting from if you give us a couple of points that you know clear the mind for us and give us a good idea of where we want to go. So interestingly on the back through we do a lot would be shoulders the hands the arms the club and none of them were involved in the start the downswing at all.

Starting the downswing is involved in the hips snap a lot of golfers they were thinking about the hips on the back very pretty smartly the 1st time the hips have come into it we're going to move the hips laterally we're going to drive the hips across towards the target. Actually call that a little bit of a bob there's a lot of bump towards the forward body weight moves across towards that front like as well and then there's a rotation. So we rotate the hips down this way and that transitions the club quite nicely to stop the downswing. Excellent there and then just something I'm seeing now as you're doing that if you're into that position for me we've got that little bump towards the target and that, and somethings happening here what's this feeling of the right arm the right elbow or trail elbow as we call it work really hard and making sure that trail end elbow doesn't disconnect away from the body. Again the original fault would be off here and throwing in the trail elbow then disconnect too fast. So for a lot of golfers I work on the principle of dropping that right elbow the rear trail elbow into the wall the back of the rear hip pocket feels quite an exaggerated motion to go and down here drop right in behind Matt. So most golfers too far this way very few golfers get to flat so drop the trail both down into the trail pocket works quite nicely. Yeah then you smash both movements together and they work in unison the more hip action I have the more space have got my trail elbow down the more move my hips sometimes to bits together more motion is in the this is where we hear the shallowing of the club which is quite a big topic at the moment. Shallowing the club behind me driving my body weight onto my left side and ideally positioned to keep that rotation going through to impact a good impact position with if I got to the top and threw my hands my club has gotten away from me. My body weight hasn't shifted it's not good in a position to get a good impact but it is fantastic. So point number one shift a laterally to wards our target and then number 2 the feeling of the elbow you say trying to gather it more into that right pocket or your trail pocket you'd feel it coming in a normal school easing into your side. Yeah I think that give me a great feeling for transition it's got me reaching the top the thing with transition is get good tempo don't be taking the top and snatching and snapping up to the top building power but do it smoothly fantastic as you were doing those swings.

Very fluent very nice very smooth and was this be something you suggested you do just having a few rehearsals going slow motion to get the feeling of being able to sync these 2 things together. There's almost a feeling there that this is a continuous loop in motion rather than a back and stop and start one to they struggle to lose that 2nd part because you stop but if you can see this is one continuous fluid motion, and I think golfers that show better tempo but there is you know a lot of them look like they've got back his swings and they will have more consistent on that point. So some key points to clear it up we're not starting the transition with the hands and the top as Pete said we're going to start with a lateral bump of our lead hip towards our target then we're going to get the trail elbow gathering into our trail side feeling it's coming into the trail pocket and from there we should see that we've had a better transition from back swing into downswing. Which will lead into some better golf swings some better shots and hopefully lead to you putting some better scores on the card.

2019-01-07

In this video tip PGA golf professionals Pete Styles and Matt Fryer will show you the fundamentals to a correct golf swing transition. Creating a transition is a very important part of the golf swing as it is the area where the golf club changes from travelling backwards in the swing, to travelling forwards in the swing. Done correctly, this can be a great source of power and consistency. However, done incorrectly, any golfer can make many mistakes in this important part of the swing – mistakes that are almost impossible to correct in the downswing. These mistakes will ultimately result in poor golf shots.

So in the golf swing we know that we have a back swing we have a downward swing and there's something in the middle that sometimes goes a little bit wrong with quite a lot of our amateurs that we see in for lessons play and that is the transition of the golf swing. Firstly what is the transition? It's effectively exactly that make the change between going one way and going another way and would like it to be is smoothing controlled consistent and to not throw with either the back swing of the downswing on line but unfortunately sometimes in that transition the change between back swing and downswing get rushed get hurried and is done in the wrong way. Therefore in fact predominantly the downswing OK and I'm am I right in thinking that my hands start the transition on the way down that's to the right school of thought and not quite right. Now leave this one to me Matt. OK so if we've got you set up nicely we're going to turn to the top we get the opposition here that's ideal we start down with the hands pretty common thought because I want to hit back to my right and the right handed golfer wants to hit that golf ball but you can see when that happens the club changes its angle. Now it might point out that the back swing going one way and the downswing coming down a looks familiar but not the same swing either this change the reaction looks familiar because that's pretty much bread and butter for a lot of golfers as they change that downswing they come out to in and they have a lot of bad shots. So if we're going to do it the right way then what will we would be looking for where's it's starting from if you give us a couple of points that you know clear the mind for us and give us a good idea of where we want to go. So interestingly on the back through we do a lot would be shoulders the hands the arms the club and none of them were involved in the start the downswing at all.

Starting the downswing is involved in the hips snap a lot of golfers they were thinking about the hips on the back very pretty smartly the 1st time the hips have come into it we're going to move the hips laterally we're going to drive the hips across towards the target. Actually call that a little bit of a bob there's a lot of bump towards the forward body weight moves across towards that front like as well and then there's a rotation. So we rotate the hips down this way and that transitions the club quite nicely to stop the downswing. Excellent there and then just something I'm seeing now as you're doing that if you're into that position for me we've got that little bump towards the target and that, and somethings happening here what's this feeling of the right arm the right elbow or trail elbow as we call it work really hard and making sure that trail end elbow doesn't disconnect away from the body. Again the original fault would be off here and throwing in the trail elbow then disconnect too fast. So for a lot of golfers I work on the principle of dropping that right elbow the rear trail elbow into the wall the back of the rear hip pocket feels quite an exaggerated motion to go and down here drop right in behind Matt. So most golfers too far this way very few golfers get to flat so drop the trail both down into the trail pocket works quite nicely. Yeah then you smash both movements together and they work in unison the more hip action I have the more space have got my trail elbow down the more move my hips sometimes to bits together more motion is in the this is where we hear the shallowing of the club which is quite a big topic at the moment. Shallowing the club behind me driving my body weight onto my left side and ideally positioned to keep that rotation going through to impact a good impact position with if I got to the top and threw my hands my club has gotten away from me. My body weight hasn't shifted it's not good in a position to get a good impact but it is fantastic. So point number one shift a laterally to wards our target and then number 2 the feeling of the elbow you say trying to gather it more into that right pocket or your trail pocket you'd feel it coming in a normal school easing into your side. Yeah I think that give me a great feeling for transition it's got me reaching the top the thing with transition is get good tempo don't be taking the top and snatching and snapping up to the top building power but do it smoothly fantastic as you were doing those swings.

Very fluent very nice very smooth and was this be something you suggested you do just having a few rehearsals going slow motion to get the feeling of being able to sync these 2 things together. There's almost a feeling there that this is a continuous loop in motion rather than a back and stop and start one to they struggle to lose that 2nd part because you stop but if you can see this is one continuous fluid motion, and I think golfers that show better tempo but there is you know a lot of them look like they've got back his swings and they will have more consistent on that point. So some key points to clear it up we're not starting the transition with the hands and the top as Pete said we're going to start with a lateral bump of our lead hip towards our target then we're going to get the trail elbow gathering into our trail side feeling it's coming into the trail pocket and from there we should see that we've had a better transition from back swing into downswing. Which will lead into some better golf swings some better shots and hopefully lead to you putting some better scores on the card.