Troubleshooting Your Golf Back Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Troubleshooting Your Golf Back Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

There's three key elements that might be a factor when you started to bend this right arm into your set up that might start to affect what happens to the golf ball. So if I'm addressing the golf ball nicely here and I've got my right arm nicely bent and I swing through and now I'm suddenly finding I'm hitting the top of the golf ball a little bit too much, this is one of the considerations where you've made an improvement to your swing but it's not referring to an improvement in the golf ball; it might be because you're not tilting enough. So we see golfers who might be stood up nice and tall with that straight arms they’ve now gone for the bent right elbow but they haven't tilted more they’ve stayed up too tall. As they stay up too tall, they hit the top of the ball finning the ball a little bit, catching the half way up the golf ball, that's going to cause some problems.

You’ve improved your swing but you've not improved your ball because you didn't factor in the hip tilt. The second issue that you could consider is almost the exact opposite of that. That we've got a golfer who has bent the right elbow nicely, has set up, tilted over nicely but now they bring the club in very shallow to the back of the golf ball; too shallow here. The right arm extends too early and now they’re fatting the golf ball. So they've gone from topping it to now fatting it, right elbow is good on the backswing but extends down too early and we’re just fatting the golf ball coming in here, that can be a little bit of a concern as well. And one last issue is the golfer that might be hooking the ball too much. A hook is the ball for right handed golfer that starts right or at target but then moves quickly to the left hand side and over draws if you like and finishes down the left hand side. This is often an issue where the golfer takes the club too flat, too much on the inside in a back swing. So we've got somebody setting up to the golf ball nicely here, soft right elbow if you've been bringing the club too far around you this way, effectively your right arm’s been doing too much work in the backswing bringing the club too much down from the inside and then flashing your hands at the ball as you get through the ball to try and square the face, that could create a ball fly that moved too far from right to left. That issue again is going to be a bit too much of this right elbow bring it around. So once you've got the right elbow flexed out fine but make sure the back swing is dominated with the shoulder turn club coming nicely back on line to the camera. So flex right arm, club still points at camera then up to the top rather than locking the arm out here or bringing it too far around you this way. Too far around from the inside can create block shots and in particular in this case some hook shots. So work on those three elements and hopefully this flex right elbow is going to lead your way to better golf. 2016-08-24

There's three key elements that might be a factor when you started to bend this right arm into your set up that might start to affect what happens to the golf ball. So if I'm addressing the golf ball nicely here and I've got my right arm nicely bent and I swing through and now I'm suddenly finding I'm hitting the top of the golf ball a little bit too much, this is one of the considerations where you've made an improvement to your swing but it's not referring to an improvement in the golf ball; it might be because you're not tilting enough. So we see golfers who might be stood up nice and tall with that straight arms they’ve now gone for the bent right elbow but they haven't tilted more they’ve stayed up too tall. As they stay up too tall, they hit the top of the ball finning the ball a little bit, catching the half way up the golf ball, that's going to cause some problems.

You’ve improved your swing but you've not improved your ball because you didn't factor in the hip tilt. The second issue that you could consider is almost the exact opposite of that. That we've got a golfer who has bent the right elbow nicely, has set up, tilted over nicely but now they bring the club in very shallow to the back of the golf ball; too shallow here. The right arm extends too early and now they’re fatting the golf ball. So they've gone from topping it to now fatting it, right elbow is good on the backswing but extends down too early and we’re just fatting the golf ball coming in here, that can be a little bit of a concern as well. And one last issue is the golfer that might be hooking the ball too much.

A hook is the ball for right handed golfer that starts right or at target but then moves quickly to the left hand side and over draws if you like and finishes down the left hand side. This is often an issue where the golfer takes the club too flat, too much on the inside in a back swing. So we've got somebody setting up to the golf ball nicely here, soft right elbow if you've been bringing the club too far around you this way, effectively your right arm’s been doing too much work in the backswing bringing the club too much down from the inside and then flashing your hands at the ball as you get through the ball to try and square the face, that could create a ball fly that moved too far from right to left.

That issue again is going to be a bit too much of this right elbow bring it around. So once you've got the right elbow flexed out fine but make sure the back swing is dominated with the shoulder turn club coming nicely back on line to the camera. So flex right arm, club still points at camera then up to the top rather than locking the arm out here or bringing it too far around you this way. Too far around from the inside can create block shots and in particular in this case some hook shots. So work on those three elements and hopefully this flex right elbow is going to lead your way to better golf.