Pete Styles – PGA Teaching Pro

So if you've now really bought into this idea that you're trying to create a little bit more of an L-shape in the backswing and then to release the L-shape through the ball trying to generate a little bit more power; there's just a couple of things we've got to be careful of, couple of little troubleshooting tips that we can look at. One of the first things is just making sure that we don't rush this. Any rushing of the tempo in this part of the swing is going to cause some problems throughout the whole game. So we don't want to use our hands to make the golf swing any quicker in the back swing. So during the backswing we'd like the body to be involved first then the hands and arms getting involved and then we get speed for the down swing.

What we don't want to see is the hands just flicking the club away and then whacking it just with the hands and arms. So we're not just asking for the hands to speed up the tempo, we're looking for a nice smooth loading of the L-shape and then a even smoother releasing of the L-shape as well. So don't improve or don't increase the tempo of your swing just coz you now involving this L-shape. Although areas that we've got to be concerned with in terms of improving this L-shape position is making sure that we don't fat the golf ball and making sure we don't early release the L-shape. And those two things are quite keenly related as well.

So fatting the golf ball would be a case of bringing the club down and letting the club dump itself into the floor. Often, that's going to be a case of the lower body isn't involved enough, so we might have turned back correctly and then we've done nothing in the downswing. The hands and arms haven't been involved — sorry the hands and arms have been involved but the lower half hasn't been involved. We haven't driven to the left hand side, we've turned back, dumped it into the ground then the follow through happens after the event. You won't get good contact unless you're driving your lower body forwards in your downswing.

And the last thing that again relates to that is an early release. So we swing back with the hands and arms, then the right hand releases on the downswing. We didn't hold the L-shape long enough, the club head comes in, hits the ground and then scoops up into the ball. Where as if it held the L-shape driven it into the back of the ball nicely and then released it under the ball, we probably would have found a better, cleaner contact.

So, to troubleshoot this L-shape in your backswing, we want to create the L-shape nice and smoothly. We want to drive the lower body towards the left hand side for good impact position and then we don't want to release the right hand too early incase we fat the ball, we want to bring the left hand in front, club head is behind the hands at impact, good clean strike and then the L-shape keeps releasing on the other side. So you are not just flicking and scooping at the golf ball and hopefully those tips will help you troubleshoot your L-shape release in your golf swing.