Two Key Weight Transfer Positions (Video) - by Pete Styles
Two Key Weight Transfer Positions (Video) - by Pete Styles

So once we’ve established that your setup is nice and balanced, you’re in a good comfortable dynamic position ready to start your swing, there’s really two other areas where we need to make sure that the balance is not only correct but also very stable as well. That’s going to be the top of the backswing and back at impact. So if we go ahead and take our 50/50 address position, we’re nicely balanced here. Now let’s go to the top of the backswing and make sure the bodyweight is in a good place there. So we’re going to turn up to the top and hold this position and quite importantly you should be able to hold this position, you shouldn’t be so off balanced that you’re going to topple over.

We sometimes see golfers that swing up so violently that they can’t actually hold that position because they’re going to fall over backwards and unless they immediately start down they’re going to struggle in that position. So we should be able to swing up, hold that position and then have a little check. What I’d like to see at the top of the backswing is your bodyweight is slightly loaded to your right side, around about 60/40 into your right leg, but quite importantly into the middle part, the flat part of your right foot. There’s no good having your knee kicked off over this position. The bodyweight goes onto the little toe on the outside of the right foot and then it’s very difficult to drive off forwards again. I literally have nothing to push against to move me back. So we want to be onto the instep of the right side and it’s again, it’s toes, heels all nicely balanced, not all onto the heel. Because once the bodyweight is on the heel again, it’s difficult to drive forwards and push off. So you press on the big toe all the way down through the heel of the instep of the right leg and we’re balanced. And then from pushing off and driving down towards impact, we then need to check the impact position balance. So it’s top, back down to impact and at impact here again I can stand up, I can balance in this position, I’m not toppling forwards or backwards. My bodyweight now again sits down the flat part of my left foot. Again I’m trying to avoid it going too much to the little toe and rolling out here. For some golfers when they really drive through the ball aggressively with the big clubs, we see the little spin out onto the side of the foot. But most good players, most tall golfers are trying to keep that foot relatively stable and flat through all of their mid to short irons. So it’s turning through to a flat left side, straightening and snapping left leg and a bit of pressure is still on the big toe here just because I’m pushing off the ground. If this right foot slid under here behind me then there’s not enough pressure on the instep. So it’s nicely up to the top, push is return through, pressing down on that big toe, bodyweight going into here and the impact about 90% on that left side is really quite a dynamic movement into that left leg, nicely balanced and up to a big finish, big finish, 99% here, 1% here and again holding that balance position to watch the ball fly down land on the green. If you can work on these two key areas, top of the backswing weight position, impact weight position, you’ll be much more balanced and much more consistent with your ball striking. 2015-08-12

So once we’ve established that your setup is nice and balanced, you’re in a good comfortable dynamic position ready to start your swing, there’s really two other areas where we need to make sure that the balance is not only correct but also very stable as well. That’s going to be the top of the backswing and back at impact. So if we go ahead and take our 50/50 address position, we’re nicely balanced here. Now let’s go to the top of the backswing and make sure the bodyweight is in a good place there. So we’re going to turn up to the top and hold this position and quite importantly you should be able to hold this position, you shouldn’t be so off balanced that you’re going to topple over.

We sometimes see golfers that swing up so violently that they can’t actually hold that position because they’re going to fall over backwards and unless they immediately start down they’re going to struggle in that position. So we should be able to swing up, hold that position and then have a little check. What I’d like to see at the top of the backswing is your bodyweight is slightly loaded to your right side, around about 60/40 into your right leg, but quite importantly into the middle part, the flat part of your right foot. There’s no good having your knee kicked off over this position. The bodyweight goes onto the little toe on the outside of the right foot and then it’s very difficult to drive off forwards again. I literally have nothing to push against to move me back.

So we want to be onto the instep of the right side and it’s again, it’s toes, heels all nicely balanced, not all onto the heel. Because once the bodyweight is on the heel again, it’s difficult to drive forwards and push off. So you press on the big toe all the way down through the heel of the instep of the right leg and we’re balanced. And then from pushing off and driving down towards impact, we then need to check the impact position balance. So it’s top, back down to impact and at impact here again I can stand up, I can balance in this position, I’m not toppling forwards or backwards. My bodyweight now again sits down the flat part of my left foot. Again I’m trying to avoid it going too much to the little toe and rolling out here.

For some golfers when they really drive through the ball aggressively with the big clubs, we see the little spin out onto the side of the foot. But most good players, most tall golfers are trying to keep that foot relatively stable and flat through all of their mid to short irons. So it’s turning through to a flat left side, straightening and snapping left leg and a bit of pressure is still on the big toe here just because I’m pushing off the ground. If this right foot slid under here behind me then there’s not enough pressure on the instep. So it’s nicely up to the top, push is return through, pressing down on that big toe, bodyweight going into here and the impact about 90% on that left side is really quite a dynamic movement into that left leg, nicely balanced and up to a big finish, big finish, 99% here, 1% here and again holding that balance position to watch the ball fly down land on the green. If you can work on these two key areas, top of the backswing weight position, impact weight position, you’ll be much more balanced and much more consistent with your ball striking.