As a beginner learning to play the game of golf you might hear myself and other people in the TV or reading the magazines talking a lot about path, path of the club and why the path is important. Square path, in-to-out path, out-to-in path. Well simply put the path is the movement of the club as it comes down towards the golf ball. So what line is it travelling on. So we have a square path or a straight path which is pretty much up and down around the body quite nicely as related to by the yellow line. Then we have an out-to-in path which is out and pulled in. So out away from the body pulled in towards the body or in towards the body pushed out away from the body.

Now if I could encourage you to swing in one particular fashion as a beginner, I would try and encourage you to swing in-to-out. I think that’s going to set precedence for a much better long term improvement for yourself. And I stress that to a lot of beginners because the natural way for beginners to swing the golf club is often over the top and across their body. There’s an over use of the hand and the arms and the shoulders and a lack of body weight transfer that would often cause the beginner to swing over the top and across. So if I could encourage you to not form that bad habit right from the start and actually learn to play from a little bit from the inside to outside, that would be a good thing.

So from the top of your back swing bring the club down behind you more, moving your body weight more to the left hand side pushing the hips first. So it’s hips across right elbow for the right handed golfer nice and tight and then hitting from an in-to-out path. That might seem a bit sort of contradictory at the moment because everything should go straight; surely you want to swing in a straight line. But trust me most golfers when they start to play the game swing out-to-in. If you can swing in an in-to-out path you’ve got a head start right from the go.