The great golfer Ben Hogan placed great emphasis on the first three feet of the backswing.
He believed that if you made mistakes in this part of the swing then you would be left to compensate for the rest of the swing.
Most professional golfers would tend to agree with this.
However when we are coaching golfers we are faced with the problem of the player needing a quick fix to play well instantly.
This is counter productive to golf development but is a necessary evil in many aspects.
Many golfers will go looking into the downswing for their mistakes.
Of course there are mistakes there.
An open club face with a cutting swing path will always produce a left to right ball flight for a right hander.
This is the effect.
What is the cause? Golf development would continue longer and stronger if all parties focused better on the root cause of the problem.
In the example above there may be many issues that are causing that left to right ball flight.
To make it easier, the golf swing can be broken down into four areas.
Setup, plane, pivot and timing.
Let's talk about improving the backswing in those areas to deliver the club on a better path coming down.
Firstly the setup must be balanced and neutral, this provides the platform to hit from.
Balance and posture are critical.
If these things are wrong then the rest of the setup, plane and pivot will go missing from there.
In the backswing, I'm often asked "What takes the club away first? The truth is that the rotation of the body takes the club away first.
However, the hands have the furthest distance to go and they are travelling at the highest speed.
So the hands and arms look like they are taking the club away on their own.
The sequence of the backswing is important as well as the timing.
Nearly every golfer I've seen could be accused of being too quick in the backswing, especially under pressure.
This means that the power is not loaded in the body correctly and the downswing will be controlled by the arms.
The plane of the backswing is primarily controlled by the setup and how the pivot works.
If you over rotate quickly in the backswing the club moves under plane.
Don't rotate enough and lift the the arms then the pivot goes above plane.
Hopefully you can see now how important the backswing is.
I'll finish by asking a question for you to think about.
"How many bad downswings have you seen from bad backswings?" Your answer will determine how you view your golf development and how you practice from here.
He believed that if you made mistakes in this part of the swing then you would be left to compensate for the rest of the swing.
Most professional golfers would tend to agree with this.
However when we are coaching golfers we are faced with the problem of the player needing a quick fix to play well instantly.
This is counter productive to golf development but is a necessary evil in many aspects.
Many golfers will go looking into the downswing for their mistakes.
Of course there are mistakes there.
An open club face with a cutting swing path will always produce a left to right ball flight for a right hander.
This is the effect.
What is the cause? Golf development would continue longer and stronger if all parties focused better on the root cause of the problem.
In the example above there may be many issues that are causing that left to right ball flight.
To make it easier, the golf swing can be broken down into four areas.
Setup, plane, pivot and timing.
Let's talk about improving the backswing in those areas to deliver the club on a better path coming down.
Firstly the setup must be balanced and neutral, this provides the platform to hit from.
Balance and posture are critical.
If these things are wrong then the rest of the setup, plane and pivot will go missing from there.
In the backswing, I'm often asked "What takes the club away first? The truth is that the rotation of the body takes the club away first.
However, the hands have the furthest distance to go and they are travelling at the highest speed.
So the hands and arms look like they are taking the club away on their own.
The sequence of the backswing is important as well as the timing.
Nearly every golfer I've seen could be accused of being too quick in the backswing, especially under pressure.
This means that the power is not loaded in the body correctly and the downswing will be controlled by the arms.
The plane of the backswing is primarily controlled by the setup and how the pivot works.
If you over rotate quickly in the backswing the club moves under plane.
Don't rotate enough and lift the the arms then the pivot goes above plane.
Hopefully you can see now how important the backswing is.
I'll finish by asking a question for you to think about.
"How many bad downswings have you seen from bad backswings?" Your answer will determine how you view your golf development and how you practice from here.