Welcome to this week’s GolfingPasport.com blog, last week we covered the initial start of our swing, the take away, and a simple drill to check we are on the right swing plane for consistency.

This week we will look at the top of backswing and the transition movement to the downswing.
Continuing on from last week, as we progress past the halfway mark on the backswing, or hip height, we will continue to turn our shoulder and our hands swing up and away from our body. Our front arm remains comfortably straight through out, why our back arm bends at the elbow and remains close to the body.

Our weight is now fully on our back leg, and our front knee has continued to turn and ideally should be pointing just inside the ball.

Now we are in position to start the transition to the downswing, it is a crucial part of the swing and requires a good tempo.

A common error for many golfers is to “hit from the top”, meaning once we have completed the backswing we fire to early and the back arm or shoulder come away too early and we hit across the line, resulting in a fade or slice, and more importantly a loss of power.

There are different thoughts as to why this is so common, many believe that at this stage we start thinking of hitting the ball, instead of swinging through the ball.
As a practice drill, complete your full backswing as per usual, and then try to get your back elbow, to your back hip, as the first movement of the downswing.

Weight will be on the front foot as you complete your follow through.

As always from the team at Golfingpassport.com, happy golfing,  and remember, the people who first gave us golf and called it a game, are the same people who gave us bagpipes and called it music.

Golf Pro

Welcome to this week’s GolfingPasport.com blog, last week we covered the importance of our posture within our set up.
This week we will assume we have reviewed our set up, and have incorporated the drills into our practice, and we are confident as we address the ball.

So let’s swing away!

Combining a series of moving parts in an athletic movement is never easy, when we look at children learning to walk, to run, or even learning to throw, the movements are often stiff, or wooden. Over time however, children, as we all were, progress and these movements become second nature and require very little thought, this is no different from our golf swing.

Let’s look at the take away or the first move this week.

The initial take away should feel as we are sweeping the club away from the ball, the shoulder turns towards the chin as the arms, hands and club move as one.

Stop half way through your back swing, at hip height, and look and where the position of the club head and your hands are.

The club shaft ideally should be parallel to our feet, or our alignment line.
If our club shaft is behind this line we have turned too sharply, and we are inside the line, most likely resulting in an inside out swing, drawing or hooking the ball.

If we are outside the alignment line, the outside swing line will most likely result in a fade or slice on the ball.

You should also have felt your weight start to transfer to your back foot, and your front knee has turned slightly towards the ball.

As in our earlier blogs with set up, one of the drills was to have a club shaft on the ground on our line, this is a great time to incorporate our take away check.

So the key points to remember:

Feel as your shoulder, arms and club move away as one.

Your head stays central and still.

Your body weight has started to transfer to your back foot.
At the half way mark, or hip height, your cub shaft is parallel to your alignment line.

Next week we will look at the top of the back swing and the transition to the downswing.

As always from the team at Golfingpassport.com, happy golfing, and remember the biggest problem in golf, is standing too close to the ball, after you have hit it.

GolfPro

Welcome to this week’s GolfingPasport.com blog, last week we covered our stance, the width required for club selection, and the ideal ball positioning.
This week we will look at our posture, and how a good posture allows us to freely move, generating rhythm, consistent tempo and keeping our balance throughout the entire swing.

So let’s grab our driver, we know we have a solid pre shot routine, our alignment is good and we are now finding a spot on the ball to focus on.

Let’s pause it there and honestly look at ourselves, are we relaxed, are we balanced?

To upright, or to slouched with our posture will most likely result in that feeling we all know too well, hitting it fat or smashing the ground before the ball, or thin, hitting the top of the ball.

Working from the ground up, our feet are shoulder with apart, weight evenly distributed and balanced. Relax those knees, so often we see on the course that stiff legged posture on fellow players, relax them if you are one of these offenders.

We bend from our hips and maintain our nice straight spine, this enables the arms and hands to naturally fall down to where we position the club behind the ball, and our weight automatically shifts to the balls of our feet.

Our grip is relaxed, don’t copy one of my earliest bad habits which was choking the club, or strangling the grip to death, tightening the muscles even more through the swing process.

My coach taught me a quick trick for this, grip your club normally, if you’re a righty, move your grip up to the top of your club and leave your left hands, top two fingers off the club entirely. Reverse it if you’re a lefty.

When you swing the club you will feel how loose it is, this is the correct tension.

There are some golfers who played their career with their top hand, pinky finger, off the club entirely!

The last posture key point is our chin, keep it up of our chest, leaving room for our shoulders to move freely under it.

A great way to test your posture is to set up to hit the ball, then before you swing get a playing partner to push your shoulders from the front, you should rock back and then forward back to your starting position, you can try this from the back as well.

Another good tip is to make sure you’re not beating that playing partner when you make this request!

As always from the team at Golfingpassport.com, happy golfing, and smile because Golf is a game in which you yell “fore,” shoot six, and write down five.

GolfPro

Welcome to this week’s GolfingPasport.com blog, as we were discussing last time with our “Set Up” we finalised our alignment section, incorporating the pre shot routine, and some basic drills to incorporate into our training and pre game routines.
This week let’s look at our stance, and then in relation to our stance, the ball position.

The easiest way to create the ideal width, or to check your stance, is to start with the middle irons, your 5, 6 and 7 irons.
Using these irons, your stance width, ideally should be your shoulder width, with the ball positioning in the middle.
As the clubs get longer, your stance widens slightly, and the ball positioning moves forward slightly as well, with your longest club, the driver, set up inside your front heel.

As the clubs get shorter, your stance narrows slightly, and the ball positioning moves back slightly, with your wedges being played inside your back heel.

Stance and ball positioning is definitely an area of our game that we work on in practice, and although it sounds seemingly simple, it will take some time to adjust to the different lengths of clubs and ball and stance requirements.
As always from the team at Golfingpassport.com, happy golfing, and remember, Golf is a game where the ball lies poorly, and the players well.

GolfPro