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A "one-piece" takeaway is a powerful and reliable way to start the swing. It not only alleviates the need for timing and compensation, but when done correctly, allows for the big muscles to start loading early; this creates a strong platform for your pivot and will promote consistency under pressure.
However, many golfers who work on this movement tend to end up with an overly closed or open clubface. When done correctly, one should see that the clubface matches your spine angle or is close to vertical (when the club is at the 9 o'clock position or parallel to the ground); this is what we will call "square".
If this is not the case, you may need to quiet your arm/shoulder movements or work on engaging your lower-body & core. Finding the right "balance" here is key, so do not be afraid to spend some extra time on this movement.
Tags: Fundamentals, Backswing, Drill, Intermediate
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So, the drill video is square club face in the takeaway.
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So many golfers while they're working on the one piece takeaway benefit from getting a
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little bit more aware of where the club face is pointed.
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So if we held the club up at about a parallel to the ground just like so, and we made
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a backswing rotation like this, and then we pointed our shoulders down to where they would
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be in our golf posture.
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This would be roughly a square club face position.
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When the club face gets vertical like this, it's actually, you can see compared to
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here.
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I've actually had to rotate it, you know, 20, 30 degrees or so.
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So if I'm doing this takeaway movement largely from my body, then I'm not going to have
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any of that club face rotation.
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So checking that it's somewhere between parallel to my spine and vertical somewhere in
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that position is probably good enough for most golfers.
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What frequently happens is one of two things.
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Either, golfer takes it away very shut, kind of like so, or takes it away, and you've
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better than that, very open kind of like that.
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And you'll see that basically, if you're doing too much of one, you want to add pieces
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of the other one.
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So if you're taking it away too shut, what that usually means is from the face on view,
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my shoulders are actually rotating more this way, or short sort of my right shoulder is shrugging
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up as my left shoulder goes down.
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That's different from side bending.
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You can see that if I do this, the club face doesn't move very much.
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If I do that, then the club face will rotate a good amount.
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So if I'm bringing this arm kind of in towards my body like this, and that right arm
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is getting lifted and rotated inward, that will typically cause that club, that closed
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club face position.
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That can often be accompanied by a little bit more of a sway like this, as opposed to
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more of that lead foot takeaway and body rotation.
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If you're getting more open in the takeaway, then that's usually coming from getting
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too much arm rotation more like this.
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So that usually happens when I'm lifting with my arms to take the club away kind of like
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that, as opposed to turning more with my foot and my core kind of leading or serving as
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an engine for bringing the club back.
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So when you're working on your one piece takeaway and trying to get more of the body
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to lead it, you want to make sure that you don't have a whole lot of club face rotation,
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and you want to make sure that your arms are somewhat passive in this movement.
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They're going to get more involved when you go into the setting phase of the back swing.
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But when you're working on this takeaway, you can use it in little 9 to 3 style where
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I'm just bringing it back to that takeaway checkpoint, and then from there, just rotating
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through, just kind of getting used to leading the whole motion with my body and taking
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the arms out of it.
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So if you struggle with the club face in your takeaway, add a little bit of the shoulder
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elements that close it if you're too open or add more of the opening elements if you're
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too close, and those who will balance each other out, and ultimately it should feel like
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you're doing very little with your arms and most of the takeaway with your core and with
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your legs.
