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Keeping your trail arm straight can help create width at the top of the swing but more importantly, it helps you make your backswing with your core. This maximizes your ability to use your core on your downswing and power the swing in a more rotary fashion.
Tags: Backswing, Drill, Intermediate
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This video is trail arm straight for width.
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So one of the common things that we're trying to do in this backswing is we are trying
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to enable the core to dominate the backswing movements while letting the arms kind of set
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the path and kind of get the arms in position.
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But we're allowing the core to dominate this backswing position so that it can get loaded
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so that it will be more likely to fire during transition.
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So there have been lots of different ways that golfers have described having more of this
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core load.
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The one piece take away is kind of that initial move.
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Feeling really wide at the top is another version of feeling like the core is doing
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most of the movements.
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Because basically what you'll see is if I start to move my shoulders, everything will
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narrow and everything will get up quickly.
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So golfers have described either low and slow, wide.
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But those are all just kind of feelings of what the body may be doing to create this
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one piece take away.
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Well one of the areas that I tend to see relate to this one piece take away is looking
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at the relationship for the trail arm.
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But we'll talk about the trail arm and the lead arm and how they can influence whether
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you're doing more of this body pivot and therefore get your body and shoulders in a good
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position so that you can transition well.
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Or if you're setting the club more within arm movement which may lead to transition
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issues.
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So with the one piece pivot or take away, we're going to take a look at that right
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elbow staying straighter a little bit longer.
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Now if you do this on nine to three shots and you tend to kind of bottom out, then it
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means that you're bending this arm in order to create some of the depth because you're
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not shallowing enough with the shoulders or forearms.
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But keeping that right arm straighter a little bit longer tends to force the body to
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dominate that early part of the take away.
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And we can look at that as it gets to the top of the swing because in order for the
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elbow to work behind you or to really bend, you will tend to see the arms work a little
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bit more across the body.
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So that's why a lot of golfers have described having that with the top as a really good
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feeling.
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It kind of complements making most of the movements happen from the body as opposed to
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from the arms.
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So from the down the line, a good little checkpoint is looking at the when this trail arm
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is straightening and making sure that it's not really, or sorry, when it's bending and making
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sure that it's not bending until pretty much after this shaft parallel movement or as
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you go to set the club, looking at where that right arm is in relationship to your chest.
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Now you can look at the left arm and its relationship to the chest as well.
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And what you'll see is if that right arm stays straight, it's very hard for that left arm
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to get too deep.
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If I bend this arm and I'll try not to smush the microphone, but if I bend this left arm,
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or sorry, this right arm, then this left arm can really work across my body.
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If that right arm stays straight, even if I try to move that left arm across my body,
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I'm going to struggle with getting kind of stuck behind myself at the top.
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And again, if the arms are more out in front of me kind of like so, my shoulder isn't
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a position where it can naturally shallow during transition, where if these arms get way
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behind, I'll lose some of that rotation capability, so I'll be more likely to get steep
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in transition.
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So if you're struggling with having either an arm dominated backswing or if you're struggling
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with having the arms get too much behind you at the top, working on feeling that right
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arm staying straight or longer can help you overcome that.
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When you go to hit, you can either use kind of a supported one arm swing and kind of feel
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that width up at the top and then once you have a good sensation of that width, you
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can make that same movement and then put your left arm in place.
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This may feel like I'm really reaching, but you'll be able to confirm either with cameras
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or the fact that this right arm is staying straighter, so that you can then feel that
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the body has kind of dominated the movement.
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Then what you do is you set up to a normal wall and you try to recreate that same kind
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of feeling.
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If it works out, it should help with the movements that you're trying to do on the downswing,
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but I always work on the downswing first because the backswing ultimately sets up what you
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want to do on the downswing.
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It doesn't naturally just cause a perfect downswing.