Key parts of a great golf swing part 1 – moving the club away

When I am teaching, I have one important concept that I always discuss with my students. This concept is involved in every movement and position in the golf swing!

“THE INSIDE MOVES THE OUTSIDE”

Since this may be the first time that you have heard this phrase, I will explain. Your upper torso, legs and feet are the inside, and the arms hands and club are the outside.

So, because the focus of this article is the “move away”, or the beginning of the backswing, I like to make it clear that I believe that the swing starts with the inside moving the outside! In this case, if we have started from a perfect posture at address, I tell my students to move the club away with a downward and backward movement of the forward shoulder. (Left shoulder for righties). This would be what is referred to as an on plane move of the shoulders, not up or down, but rotating on top of a correctly postured spine angle. The club, hands and arms are “moved away” by the shoulders, part of the “inside”!

A picture is worth a thousand words, except in my case a million words, so look at the following pictures. The spine is at an angle of about 30 degrees or at about 1:00 on the clock, at address.

You can see that in the bottom picture the club has moved to a position I call “P1”, where it is parallel to the ground and the target line, in what is referred to as an “on plane” position.

Notice how the club head looks slightly “outside” the hands at this point. A club in this position, at this point in the backswing, is more likely to drop back down inside on the downswing. Something I strongly advocate to my students. More about the effects of the downswing path later, but if you are trying to “build” a proper backswing then you should practice this position, meticulously ! Again, if you are not practicing this position, slowly and deliberately, you are wasting your practice time!

Look at the picture below, it is the corresponding position that my students practice with the Amazing Angle. 1000 repetitions would be a good start! All good swings start with this “move away position”. Lets get busy and practice “slowly and deliberately”. Next post: the end of the backswing.

Contact me at jkhpro@pga.com with questions or comments!