Backswing Hinging too late downswing head/shoulder sway.

[KyleSkoobie]

Need some help. On the backswing I get nicely to the first checkpoint (club head outside arms) but from there instead of lifting and hinging it’s almost like I’m folding my right arm and pulling the club across my body which is causing a cross the line at the top. It’s more pronounced with longer clubs. I can stop shorter clubs just shy of parallel like in these vids and get away with it. Also hinging too late is causing my left arm to bend at the top of my swing. Being across the line is also causing a very steep plane on the way down to compensate. On the downswing instead of rotating I am starting down by swaying my head / shoulders towards the target and then casting the club. I’m not staying on/behind the ball because I’m scared to create a reverse pivot. Anyone have any good tips or swing thoughts? Im struggling. 

[GoGoErky]

It looks like you are using the arms to move the club and not the body. You don’t have any wrist set. The lead wrist should hinge at a 45° angle, then some arm lift with hip and body rotation 

 

You could also probably benefit from a stronger left hand grip

 

 

[KyleSkoobie]

Thank you! Great vid links. So many things to work on.

[tthomasgolfer605]

There's nothing wrong with your wrist hinge. It's your downswing that needs work. 

[KyleSkoobie]

Early extension is definitely crushing my downswing.

[GoGoErky]

8 hours ago, KyleSkoobie said:

Early extension is definitely crushing my downswing.

Early extension has to happen because of your downswing, it’s a compensation not a fault 

[Valtiel]

On 6/1/2023 at 11:57 AM, tthomasgolfer605 said:

There's nothing wrong with your wrist hinge. It's your downswing that needs work. 

 

1 hour ago, GoGoErky said:

Early extension has to happen because of your downswing, it’s a compensation not a fault 

And i'd argue that it's the backswing that sets up the downswing problems:



@KyleSkoobie Note your hands and your right elbow compared to Adam here. Adam's hands are coming right back at us and his right elbow is very much in front of him. On your side your hands are wrapping around to the left and most noticeably your right elbow is almost behind you. Your arms are working more across your body instead of working up in front of it and the right elbow bending back early is only exacerbating this. The whole shape of your backswing sets up an over the top move without an aggressive and deliberate reroute. I'll try to show that here:



Tracking hand right elbow position being tracked here. I will illustrate the significance of this in more detail below, but the basics of what we're seeing here is everything with Adam moving in nice clean, straight lines, and a looser more "loopy" set of lines on your side:



This is the bit I want to look at with the understanding that there are both horizontal and vertical components to the hands/arms in the backswing, and its the correct balance of the two that gets you into good positions and in incorrect balance that sets up problems. We'll use the shaft plane at address to highlight those problems.

Scott has the perfect blend of horizontal and vertical which as you can see is quite heavily biased towards vertical. Your backswing on the other hand starts heavily horizontal, then runs out of "left" and has to start moving "up". The problem is that this creates the loop that has all your momentum following the arrows, which is across the line and away from your shaft plane, setting up an over the top move in transition or the need to completely stop and reroute your momentum in the opposite direction to get back on plane. Adam meanwhile has little to nothing needed to accomplish this, he just let everything drop with the reroute necessary.

This AMG video is a good starting point to get a better feel for takeaway/backswing direction. What you're doing is super common because the entire concept of keeping your body orientated to swing at something on the ground fu***** sucks, hah. It's far more intuitive and natural to swing flatter and more horizontal like a baseball swing and a vast majority of us will end up starting our backswings this way only to be forced into the necessary vertical component late in the swing, sending the club across the line right at the very end of the swing and sending your momentum towards OTT.

[KyleSkoobie]

@Valtielthanks! I agree that my backswing sets up the poor downswing. My swing is off plane for sure and my arms are working more across than upwards. Saw this drill so I’ve been working on there feelings.