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Why moving off the ball is causing you to lose distance

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One of the more debatable topics in golf instruction is whether moving off the ball in your backswing is beneficial and will produce power and consistency. Now, with golf heading into the direction of fitness (which is great for strength, accessing physical limitations and mental health), amateur swings are getting even longer with swings moving in every direction possible. Terms such as “power,” “loading” and “guaranteed distance” are being promoted left and right to students. Even swings from long drive champions are being used to teach students how to get that extra 10 yards.

With all this information taught and published, both instructors and students have forgotten the most important element to hitting the ball with consistency and distance: Striking the ball in the center of the club face consistently.

This topic is now even more relevant with upcoming stars such as Maverick McNealy and Bryson DeChambeau making headlines, both having very efficient golf swings with no lateral movement. This is contrary to older teaching methods, which stressed moving off the ball with a lateral shift of the body. So how do we increase our chances to consistently hit the center of the face with speed? Having spent countless hours researching this, I can assure you whenever we limit movement and turn our body in the right direction, we increase the probability to not only hit the center of the face, but to produce speed.

Before we dive into the instructional side of this — on how we get ourselves to not move off the ball and get rid of all those extra moving parts — let’s examine the reasons why moving off the ball can hurt your chances to a consistent shot.

Balance

Balance is a very important aspect to having a solid golf swing. Poor balance will affect a player’s ability to transfer weight and turn in the proper direction. Balance is comprised of three control centers: the eyes, the inner ear and our proprioceptive system. How do these three control centers relate to our golf swing? Let’s examine the eyes. Whenever we readjust our eye line, or have our head move off the ball, we have to readjust to our original position, which affects our balance. Just think about a three-foot putt. Our head must stay still to make solid contact and start the ball in the direction we want it to go. Moving your head to the right during your stroke will make it much more difficult to start the ball on the intended line. Then there is our proprioceptive system. Simply put, our proprioceptive system is our ability to figure out where our body is at a current time without seeing it. With less movement of the body, the less we need to rely on finding our body positions throughout the swing.

Golf is not a moving target sport: Too many times I hear instructors compare swinging a golf club to hitting a baseball pitch. Yes, a baseball hitter loads back on his trail foot. But does a MLB hitting coach compare the baseball swing to a golf swing? Golf is a sport, and unlike most sports, the ball is not moving when we start our swing; the ball is static. Although there are positions similar to any hitting motion, how we get there should be taught differently. In “The Quiet Eye” by Joan Vickers, she classifies sports into three categories:

  • Single, Fixed Target: Shooting a basketball into a hoop
  • Moving-Target Tasks: Throwing a football to a wide receiver
  • Abstract-Target Tasks: Putting a golf ball into the hole where you cannot see the target

Each one of these types of sports require a different skill set, and how we use our eye sight to process information to perform the task.

Great golfers and athletes do more with less

Ever wonder why it looks like Tour players aren’t swinging very hard? I can assure you that they are. You don’t get 115 mph driver speed by swinging lightly. Usually, amateurs hit it farther and have more success when they slow down their swing because they can have more success hitting the center of the face. Tour players are able to swing as hard they want and still hit the center of the face due to either great timing or efficient swings with their body coiling in the right direction. This makes it easier for them to make repeatable solid contact, which gives the perception of a smooth swing that produces speed. Think of a swimmer swimming in a race: Swimming in a direct line results in a much faster pace than one with lateral movement.

Now let’s put aside all the kinematic talk and implement this into our golf swing. The majority of amateurs I teach have a lot of lateral movement into their trail foot. This is usually done with their hips in an effort to get what they feel as their weight into their trail foot. The glutes are the engine of our swing, and critical to making a proper coil. We can still move pressure in our feet laterally without excess lateral body movement.

Here are several things I look for, and drills to get rid of that lateral movement and make your swing more efficient.

The Setup

A proper setup is critical to being able to make an efficient backswing with no excess or lateral movement. I like to see a tilt to the upper body, so our head is back behind the ball, and our right shoulder is lower than the left, for a right-handed golfer. This will limit the amount of movement we need to make in our backswing. To practice this, check your setup in a mirror face-on and take note of the position of your head in relation to the ball and the angles of your shoulders. Take advantage of the camera on your phone and have someone photograph your setup next time you are on the range.

the-setup

Right glute toward the target

Feel as if your right glute moves directly toward the target on your backswing. The direction you turn your hips and body is more important than the amount. We can still move our pressure into the inside of our right foot while feeling our right glute rotate backward, toward the target. Almost feel as if your right side moves instantly back and your left side moves out, putting your left side in the way. To practice this, put an alignment stick across your waist and note how the shaft moves, specifically the right side of the shaft. If executed correctly, the right side of the shaft will move directly back.

right-glute-toward-target

Alignment stick next to hip drill

This is a great drill to keep your hips “in the box” and not sway laterally, which changes your spine angle. Place an alignment stick at hip height, angled in so that it almost touches the side of your hip. Give it a few inches of space outside your hip. When you take your backswing, your right hip should not touch the alignment stick. If it does, you have shifted laterally and made an improper turn. A proper turn with your hips will create slightly more space next to the alignment stick.

shaft-drill

Practice at home in front of a mirror, face on. Start by checking your setup, and swing back making sure there is no lateral movement with your hips and head. You can practice your backswing while keeping your head up looking in the mirror. This will give your swing a much more efficient move at the ball.

Remember, golf is hard, we don’t need to make it harder on ourselves with extra movement in our backswing.

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Kelvin is a Class A PGA golf professional in San Francisco, California. He teaches and has taught at some of the top golf clubs in the Bay Area, including the Olympic Club and Sonoma Golf Club. He is TPI certified, and a certified Callaway and Titleist club fitter. Kelvin has sought advice and learned under several of the top instructors in the game, including Alex Murray and Scott Hamilton. To schedule a lesson, please call 818.359.0352 Online lessons also available at www.kelleygolf.com

22 Comments

22 Comments

  1. Corey Anthony

    Dec 22, 2017 at 7:28 pm

    I am sorry but I must question a few things here…how can you tell golfers that having their head still in the backswing is going to help anyone play better golf when literally the list of the best players to ever play the game all had NATURAL head movement at a minimum. Jack even preset his head. Of course you don’t want to shift your weight outside of your trail foot. That would cause a loss of balance, stability,power, and the ability to return their center of gravity back to their front leg and into a proper finish. But telling people to consciously limit movement is a sure fire killer. Stack and tilt tried this and it’s a great way to hit low, powerless shots for those who aren’t excellent athletes..

    Golfers need to be able to get the ball into the air and acquire the ability to generate power. Telling people to keep their heads still is a great way to limit that and hurt those with limited flexibility. Not all people who golf can take TPI or anything of the like to become strong and flexible enough to literally not injure themselves swinging hard while trying to keep your head still.

    First your analogy to baseball is so off base. If you were to try to hit a baseball off of a tee ball as far as possible you wouldn’t keep your head still would you? I think not.
    The fact that the golf ball is static makes no difference at all it is just simple physics, and using other activities that involve propelling anything forward with power and accuracy require the same thing as well static or not.

    A hockey puck that’s static requires natural head motion.
    A baseball on a tee requires natural head motion
    A soccer ball at a free kick requires natural body and head motion
    So does closing a heavy sliding door and the list is endless. We don’t suspended this when we get to golf.

    (In one breath you say baseball isn’t a good example to use for golf yet swimming in relation to golf is? A direct path isn’t the key to distance, speed,contact, and weight and how it transfers are the keys period)

    Secondly your previous article I was linked through is also confusing I’m sure to anyone attemping to follow the instruction of moving the club and shaft first in order to not have golfers get the club wrapped behind themselves and stuck? This literally makes zero sense and is a great way to teach people to rapidly open the face of the golf club. While I a fellow instructor understand what you are getting at the average golfers will be fanning the club open and hitting more slices than ever. Using Dustin Johnson as a visual example is not wise because you neglected the fact that he bows his wrist severely to keep his club face square after so so much club and arm movement early.

    Why not use tiger jack Hogan Snead Nelson or Jones to show that a one piece takeaway is ideal and not generated by thinking about only moving the club and arms. Absolute insanity. Most golfers in the world are pure ARM swingers and that’s a fact. Golfers need much more rotation from other parts of the body to remedy this not more effort to swing the arms.

    And lastly I seriously advise anyone to look very closely at the cupped position that is claimed to be ideal by this instruction series….miller absolutely did not cup his wrist they were flat or close to it when attempting a straight shot. This can be found simply and quickly be googling and image of miller’s swing and as a matter of fact the best ever iron player Mr. HOGAN cupped his wrist at times to fight against the ball hooking to his left or drawing. So if you like most golfers have an issue with slicing DO NOT CUP YOUR WRISTS because this helps the ball fade.

    To honestly advise golfers to cup their wrist…limit head motion consciously..and to initiate the swing with all hands and arms is one of the best ways I’ve ever seen to get golfers hitting more and more slices with less and less power on their shots.

    Please do your own research of the world’s best and compare for yourself when it comes to this info. But my real advise to anyone who happens to read my response is to not get so technical, don’t try to emulate anyone, and use as much of the natural motions from other activities like balance, rotation, and rythem that you use or have used at other points in your life.

    Cheers!

    Great writing but I disagree.
    For a comprehensive explanation about more into why this is the case please email [email protected]

  2. Steven

    Jun 22, 2016 at 1:54 pm

    Great article Kelvin. I think a large problem with amateur golfers is most of us (me included) are trying to execute tour swings/positions that are complicated. Moving off the ball requires precision to move back to the right spot with our lower body while also controlling the head to stay slightly behind ball, but we also need the hands ahead of the ball at impact. Tour players have the timing and ability to do it because they practice it exponentially more than we do. I think your advice is a simplier swing that will produce consistent results for most of us. Now if I could only follow your advice on every swing.

    • Kelvin Kelley

      Jun 22, 2016 at 8:27 pm

      Steven,

      Glad you enjoyed it, great insight as well.

  3. surewin73

    Jun 20, 2016 at 11:17 am

    I’ll stick with my Jimmy Ballard swing.

  4. Steve

    Jun 18, 2016 at 2:01 pm

    Great article. Very informative and helpful. Thanks.

  5. michael johnson

    Jun 18, 2016 at 10:50 am

    great article. this is something that i have been struggling with for a long time. now that i learned how to get rid of the hipsway, i shot 62 at oakmont a couple of weeks ago. it was very easy.

  6. MP-4

    Jun 17, 2016 at 6:44 pm

    One of the best instruction articles to date on GolfWRX.

  7. mikee

    Jun 17, 2016 at 12:46 pm

    Recently cut my driver down to 45 inches from 46…….hitting more consistently in the middle of the face….longer drives

  8. Mike W

    Jun 17, 2016 at 12:55 am

    In the last drill the alignment stick is a few inches away from the hips. So, does that mean it’s ok for the hips to sway a little (ie. less than 3 inches)?

    • Kelvin Kelley

      Jun 17, 2016 at 3:13 am

      Ideally you would get the shaft as close as possible

  9. Pete

    Jun 17, 2016 at 12:53 am

    Again, and again the dynamics and rythm is overrun by positions. You may learn the positions and lateral move elimination are fairly easy to learn, but club head speed is a result of proper rythm and sequencing more, than restricting something, that would create more power, if done properly.

    Comparing baseball batting and swinging is very good analogue to, what is needed to create your maximum rotational speed and what to do at impact. Stepping in drill is also very good for the same reasons.

    Anyway the problem is not mostly in the clubhead speed, but the quality of contact, that varies, when you don’t have strong enough legs to your desired swinging speed. Dynamic balance and proper support for front hip at impact is the most important single variable to hit hard.

    If the initially lateral movement can be changed consistently to rotational speed there is no trouble flushing it.

    • Pete

      Jun 17, 2016 at 2:31 am

      Right glute toward the target -picture is not the best selection to implement, what to do, instead of the basically right things explained in the text your eye catches the more horisontal alignment stick on the “Correct”-side of the picture. Instead having your hips turning horisontally, the front hip may drop towards the ball, when turning back giving relief to your lumbar spine.

      If you turn your hips too much horisontally, spine will take all the strain of holding early extension off swinging the hands around your torso. The picture would be more informative, if you had your right thigh already opened towards the target and loaded to be ready for the front leg to fire for front hip support to produce solid pivot for your rotation and down swing.

  10. KK

    Jun 16, 2016 at 10:32 pm

    Mechanics are great but spin control is very poorly understood. Vast majority of golfers I see have too high-spin drivers. And poor mechanics.

  11. Other Paul

    Jun 16, 2016 at 9:26 pm

    Now we just need kelvin Miyahira and golfwrx will be complete.

  12. Jorge

    Jun 16, 2016 at 5:44 pm

    Hi Kelvin, thanks for your article. We hear a lot about correct sequencing in the backswing especially around trying not to rotate your hips/glutes too early in the swing as this will cause over-rotation and get the arms and body out of sync. The long hitters such as Jason Day state that they try to minimise hip rotation as much as possible in order to create torque, which ultimately creates speed/power.
    In your opinion, at what point should we start activitating the hip rotation in our backswing (as part of the takeaway or halfway back)? Also, are you an advocate of keeping the right knee flexed or letting it straighten a bit in the backswing because when you focus on hip rotation, the right knee reacts by straightening?
    Thanks!

    • Kelvin Kelley

      Jun 16, 2016 at 5:57 pm

      Jorge,

      Great question. The ideal sequence would be moving the clubhead/shaft first (since this is the furthest point away from us) and letting our arms pull us into a turn or coil position. Still start start the swing moving the shaft, and then let your arms almost feel they pull your right glute around as you get closer to the top of your swing. This will give you the resistant and proper coil and more importantly, maintain your spine angle. Will also prevent getting too long. Feel it in your glutes and groin, not in the knees… I don’t mind if the right knee doesn’t stay the same flex, but obviously not straightened.

      Hope this helps

  13. larrybud

    Jun 16, 2016 at 3:12 pm

    ” If executed correctly, the right side of the shaft will move directly back.”

    How can the right side of the shaft “move directly back” when the hips are set at an angle when looking at them down the line? The right shaft should move back and UP.

    • Kelvin Kelley

      Jun 16, 2016 at 3:26 pm

      Thanks for the comment/question,

      The alignment stick would move up eventually you are correct… The initial direction should “feel” directly back and will in fact start directly back when looking down initially, and this is a very subtle move. More importantly, feel and reality are separate.

  14. Adam

    Jun 16, 2016 at 3:01 pm

    Great to see Kelvin Kelley on golfwrx, he’s one of the top instructors around”

  15. Joe Brenna

    Jun 16, 2016 at 2:17 pm

    Wow, this technique really helped me out a lot. Thanks man..

  16. KJ

    Jun 16, 2016 at 11:04 am

    Nice job Melvin!

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Instruction

Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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