Swing out to the right

If you swing out to your right,  i.e. your entire torso is POINTING RIGHT in the impact zone, then your ball will go straight. The golf arc is such that , if you start rightwards (right field), the clubface will square up at the bottom of the swing!

Don’t just take my word for it,  here are some notable players and teachers who taught the same thing:

• Percy Boomer
• J Douglas EDGAR
• Jack Nicklaus

SETUP – to transfer your weight back and through

Connectedness is the keyword here. Essentially, your entire torso along with your arms, needs to swing out to right field. I insisted on the TORSO part, because most instructors simply mention the arms (‘Swing your arms out to the right’). This, IMO, is incorrect (or incomplete). Your arms by themselves have little weight – combine them with your upper body – and all of a sudden you are an 18 wheeler. Transfer this 18 wheeler mass through the hitting area – and you are looking at some Bubba Watson drives !

Now that I have convinced you (hopefully) that your entire torso – up to and including your hips– is involved in the backswing and downswing, you need to know how to swing this entire unit back – as ONE unit – and not separate pieces. For this, you need to try and connect all these pieces that need to move back together.

1. INSIDE of upper right arm – connected to Upper right chest – connected to inner right hip
2. INSIDE of upper left arm – connected to Upper left chest – connected to inner left hip

WHERE (on the tee box) should you form your CONNECTEDNESS?

Most teachers want you to set up directly behind the ball. According to them, this helps your body AIM correctly. I prefer to set up (perform my connectedness) away from the ball. All LINING up to the ball does is DISTRACT you – to hit it straight, work on reproducing the same feel over and over again.

The BACKSWING thought (the FINAL thought before starting your swing)

Yes – the idea of this post is to convince you that your entire weight needs to swing out to right field. However, that is more of an EFFECT – THE END RESULT, if you will. To get to this end result, you need to be able to swing back correctly. For this purpose only, usually a simple swing thought helps me (the underlying concept is well documented by the likes of Ben Hogan).

IRONS Backswing Thought (and ALL woods EXCEPT driver)

Get the forearms CLOSE on the backswing. Hogan talks about keeping the elbows close. Other instructors may state it differently (keep hands close, keep wrists close…). The idea is to shorten the gap between your forearms – on your backswing.

This will let you WHIP through the ball with both your forearms, on your downswing.

DRIVER Backswing Thought

Getting the wrists (or forearms) close on the backswing – though a good thought – is not as overriding a thought as keeping the swing flat. It is entirely possible to keep the forearms close – and still have a STEEP swing. For the driver, it is crucial to not get too steep. To keep a Flat swing plane, it is good to think of rotating around a FIXED RIGHT SHOULDER. Of course your right shoulder does not stay fixed – but all you have to do is rotate your backswing around that point (the resting point of the right shoulder) . This provides the perfect swing plane (flat) for the driver.

The end result (downswing and impact) of this backswing thought is identical to that for the irons (even though the backswing thought was different for irons).

The end result will let you WHIP through the ball with both your forearms, on your downswing.

Trust me, once your hands whip through the ball with your driver, you will give up every other form of recreational drug use. The after effects of this whip through motion are addictive.

Some more driver setup tips

• Widen the Stance – at least well beyond your shoulders.