Mastering The Downswing: How To Start Down For More Power And Less Slices

The downswing determines how long and straight we hit the golf ball, but it is in the transition of the golf swing that we set the wheels in motion to strike the golf ball well. In this video, I discuss the 3 things that I believe must happen in the transition of the swing if you want to stop slicing the ball and hit the ball further.

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I am a PGA Professional golfer from Harrogate, North Yorkshire. I teach a wide range of players, from beginners to mid-handicappers to plus-handicap golfers. I love diving deep into the swing, and hopefully, some of the information I share can help you shoot lower scores!

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In this video we’re diving into the transition of the golf swing the golf swing’s Moment of Truth we’re going to be talking about common mistakes we see in a transition what a good transition looks like and some drills that are going to help you strike the ball better

Stop slicing it and start hitting that high draw wheel once to hit it’s fairly safe to say that transition is golf’s real Moment of Truth as you start your downswing you’re setting the wheels in motion for how the club’s going to move at the bottom and you have to view it

Like that how the club moves here you’re just going to react to it down here it’s actually really important that the club moves the way we want it to as you start the down swing and your body moves into a position where you can get into that

Impact that we’re trying to get into so a good analogy for this is it’s like steering a giant ship it’s very difficult to write the ship last minute if you’re trying to steer away from an obstacle you’ve got to start really early and that’s really what the

Transition is fortunately if you make a transition where the club sort of moves away from where we want it to your going to be playing catchup at the last minute to to make up for that so if we move into like what are the common faults

That we see uh the first one is players opening their shoulders too early and the what has to happen then is most gos will then early extend because the club gets too outside and too steep so you have to react otherwise you just swing over the top of the ball and miss it

Something else that happens quite a lot is from the top of the Swing their right arm will bend to too much get they’ll get too narrow and again what that results in is the body stalling and the right arm having to fire which then results in a flip and loss of control

Over your low point and your Club face Direction then the other one that we really don’t want to see is from the top of the Swing the wrist angles cing and because what happens is when the club face opens it’s very unlikely in the 0.2 seconds that the down swing takes that

You’re then going to be able to somehow square that face up and if you do manage it it’s just going to rely on massive hand action massive release massive flip and again we’re trying to build a swing where the club face doesn’t rely tons of manipulation through the ball you know

If we want to be as consistent as possible really what we’re looking to do is get the club face as Square as we can as early as we can so then we can turn through really manipulation free so someone like Victor hovland yes he has masses of Club face rotation just like

Everybody else but his Club face is so shut so early as he swings through he looks like he’s just able to hang on and hold it off which is why he’s one of the straightest hitters players like Dustin Johnson are another great example where the face is shut early and they can just

Sort of almost Freewheel through players who get the face really open at the top generally are the handiest players now I’m not saying that you can’t do that but it just does make things a little bit more difficult than it needs to be certainly if you’re not able to practice

5 six seven days a week for hours and hours and hours at a time so if you’re one of those players is who either Narrows the right arm too much cups the wrist or turns and opens up too early then this video is definitely going to

Help you out so for the average Club golfer there’s three things that I’m really looking to see as the as we transition from back swing into downswing um so the first one is a transition where there’s a really good shift of the hips towards the target um

This is going to help transfer our weight and what this actually does is it delays our shoulders opening fraction which allows our arms to move down into a better position and the club to shallow out a little bit a lot of golfers I see teaching dayto day a

People who are spinning because they’ve been told to turn or they’ve been told to rotate hard which is fine but what that results in is people when they turn too early they’re always going to sort of be too much weight on the right foot the low point of their Swing is

Generally going to be behind the ball which means they’re either going to be bending their arms or swiping across it hitting that weak fade most PJ tour players when they swing into the ball have sort of basically 80% of their weight on their Lead Foot impact in

Order to move your mass over to that 80% on the Lead Foot you have to start shifting across really early so as you’re rounding the top of the Swing you should be leaning with the hips Shifting the hips across early so that as your arms come down we can then just focus on

Turning out of it oh hey you’re still here thank you so most of you guys watching this are not subscribers and although the few subscribers that are watching this thank you very much for being here I could really do with the help if you subscribe like and comment

Even if you think I’m stupid that really boosts engagement it helps get this video out to more people and helps me grow so anything you can do to help that’d be great the second thing that I’m I’m looking for in a good transition

Is from the top I I want to see the club moving back and away from the golf ball so I want to see the like the Arc of the club head widening further back behind me but what should happen is from the top of the Swing once we’ve started to

Shift our hips across we should be using our s Trail alarm to push that club away and behind us which shallows the shaft out and it’s going to allow us to hit it from the inside generally what you see in an AM player is from the top of their

Swing they’re narrowing The Arc bending their right arm creating that laggy position which then pulls the hands over and then shortens the distance from the club head to ball which then gets us in a position where we just have to stand and flick where someone like meloy from

The top he sends the club out and the way behind him which think traces them he then is able to trace a massive Arc with the club head and then really powerfully rotate through the ball if we can get that early shift and then widen

The arc behind us we are really on our way into a strong downswing and then point three the cherry on the cake in a perfect transition is our left wrist remaining flat or even even starting to Bow so what this is going to do is just

Help us shut the face earlier get that face closed it’s going to set set us up to hit a draw shot it’s going to allow us to strike with our strike the ball with our hands ahead which is going to give us that compression and that sound

And that feel that we all strive for you know this is the move that’s going to stop you slicing it this is the move that’s going to stop you fatting and thinning it getting the wrist into that bof Exposition combined with the early shift and the widening of the Ark it’s

Just going to give us golf shots that are well stroke with a good shape and you’re going to find it much easier to hit the ball to Target people who do the opposite where they they they open early they narrow the ark and they cut the wrist that is your stereotypical slicer

Most people watching this that is you so we can really start to work on widen the ark bow the wrist shift the hips and that’s going to give us the sort of shots that we want and it’s just so easy to draw the ball from there it really is really easy

To draw the ball from there it’s like a such a strong feeling you know it’s going to help you gain speed it’s going to it’s going to help you strike the ball before the ground we can get too focused on the takeaway and we can get too focused on what our impact looks

Like but takeaway does it matter does it not what our impact look like yes that does really matter but our impact is a reaction to what we do with the club up here so if we get this bit right our impact will always look better

Shift bow widen so what drills can we do uh you know I love a drill anytime we can do a drill and hit golf balls whilst doing the drill it’s going to help us accelerate our learning it’s going to help us learn to do these moves quicker

So first drill I like is I just call it the clo the closed alignment drill where you’re going to swing up to the top and then you’re going to swing down and not open your body not turn your body towards the target so you’re going to

Swing down trying to keep your back to Target your chest pointing away and what that’s going to allow you to do is widen the ark bow the wrist and just shift most people I teach you fade the ball or slice the ball naturally really struggle with this one because they’re so used to

Initiating their downswing with a spin so get swinging up to the top and then swinging down without opening your body is a really foreign feeling to them but this is a really s pretty much guaranteed way to get you swinging from the inside get you out that slice

Pattern get you into a hook pattern you’re going to swing up to the top then you’re going to swing down and hit the ball with really trying to to not open your body at all now that’s B you know it’s very hard to do but you get a great feel for shift

And extending the arms so up hold your body short we’ve shifted and then we’re just going to extend the arms and you can see that I’m a hooker of the ball the ball didn’t even get in the air the face was shut I was away from the inside

That’s absolutely perfect for slices and it’s you can sort of you’ll be able to see from the down the line camera that the Club is so inside and I’m releasing it it’s absolutely perfect for slices the second drill I like is like the the motorcycle drill I think people call it

Is where you’re going to swing up to the top and extend the right arm and bow the wrist almost as if you like rev in a motorcycle and then swing down and hit it so and when people do that push away bow the wrist again it’s really really

Hard to slice the ball from here it’s really hard to swing across the ball from here because it’s just when you when you’ve sent the club away and shut the face it just doesn’t make sense in your brain to cut across the ball so push away rev the motorcycle and then turn

Through again we we’re taking the Loft down we’re shutting the face early it’s going to allow us to hit it from the inside and we’re going to hit that low Drop hopefully you now understand a bit more about this really really important part of the Swing this video follows on

From the the grip the posture the setup the takeway the back swing this is the sort of the the fourth or fifth video in the build your swing sort of series that I’m doing uh if you not seen those go back and watch them if you’re struggling

With specific shots then I’ve done how to draw the ball how to fade the ball go and have a look at those um and thank you for watching