What Starts the Swing?

One of the most common questions I get about the golf swing is “how do I start the swing?” I have always taught that the upper body (I have recently used the words “upper trunk” to eliminate the arms from the equation) moves and pulls the lower into the swing after a very short delay. This works with people who are somewhat hands and wrists oriented and snatch the club away with very little early trunk turn, and also for people who start with their hips, which really throws things off. Sequence in the swing is of utmost importance, and since the swing is a pattern each individual’s pattern will either produce proper, functional sequence in transition or it won’t. I always focus in closely on the takeaway and the trigger movements that initiate the takeaway to see how these movements affect the rest of the swing. Trigger movements can be quite subtle, so analysis with slow motion video is almost a must to figure out what is really going on.
 
I raise this point for a specific reason as I just spent the day with my student Kevin Streelman at the Sanderson Farms Classic PGA Tour event in Jackson, Mississippi, where we resumed our efforts to find a way to break Kevin’s habit of triggering his swing with too much body movement and a hunching of the right shoulder, which usually leads to a shut clubface in the backswing and eventually a lot of shaft kick at the top. Kevin has always had a tendency to see a draw in his mind, and has historically had issues with his pattern producing a lower body movement in the downswing that drives his right leg toward the ball and makes him throw the face at the ball into impact. We always like to draw on Ben Hogan’s swings and what he wrote about his swing for guidance in just about every area, and as I tried to imitate Kevin’s stubborn takeaway trigger it occurred to me to go back and read the Five Lessons to reacquaint myself with what Hogan felt started the swing. I don’t have the book in front of me but two things stood out: first is the phrase “hands, arms, shoulders, hips”, and the second was the idea that these were “almost simultaneous”. The part about being an “almost simultaneous” movement of the upper body is what I usually teach (with the hips definitely following), but in Kevin’s case he would shift his weight slightly by pushing into, then off the ball of his left foot back to the right heel while rotating the upper trunk with a too steep shift of the shoulders, the right shoulder hunching up while the left went too far down, dragging his head forward toward the ball. We have been trying to quiet the takeaway down by feeling the legs doing nothing then moving the arms and shoulders while opening the clubface to more of a toe up position at shaft parallel.
 
Alas, these trigger movements are extremely stubborn, so I was looking for a different way to think about starting the swing, which is why I went back to Hogan and mentioned to Kevin that he said “hands, arms, shoulders, hips”. This is dangerous for people who don’t utilize their upper bodies enough in the backswing, but in Kevin’s case he was overusing it, so I thought he might try to get the clubhead moving just before everything else. It is a different thought, and since the movements are almost simultaneous as Hogan said I figured it might just help him feel like he didn’t have to push with his legs to get the whole upper body moving. Well, the first time he used the thought his takeaway looked entirely different for the better. By using the hands to start the club and swinging the arms away to start the shoulders Kevin now had a different sequence in his mind that allowed him to do the things we have been looking for, namely quieting his excess movement at the start of the swing and getting the face to comfortably open going back. It also gives him a chance to deepen into the right leg a bit later in the backswing, which is another important factor because he hates getting too deep too early because he feels like it makes him jump out toward the ball in transition and through the downswing.
 
What this should show us is that the thought process that takes information and applies it to the golf swing is an entirely individual thing. It is my job to know enough about the possible variations players can think about to produce a desired result and to tailor that technique to the individual player. It is no different with a Tour player than it is with anyone else. I think that Kevin and I have hit upon an idea (thanks to Mr. Hogan) that we will keep in the plan for a long time.

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