Do not transfer your weight!!

I have been talking a lot about not transferring your weight into your backswing and if anything keeping your weight on the front foot on the backswing. This may sound a bit controversial and you may choose to not believe me, but here is the scientific proof that this is correct. I will always use science to back up what i say as you cant argue against what has been set in stone for millions of years!!! I'm no expert in science and mechanics but i know what is logical . Here we go!! ;-)

So your body is a pivot which is a central point on which an object turns. The centre of your chest is the pivot point. As your body pivots your arms and club swing freely like a pendulum on a grandfather clock just at a different angle, but the principle is the same. Your arms and club have a weight to them, research says your arms weigh about 18% of your body weight and a 7 iron weighs around 350-400 grams. So my body weight is 13.5 stone and to make things easy my arms and club weigh about the same as 15 bags of sugar swinging freely from my pivot point.

 

So if you transfer your weight onto the back foot with 15 bags of sugar what do you think will happen??? Yes you will be pulled in that direction loosing balance and your pivot!!

So what happens in the downswing when you try and accelerate the bags of sugar with all your weight on your back foot?? You cant accelerate because you have lost your connection to the ground because your balance is out, you will be pulled even more off the ball!! You need the ground to create power and harness the forces created from the golf swing.

Counterbalance is the key!! When your arms swing back and through you should feel like your body weight is moving in the opposite direction to your swing to achieve maximum acceleration and a perfect pivot,pendulum counterbalanced golf swing!!! When the club decelerates the back foot will lift to finish the swing in balance.

Can you imagine what 15 bags of sugar weigh at maximum acceleration in your golf swing?? I'm no mathematician but lets say it was 4 x heavier so that's 60 bags of sugar!!! So why are you trying to transfer your weight in the direction of the swing to your front foot on the downswing??? Your golf swing should work like a counter balance as the weight of the arms and club swings forward you should counterbalance it by moving your weight back which clears your hips easily and massively accelerates the arms and club!! As your weight moves back you should be putting more pressure into the ground (lowering your centre of gravity) The more bags of sugar swinging the lower you go otherwise you will loose balance!! Why do all of the hard hitters look like they lower and hang back through the ball and their front foot comes off the ground sometimes?? It makes sense now right? Counterbalancing and harnessing the forces created from the swing instead of fighting against them. Lexi & Bubba are very tall and so have a higher centre of gravity which is why both feet come up, can you imagine how much more power they would create if their feet were on the ground?

We were all told years ago how bad a reverse pivot was for a golfer and that we should transfer the weight from right to left. I'm thinking a reverse pivot isn't such a bad thing after all, and to be honest in my 20 years coaching i rarely see it! but when i do it is generally a beginner or child on the range giving golf a go and doing what feels natural, the weight moves forward and then back accelerating the arms like a human pendulum!! its so obvious!!! and they create lots and lots of speed this way until you tell them how it should be done and they loose everything!!

Golf instruction is a mess with so many different so called methods to mess you up even more, so then you rely on the latest equipment to cure your faults which is a bigger mess as you are not tackling the problem but looking for an excuse or an easier way which isn't there. 

Why not learn to swing correctly instead of tweaking your driver settings or changing the shaft for a different ball flight!! Master the correct swing by understanding what i have just been talking about, because you will then master the art of ball striking giving you a lot more creativity in your game which is what great players have. If you don't learn to harness the forces you create in the golf swing you will forever be fighting it!

Bryson Dechambeau knows a thing or two about Physics & Mechanics, it doesn't need to be complicated and i hope i have described it simply for you.

I developed The GForce Swing Trainer based around these principles and it will only work if you follow these. Rhythm, tempo, timing comes from a good pivot, after all a clock has all of these fundamentals and the best players move like clockwork.

Good Luck! ;-)