The Common Factor in six top Women’s Backswings
If you were asked, “What is the single most common swing position seen during the top of these backswings?’, what would your response be?
The answer is in the ‘backside’. NONE of theirs have rotated!
L to R: Stacy Lewis, Michelle Wie, Paula Creamer, Jessica Korda, Se Ri Pak, Lexi Thompson.
So now, power must come from only an unwinding trunk, when women have so much more in the hip and gluteal-muscle area. A lot of women are then excessively torquing their spines, and so having to unwind lumbar, thoracic and cervical areas of the spine at different paces and times, as they all have different sizes and roles and the spine is not in position to unwind as a single column.
The result? In-efficiency of ball-striking, potential for injury.
The ENTIRE SPINE – from neck to tail-bone NEEDS to be rotated back as a single column!
Just an update Kiran from coming off the course. I admire Gary Edwin and his Right Sided Swing and feel as if you both share important observations like sweeping the ball and working backwards from club design and anatomy. However, as my physical situation has deteriorated and as I await a right knee replacement upcoming, I have increasingly simplified my swing with your insights and descriptions. Today, I lost 2 balls in very thick rough to shoot 41/41 on a par 71, my best round this year. I made the decision to go “all-in” on the range.
At first I was a little akward with the set-up feeling too macho to pre-set everything but since I have a hand-capped flag on my cart, I figured what the heck?
So feet together, ball centered, club in my right hand, pre-rotate and weight on the left hip. Head to back shoulder light arm way under the left and left thumb to right shoulder up the chest! It got pretty automatic and I took it to the course-WOW!
Hitting the driver took a bit of concentration as did the draw flight but my hybrids , irons, and wedges were pin-seekers all day. Set-up and pre-rotation of the spine had me shooting at every pin or center of the green and many of my distances were longer than usual. I seemed to have gained a club length and sometimes longer with hybrids. I even used the thumb to foot path for my chips and left several chips on the edge for easy pars.
Toward the end of the round I started to get your putting insight of a billiard ball and started to split the ball in half forgetting putting technique and forcing the ball on a desired line with good results. I flushed so many shots that I was behind the hole all day and did a lot of chipping. I had to go down to use my sand wedge a lot because i was hitting the chips too pure and blowing through the pins.
I do have your EBOOK and I am a certified, “highly qualified ” golf coach for my large urban school district. I get a lot of conversation on the driving range from my set-up and consistently hitting targets all over the range’s multiple greens and flags. I mention your youtube videos and blog and sense of humor and very fun accent-my girlfriend wants to learn your system with me and we will try to schedule with you in the future.
I am curious if your teaching has a driving meditation-do you tee it lower with the shallow path? My ball seems to float and land softly about 235-240ish-how do I get the drive to come in lower and hotter on the ground?
Anyway, thanks so much for your genuine and helpful insights to golf!
Patrick