takeaway?

[King Cobra II]

What is the correct way to take the club back? I feel like the way I take the club back + my swing plane causes me to roll my wrists in my back swing resulting in ugly shots. What are some things I should be doing/looking for in my take away to check and see if its correct?

[Mr Eagle]

Low and Slow,nice and smooth with no jerky movements.This should promote the idea of the hands, shoulders and upper torso moving together with the clubhead staying on the proper line, (well thats the theory anyway)

[Avid Golfer]

What is the correct way to take the club back? I feel like the way I take the club back + my swing plane causes me to roll my wrists in my back swing resulting in ugly shots. What are some things I should be doing/looking for in my take away to check and see if its correct?

There are multiple opinions on what starts the backswing.

In Ernie Els' How to Build a Classic Swing he talked about how he started back with all arms. In Greg Norman's Instant Lessons and Shark Attack he talked about starting the takeaway by pushing the left elbow away from the target. In Nick Faldo's books he talked about how when he first started making changes with Leadbetter he found it benefical to think about setting the wrists as he started back. Jack Nickalus talked about starting back with the left shoulder in his book. Steve Elkington in his book talked about how he liked to feel like he was moving the abs into his rib cage (torso), and Faldo talked about how at one point he liked to begin by turning starting with the belly button. All these different ideas suggest that there is not one right way to start the swing. You should make your choice based on what feels confortable to you, what gives you the most consistancy, what you desire to do with your swing, or what you are trying to guard against doing in your swing.

[MrKadash]

I fall into Els' category above -- I feel my arms rotate away from the ball at my shoulders, but as one unit. I try to keep it simple by not concentrating on anything but tempo.

[Richie3Jack]

The takeaway is where most golfers' flaws start to begin. Most amateurs take the club too far inside. There's quite a few famous instructors who incorrectly teach the improper takeaway of getting the club parallel to the target line on the takeaway. This actually gets the club off the swing plane. Here's an example of that flawed takeaway.



This is also known as getting the clubhead "inside the hands."

When a golfer does this, they usually keep the club and hands well under hte plane throughout the entire backswing and this causes them to make a looping, over the top motion on the downswing.

The good news is that the proper takeaway isn't too hard to learn. It's practically taking the clubhead straight back.

Fred Couples has a textbook takeaway ( http://www.swingacademy.com/swingana...ol.aspx?id=944 )

As you can see, Fred has the club further to the outside than the golfer in the pic above and the clubhead is actually "outside the hands."

That's a pretty good swing thought. But sometimes golfers who think that tend to overdo it. So another good swing thought is to get the thumbs pointing at the target line at the takeway. In the pic of incorrect takeaway above, the golfer's thumbs are pointing parallel to the target line.




3JACK

[iacas]

Fred gets to almost the same position, and if anything, it's Fred's move that's flawed. Everyone talks about this "peculiarity" in Fred's swing and how he has to re-route the club coming back down, because he's over the swing plane. Two swing planes is generally not a good thing, nor is re-routing the club.

To the OP, I always try to get to almost the position I've quoted above (in the image). It's true she's a little inside, but we're talking about an inch or so here. I get to that position (again, slightly outside of the image) not by rolling the wrists or forearms, which for me tends to suck the club back well to the inside and create a very, very low swing plane (and one that's almost impossible to time), but instead by moving the arms away together and almost trying to maintain their plane. The clubface rotating will happen almost naturally, and there's some wrist cock (how much varies per person), but otherwise, at about horizontal, your clubhead should be even with the hands - not inside and not outside - and the toe should be pointing roughly straight up. From there, my swing thought is to "lift" the arms, but that thought may not work for you, because really there's really very little lifting. It's more of a turn, but I use "lift" to make sure my hands get above my shoulder. The swing thought should be "turn to lift," but that's too long.

[Richie3Jack]

Fred gets to almost the same position, and if anything, it's Fred's move that's flawed. Everyone talks about this "peculiarity" in Fred's swing and how he has to re-route the club coming back down, because he's over the swing plane. Two swing planes is generally not a good thing, nor is re-routing the club.

Fred's takeaway is perfect and is not the same as the takeaway as the pic above. Fred's club never gets parallel to the target line and his clubhead is on the plane at the takeaway point. The pic above the golfer's club is parallel to the target and the clubhead is under the swing plane. As far as the swing plane goes, from takeaway and the halfway back point, Fred Couples is perfect. Where he starts to have some flaws is when he gets to the top of the swing where he gets above the plane. But again, that's the top of the swing, not the takeaway which is what this thread is about.

Studies have shown that if you're going to err, you're better off doing what Fred is doing because you're more apt to take the club in the right spot on the downswing than if you have a flat backswing. Golfers with flat backswings tend to come over the top. Golfers with upright swings tend to come down a bit more shallow, but again..if you're going to err you're better off coming down a little too shallow than to come over the top.

To the OP, I always try to get to almost the position I've quoted above (in the image). It's true she's a little inside, but we're talking about an inch or so here.

It's actually more than an inch as her hands are well inside the plane as well. And that small difference may not seem like much, but golfers who do that tend to make the same flaws on the backswing:

1. Hands and club get well inside the swing plane on the backswing 2. The clubshaft gets at a much flatter angle than the swing plane on the backswing which makes the club heavier and very difficult to drop the club down properly. There are very few tour pros that roll their hands inward on the takeaway. And the ones that do like Luke Donald and Vijay Singh, their saving grace is that they get the clubshaft on the same exact angle as the swing plane and then get their hands on the swing plane at the top of the swing. Most golfers who roll their hands inward on the takeaway do the things I talk about above and then either come over the top (for high handicappers) or their downswing mirrors their downswing and they come too far from the inside (for low handicappers). The one swing plane is a great theory and what golfers should achieve for, but the reality is that almost no golfer has a true one swing plane (even Moe Norman). So you try to get as close to the plane throughout the swing as you possibly can and of course, there's some flaws you can make that will still allow you to hit the ball pretty well on a consistent basis, like Fred Couples does. 3JACK

[iacas]

Fred's takeaway is perfect and is not the same as the takeaway as the pic above.

I guess we'll just agree to disagree. You can side with Fred's unorthodox move, and I'll side with the more popular move: not taking the club up to the outside and too steep.

Studies have shown that if you're going to err, you're better off doing what Fred is doing because you're more apt to take the club in the right spot on the downswing than if you have a flat backswing. Golfers with flat backswings tend to come over the top. Golfers with upright swings tend to come down a bit more shallow, but again..if you're going to err you're better off coming down a little too shallow than to come over the top.

No disagreement there. But why "err" when you can try to swing on the proper plane the whole time. Fred's swing "errs" on the upright side.

There are very few tour pros that roll their hands inward on the takeaway.

Never said there were. However, most get their clubhead roughly even with their hands when the club is horizontal to the ground (and parallel to their target line), with the toe up.

The one swing plane is a great theory and what golfers should achieve for, but the reality is that almost no golfer has a true one swing plane (even Moe Norman).

Let's not confuse things. Fred Couples re-routes his swing because he has to - he takes the club up too steeply from setup.

I'm also not talking about Jim Hardy's one-plane/two-plane thing. I simply mean one plane going back, and another coming down. Just to be clear.