How do I stop swaying?!

[McIlroy_man]

My swing has always had a big sway in it and it has made me less consistent than i know i could be.

I have had many lessons and the sway was one of the things ive worked on, but i can never seem to get rid of it! I can have practice swings without the sway and hit soft shots without the sway....well really only pitches and maybe up to about a soft 9 iron shot...but the minute i start trying to hit the ball hard the sway comes back.
It can really effect my driving as i cant get my hands to catch up with my body so can start loosing a lot of shots to the right.

Does anyone have any simple tips or drills to help me get rid of this for good? I'm willing to put a lot of work into this as i need to become more consistent to get into my university team.

Cheers

[zenchili]

Can you post a video of your swing. Maybe that will show us what is causing the sway.

Do you feel that your swing stays pretty synchronized, or does it get out of sync and stay out of sync?

[jamo]

I used to have this problem. There was no secret to it. All i did was focus on where my weight felt it was, and focused on keeping my head where it was. No drills or anything, i just had to focus.

[delav]

Without seeing your swing, it's tough to tell what's causing you to sway and pull through the ball. However, I'd work hard on turning your hips on the the way back while maintaining pressure on the inside of your right foot. As soon as you let your weight roll outside your right foot, it becomes much easier to sway through the ball and you lose a great deal of torque in the downswing.

Try this - stomp a range ball 1/2 way into the ground. Take your stance with this half-submerged range ball under the outside of your right foot (under arch). If done correctly, this should slightly cant your right knee in. Hit a few shots this way, and concentrate on loading up on the inside of your right foot, powering off of it through impact.

My dad would also suggest i hit shots with the idea that I was pinching a beachball between my knees. Both ideas work to create a turn at the hits rather than a lower body sway. Good luck!

[luckyluke699]

I was doing this a little bit, and I found it useful to "lock" or tense my right leg. This meant that I could not sway to the right during the upswing.

This is not a good thing to do I believe during the swing itself on an ongoing basis and I am not recommending that, but the reason I found it useful while learning not to sway, was that it taught my upper body and hips, what it should feel like to be turning correctly as it was much more "taught".

try it out, it might be useful to you, might not. don't know till you try!

[Nickynoodles]

Theres a few things that swaying could be. The main reason why a golfer will sway is a locked back knee during your backswing or before. 2nd is if you sway at the top of your backswing your putting to much weight on your back leg producing a reverse pivot. In addition to the previously mentioned problems, the sway also puts the back hip in a position that does not allow any lateral movement during the backswing. This happens because the hip is out of line with the leg and locks the joint about 1/4th of the way into the backswing. The result is a mostly arms, over the top golf swing that is not powerful and is hard to time. Now how do you fix it. Well 1st you have to take away the need for any lateral movement in the backswing. The next time you take your stance, once you are comfortable, simply angle your body from the hips up (keeping the hips centered on the feet), away from the target until your head is behind the ball and 70% of your body weight can be felt under the arch of your back foot. Your back knee should be flexed and you should keep it that way during the backswing. If you do these two simple adjustments to your setup, you should prevent the sway before you even start moving the golf club. Hope this helps.

[McIlroy_man]

thanks for the suggestions so far guys, i was up at the range today and was focusing more on not swaying and keeping my weight on the inside of my right foot....man it felt weird!

once id got through the first 50 balls or so i started hitting my irons really nicely with just a touch of fade at the end ( I may still have been swaying a touch, definatley a lot less than usual though but i wont be certain that ive stopped doing it until i see it on video)....the problems again were with the longer clubs, the driver and 3 wood were just firing all over the place
This was the first time i had hit any balls in 4 weeks as the ranges have all been shut here because of the snow, so it could be a bit of rustyness too, but i just dont seem to be able to hit a good ball without swaying with the long clubs.

Im going back up to the range on thursday and will try and get a few videos of my swing then for you all to have a look at...il get some with irons and woods.

cheers

[DavidFehertysBike]

Im of the opinion that a little lateral movement off the ball is not that big of an issue. Its more athletic to move around a little than to just turn your body into a rigid pole with arms attached to it. But i read in one of the other posts if you overdo it (usually by trying to over swing) you will reverse pivot. And that's not good. I know i move laterally both ways during my swing. You just don't want to go up and down. The key is to find a place where you can remain balanced with the weight so you can go though the ball cleanly.

[tm22721]

I used to prevent sway by keeping pressure on my right instep. But I found it difficult to keep my right instep down until impact.

Recently I have refined that by applying a clockwise torque on the balls of both feet throughout the swing. This move has the potential to clean up my entire swing by using the ground to automate the transition.

[Grahaman]

I would say to lay off the hooch!

[ks8829]

simple, swing with your feet together with all your clubs including your driver, if you sway you will lose balance and fall over.

1) take the club back on its natural arc
2) brace your rear foot by keeping the weight on the inside of your foot
3) keep a slight bend in your knees

[Luckner88]

I used to prevent sway by keeping pressure on my right instep. But I found it difficult to keep my right instep down until impact.

Can you please elaborate on how you do that, do you turn your torgue clockwise on your back foot on the backswing then front foot on the downswing? Reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to do this now because I have a hard time shifting the weight at the moment of impact. usually I shift it before impact and waste power in the process.