The Importance of making a full shoulder turn

[kilbyman]

I hit my worse shots when I've only turned my shoulders about 45 degrees and have used my arms to set the club where it normally would be if I would have turned 90 degrees. You guys can guess what results. My problem is not physical limitation, it's just being a hacker without a grooved swing. I want you guys to leave comments about what you think of making a full turn (or being fully stacked if you want to go by that verbage). Doing a google search on full shoulder turn is a mess, so I'd prefer comments from Sand Trappers.

I'm also interested in what you guys think a restricted turn can lead to in terms of poor contact.

[saevel25]

So is this your flexibility not allowing you to make the full shoulder turn. I would post a video for a better analysis. Its tough to get to 90 degrees, it takes some time to build up the flexibility to do so. If you can't get past 45 thats an issue though. But as for consistancy, you can create a swing with only 45 degrees of turn, it will just be like hitting half shots all day.

[keiko]

When you think you have turned far enough, turn some more. Eventually, you will get used to what a full turn feels like. It's a body awareness thing. Short turn(ers) are doomed to all kinds of problems with lack of hinge, failure to set the club, balance, etc. Not to say some are not able to play well doing a short version of the turn, many do and some pro's certainly do.
Why doom yourself to this, it makes you look bad and you will mostly play bad doing this.
Once again, with a club held across your chest holding with both hands and the butt of the club pointing left or towards the target, turn until the end of the club nears your right foot. This is a fuller turn.
Posture may be limiting your turn, get your posture right first, then begin taking fuller and fuller turns allowing the left shoulder to come under your chin which is held steady and away from your chest.
Google posture and address and check out the way the pro's do it.
Turn and turn some more while keeping the head steady and the spine angle the same. You will begin to hit awesome shots.

[kilbyman]

Flexibility is not the issue here, it's just bad habits I need to break. I can turn past 90 degrees pretty easily.

[Shanks A Million]

How far you turn the shoulders means little. You can drive a car straight or crooked, no matter if it has 100 hp, or 1,000 hp. The problem is that most people use the arms too much, and the shoulders too little. You want your swing to be powered by shoulder turn, not arm swing. I can turn my shoulders back 30° and still hit the ball well, and you can turn them back 90°, and hit the ball like crap. It's all a question of how much I let the hands take over my swing.

I will use two picture of my own progress to illustrate.

1. Me as about a 20 handicap:


Here my arms and wrists are doing most of the turn, and the shoulders only follow as a courtesy.

2. Me more recently:


Here my shoulders turn back, the arms and hands merely follow. I hit each iron roughly 25 yards farther from this position than with the longer swing, with the same amount of shoulder turn. The moral of the story is, turn the shoulders to power the swing, not the arms and hands.

[kilbyman]

I think that's kind of what I'm realizing. Making a fuller shoulder turn helps me to get my hand action down, and prevent spinning out my shoulders.

[James_Black]

I slice the ball if I don't turn 90*+ so I always make sure I turn my shoulders fully.

[Shanks A Million]

I slice the ball if I don't turn 90*+ so I always make sure I turn my shoulders fully.

There's a much larger problem looming in that case. Shoulder turn has nothing to do with slicing, the ball is sliced because of the club path. It's likely that your hitting a straight pull and when you don't make a full turn, you don't have enough time to shut the face enough to get the ball to pull, so it slices.

[James_Black]

There's a much larger problem looming in that case. Shoulder turn has nothing to do with slicing, the ball is sliced because of the club path. It's likely that your hitting a straight pull and when you don't make a full turn, you don't have enough time to shut the face enough to get the ball to pull, so it slices.

Good point.

I don't really want to fix it though. I hit a small draw and I can hit a small fade if I shorten my swing. It's probably costing me distance/accuracy but I don't want to f**k up my swing.

[Shanks A Million]

Good point.

How do you expect to improve? You have to make changes, or never improve. The new pro here was telling me that when he first turned pro, he made a huge swing change, and literally couldn't even make solid contact for two months. He shanked hundreds upon hundreds of balls, one after the other. When it finally came through, he was better than ever.

I've gone through it, all the tour pros have gone through it. I reconstruct my swing from scratch probably every other month. Every time, I get better.

[The Recreational Golfer]

This can also be a consistency issue, in my opinion. When your swing is timed for a full turn and you don't make that full turn one time, everything gets thrown off. People tend to cut down their turn under pressure.