Help with my takeaway.

[Johnnyooze]

So ive been trying to rebuild my golf swing for the last month or so and ive read 2 opinions on the initial takeaway of the backswing...

1- Break my wrists first: The wrists are the first things to move. Bring the club almost parallel to the ground before moving anything else and then backswing as norman so that at the top of the swing the club is already back and your body doesnt have to catch up and theres no pause before the swing.

Break wrists first, then move body.

2 - Break my wrists late in the backswing. Keep everything straight and (essentially) just push back with my left forearm and break my wrists when im about 3/4 of the way through my back swing so the club snaps back on the swing.

Move body first, then break wrists.

Mostly used #2 but recently ive experimented with #1. Any thoughts? Thanks.

[Stretch]

3) Don't think about your hands or wrists at all. Keep your upper arms connected to your torso and simply turn your hips and shoulders. The momentum of the club head will do the rest of the work required to get you to the top in decent shape -- right arm will bend, left wrist will cock, right wrist will hinge/fold.*

(* I suck at this myself, since I rotate my wrists too much. But, you know, do as the random stranger on the Internet says, not as the random stranger on the Internet does.)

[Texian]

A Nicklaus thought that I like is to takeaway by imagining yourself as a batter in baseball and putting the clubhead in the catcher's mitt.

[MiniBlueDragon]

#4 - Your wrists cock at the same pace as your shoulders rotate:

[Johnnyooze]

Ive looked at a BUNCH of articles and lessons online over the last couple days and have been able to practice what ive learned a little. Heres some things i feel are going to help me (mostly with iron play):

Keeping a connected takeaway/backswing.

Finding where my natural swing makes a divot and putting my ball just behind that in my stance.

Keeping my head stationary when shifting my weight forward through my swing.

Feeling the lag in the swing with my right index finger.

My goal right now is to get to a 10 HCP which i feel is very doable with some tuning and lots of practice!

[saevel25]

Well i got to think about my hands because if i don't i get the, lets rotate them in the backswing, opening up the clubface.. I got to concentrate on keeping my left hand facing more towards the ground till i hinge, keeping the clubface square.

[tshapiro]

When you understand how you build power in your golf swing you just do it, like throwing a football.  I too went through years of analyzing every little move such as my wrist break, club rotation, hip rotation, shoulder turn, spin angle, grip strength, and on and on.  Now that I know how to swing, I can tell you that none of that was a key in becoming a consistant swinger - and I am very consistant.  Quite to the contrary of all that, I just started on focusing on building smooth, relaxed, natural, power.  Seriously, I took the Fred Couples attitude and stopped thinking about all of that stuff and just started swinging smoothly and powerfully.  When I did that, I started having better awareness of how I built power and was able to refine that.  It is definitly a 'feel' thing - not a mechanics thing.  If I think about a body part instead of thinking about powering the ball to where I want it to go than my swing quickly goes down hill.

Exceptions to this: my head must stay stable and behind the ball.  This is a principle that is necessary for clean and consistant ball contact.  Sometimes on my downswing I need to move my right hip foward in a totally passive action to make room for my left arm.  As I make contact, I will sometime think about following through with the muscles of my left side and not to get lazy with that.

[MSUGolfer]

I read in "Paper Tiger" that Tom Coyne had difficulties with his takeaway as well and to fix it Dr. Suttie put down a golf ball right behind his club at address. If he could push the ball straight back then he knew his club was on the proper plane and his hands were inside while the club outside.

[rossvanwyk]

Maybe not quite addressing the question asked in original post but I'll throw my ideas in here.

While I do agree that the mechanics of a golf swing are important, in terms of clean ball striking and accuracy etc...I don't agree that people should have a massive check list of things to do in order to strike a golf ball well.

Golf should be about what feels right and gives results, then practicing that until its pure muscle memory and you'll be cracking great shots over and over. I recently read one of Sam Snead's books and it was great as it affirmed exactly what I've been doing with my game since day 1 :)

The only thing I think about standing over the ball is keeping my head still. Nothing good comes from swaying off the ball. head still, don't overswing and that's all there is it to it.

If I were to answer the question asked here, I would say definitely don't break wrists as your first movement. That sounds like a terrible idea. Try enter your backswing feeling like you are already in motion. Don't just lift the club with your arms/wrists. Shawn Clements videos are very key to understanding this principle. Once you have a decent backswing everything else will fall into place if you ask me.

Golf is hard enough as it is, don't make your swing too techinal. Find what works, practice that and your brain will learn it as second nature.

[MiniBlueDragon]

Originally Posted by rossvanwyk

Maybe not quite addressing the question asked in original post but I'll throw my ideas in here.

While I do agree that the mechanics of a golf swing are important, in terms of clean ball striking and accuracy etc...I don't agree that people should have a massive check list of things to do in order to strike a golf ball well.

Golf should be about what feels right and gives results, then practicing that until its pure muscle memory and you'll be cracking great shots over and over. I recently read one of Sam Snead's books and it was great as it affirmed exactly what I've been doing with my game since day 1 :)

The only thing I think about standing over the ball is keeping my head still. Nothing good comes from swaying off the ball. head still, don't overswing and that's all there is it to it.

If I were to answer the question asked here, I would say definitely don't break wrists as your first movement. That sounds like a terrible idea. Try enter your backswing feeling like you are already in motion. Don't just lift the club with your arms/wrists. Shawn Clements videos are very key to understanding this principle. Once you have a decent backswing everything else will fall into place if you ask me.

Golf is hard enough as it is, don't make your swing too techinal. Find what works, practice that and your brain will learn it as second nature.

When you're actually out playing I agree completely about just swinging a nice natural swing with no thoughts except for swinging the club and not moving your head.

I find though that by investigating single mechanics during practice sessions and how to incorporate them into your swing you can create muscle memory ready for when you're on the course.

Regarding wrist hinge I think the best thing to do is to push two extremes and feel what's correct for you as an in between:

1. Keep your arms in address position, fully cock your wrists and then start the takeaway.
2. Keep your wrists in address position, head to the top of your backswing and then cock your wrists.
3. Now find a happy medium. For me it's a case of it taking the same amount of time to rotate my shoulders as it does to cock the wrists.