Club Path at Start of Swings

[Wass]

Do most of you attempt to go straight back straight through with the club, or do you start its path to the inside?

[Parker0065]

I like the Leadbetter aproach to this subject which is take the club straight back, as you make a proper shoulder turn the club will naturally work to the inside on it's own. Plus this gives you a little room for error because if you take the club a little to the outside it's easier to drop it down to the inside (aka J. Furyk) on the downswing. If you deliberately start the club back to the inside I think two things happen, one is it restricts your backswing and turn because your arms get jamed up behind you, and you have a greater tendency to "Cast" the club from the top with the old "Over the Top" move resulting in pulls and slices.

[$2 Nassau]

I like the Leadbetter aproach to this subject which is take the club straight back, as you make a proper shoulder turn the club will naturally work to the inside on it's own. Plus this gives you a little room for error because if you take the club a little to the outside it's easier to drop it down to the inside (aka J. Furyk) on the downswing. If you deliberately start the club back to the inside I think two things happen, one is it restricts your backswing and turn because your arms get jamed up behind you, and you have a greater tendency to "Cast" the club from the top with the old "Over the Top" move resulting in pulls and slices.

My thoughts exactly. I used to to take the club back to the inside, fairly drastically, to avoid an over the top move on the downswing. But all that did was basically promote the over the top move as I had to compensate to try to get the club on a path to hit the ball. Result= high, weak ball flight that tended to go a little right.

Recently, I started taking it straight back until the club naturally starts to rise and track to the inside as created by the shoulder turn.

[Dent]

i know for a fact i go straight back and through. I take an imaginary line and follow it with the club..

[supercow]

Straight back, then turn. If you spend some time at the range I think you'll find that a lot people take it inside almost immediately, then re-route at the top to a higher plane then come down overly steep (something that I did when I first started playing).

It just seems to be a lot easier to start up steep then flatten than the other way around.