Backswing club position at horizontal

[tpcollins]

Over the 4th I was at the lake and talking with a friend that's as close to a scratch player there is and told him I was struggling with my swing. He showed me what his coach teaches and that the club head is "outside" the line of his hands at horizontal and he has a sort of high hand position but the club does not go past parallel on his backswing. He said that "pushing" the club straight back keeps his left arm straight as well as a straight flat wrist at the top. And all he has to do is drop his hands and rotate - duh . . .

I showed him my swing which basically takes the club inside rather quickly, bends my left arm, and the club must be going past parallel because I can see it at the top out of my left eye.  He started laughing and said there's only a slim chance for me to ever get the club head back into position to compress the ball properly- based on my rounds lately I'll have to agree.

Just wondering if anyone else's backswing is similar and that I should have been doing this for the past 40+ years!

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DUH ! -

[saevel25]

Though certain swing paths might be easier to teach and to learn, its not a fundamental. You can get away with funky backswings, as long as there is a compensation for it. Extreme case would be Furyk's loopy swing. He gets away with a very vertical clubhead swing path in the backswing, but dropping the clubhead down in transition. Ricky Fowler does the same thing to some extent, but he gets very flat in the downswing, and he's less vertical in the backswing.

If you set yourself up with a minimalistic backswing, its easier to not worry about a compensation move, unless you have one that works and its ingrained into your swing, like a Furyk's. What you want to do is look for positions in the downswing, because you can't compensate the downswing. If your clubhead is out of position halfway down the downswing, you can't save it. The swing is to fast.

As for the video, its better to have the clubhead at the hands, or outside the hands at that position he is talking about. Because its easier to reroute the clubhead in transition (Jim Furyk), with the help of gravity. If you get the clubhead inside the hands, you have to reroute the clubhead, and in doing so fight gravity, a bit tougher move.

It helps to have the clubhead move in a certain range in the backswing, but if things work, you don't have to change it.