Tyler Clark - Backswing
Don't Lose Your Balance
By
Feb 13, 2008 - 3:28:25 PM

Maintain your balance throughout your swing.  This seems pretty simple and it can be.  Here is how you start.  When you take your address position and are fully ready to swing, stop.  Determine where your weight is distributed on each foot, heel to toe.  It should be mainly over the arches of your feet with a slight favoring toward the balls of your feet and balanced between each foot.  If you have played any other sports in your life, this should feel familiar to you.  It is simply a good athletic posture.  Now that you have your balance correct, go ahead and swing.  

I won’t get into too much as to how the weight will move during the swing; let’s just talk about where it will finish.  It should finish balanced over the foot closest to your target.  This should be your left foot for right-handed, and your right foot for left-handed players.  If this isn’t the foot in question then your stance is way off.  

Getting your weight to finish in the right place is not hard.  You will find that it wants to go there and it is actually harder to stop it, as long as no one has cut the hamstring on your back leg.  When your weight finishes in the right place, it most likely came from the correct place.  Don’t worry about how it gets there; just let it get there and see what happens.  

Here is a very easy way to check if you are balanced in your finish.  Pose.  Hold your finish until the ball lands.  If you can hold your finish and you are over the foot closest to the target, you are balanced.  The easiest explanation I can usually give someone is this.  Think of the greatest shot you ever hit; more likely than not you posed the entire time the ball was in the air.  You could pose because you were balanced.  If you start balanced and you finish balanced, you will have a swing that is easier to repeat which should lead to better contact and better shots.

Tyler Clark, PGA
PGA Professionals: Experts in the Game and Business of Golf
Contact Tyler with any questions at 748-7770 or via email at tclark@ironbridgesportspark.com.

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