Starting the golf swing in the correct way is vital if you want to see a beautiful penetrating ball flight, but this crucial aspect is something all golfers have to work on in order to perfect it.
Even the best professionals on the world's top tours practice and rehearse this aspect of their swing, but without a few expert tips you can easily get a bit lost and allow some common swing faults to creep in.
Fortunately, we enlisted the services of Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach Josh Mayo, who has shared 3 brilliant tips to help you master the fundamentals of the golf swing...
1. Posture
One bad strike and some golfers ‘lose it’ for the rest of the round. To start the swing correctly you need to groove good, solid habits. Firstly, it's important to set yourself in a strong and engaged posture.
Good posture requires a neutral (straight) spine and a bit of flex through the knees. Hinge forward from the hips to send the chest towards the ball. The arms should be relaxed, hanging under the body.
2. Starting The Swing
The first part of the golf swing, the takeaway, can set off a series of events in the rest of the swing that make it difficult to square up the clubface at impact. You can see, in the image above, that my hands have started the backswing too quickly, rolling the clubface open and behind the body. If this happens, it can often lead to a big slice, rather than the penetrating flight that you get from a nice square clubface.
3. Pre-Shot Routine
You may have seen Justin Thomas using this drill as part of his pre-shot routine. Start to push the club back using the lead wrist and lead shoulder and try to get the leading edge to match your spine angle.
The shaft will also be parallel to the target line at this point. Think ‘gentle push’ as you start your backswing. Jason Day is slow and deliberate here – a good example to follow.
Rehearse and rehearse again. Once you get into the position in the image above, stop, check and then complete your swing. And repeat!
