How To Start Your Downswing

Happy Monday Golfers;

This week’s blog topic is about ‘How To Start Your Downswing’

I get asked the question all the time by students about how to start their downswing. Do I pull the club down like a chain? Is it a bump of the hips and when do I start that movement? When do I start turning my hips? Let’s take a dive in and see how and when we should be sequencing certain segments.

Pressure Shift

This is the first initial start to the change of direction from the backswing to the downswing. This is known as the transition of the swing. A pressure shift is not that visible to the naked eye as we don`t see any mass or many parts of the body move we are simply pushing into the ground to start the movement.

Hips

Quickly followed by the pressure shift is the lateral shift and then rotation of the pelvis. Depending on the golfer’s ball flight you will see different ratios of this. The golfer who draws the ball will consist of more lateral movement and less rotation which causes more tilt in the trail side. The golfer who fades the ball will generally consist of less lateral movement of the pelvis and higher degrees of rotation. This has a large influence on where the hands travel also known as the hand path.

Timing

This is arguably one of the most complex areas of the swing and the benefits of being able to create this move are huge when it comes to great ball striking and clubhead speed. When golfers make an attempt to shift their pressure and weight to initiate the downswing, it usually happens far too late and generally too slow. With the best ball strikers, we tend to see the pressure shift into the lead side early as their lead arm is parallel to the ground in the backswing. I like the analogy of surfing the wave as we load our pressure into the lead side before we finish the backswing. The time of our change in direction is very influential on the speed we can create in our swings. Quicker equals greater clubhead speed potential.

A nice drill to improve your sequence with this is the step-in drill.

It really helps initiate that early pressure and weight shift and sequence things together. Think of movements that you can relate to, like throwing a baseball or cricket ball. We see that there’s a lot of work put in from the ground before we release the ball with some venom. This drill means you start with your feet together and then begin to step with your lead foot toward the target just before your backswing completes. See Xander Schauffele dropping this into his pre shot routine.