Why You Need This: When should you start the downswing in golf?

I'm often asked this question from students that struggle with their weight shift.

Syncing your arms, hips, and weight shift in the downswing can be a little confusing...

So let's make sure you have it down pat.

In this video, you'll learn when to start your downswing.

You'll learn what to feel in your downswing...

And you'll learn the science behind the weight shift.

The video starts by exploring what causes your body to rotate and shift your weight.

Every athletic motion involves rotation and weight shift.

A football quarterback shifts back then forward to release the ball with speed.

A baseball player throws with a similar motion...

And shifts his weight while swinging the bat.

Many golf swing methods have attempted to reduce the complexity of the swing by trying to reduce, or even remove, the weight shift...

But those methods fall short when comparing them to more powerful, athletic swings that do have a weight shift.

So how should you swing?

Start by shifting your weight back and load up.

Push down and out into the ground with your right foot as you rotate back and shift your weight back.

The technical term for this is downforce reaction.

That's just a fancy term to describe where you're shifting your weight and where you're applying pressure to the ground.

Now we're ready to discuss when you should start the downswing.

As your arms approach the top of the backswing...

Your weight should start to shift forward.

There's a brief separation between your lower body and upper body.

In the downswing, as your weight shifts forward and your hips open up...

Your upper body and arms rotate around and through contact.

Your left leg will start to push down and out.

Watch this video now to discover when should you start the downswing golf...

And learn how to shift your weight throughout the swing!

Golf Pros Featured: Jamie Sadlowsi    

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 5:59

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, and welcome back. I’ve got an awesome video for you. For those of you that are struggling with your weight shift.

This is a question I get almost every single week, is when should I start my weight shift to the left? When should I feel like my weight is fully transferred to the left?

I’m going to go over the very basic way to feel this, and then also go over some science, some data that’s been collected. There’s been a lot of good research on what’s called ground force reaction.

You don’t have to know that name, it’s just a big fancy way of saying where am I shifting my weight, and where am I putting pressure into the ground.

To get started here, let’s talk about what causes your body to rotate. What is it that actually causes you to shift your weight?

The only way that we can shift our weight is to move to push into the ground in different ways to get our body to rotate and to get our weight to shift to the right and to the left.

If you can imagine, if I’m a quarterback, if I’m going to throw down the field the first thing I’m going to do is shift to the right.

As I load up, I’m going to go ahead and through that ball, let my weight shift back to the right and then forward. So I’m going to the right, and then as I let it go I’m going to the left.

If I’m doing baseball pitching, it’s the same thing, to the right and then going to the left. If I’m hitting in baseball, I’m on my right side, I’m striding to the left, and then braced against my left side as I’m coming through.

Every athletic motion, there has to be a weight shift to the right, there has to be a weight shift to the left. For years people have been saying let’s get rid of the weight shift in golf, it’s never happened.

You can take what’s called a 3D force plate, and you can put it underneath your feet and it will show you the pressure that’s coming out into your body, and the pressure you’re putting with your feet.

Every player has a weight shift to the right in the backswing, and to the left in the through swing. Even if we keep our body over here, we’re still moving weight to he right and to the left, even if we keep our body completely to the left the entire time.

It’s moving around, our weight is moving. There’s nothing we can do about that to eliminate that, and we shouldn’t even want to try to do that. We want to use it the right way to be athletic.

The first piece of this is that we have to get our shift to the right and get our body loading up to the right. Now the way I start this, is I’m actually going to put some pressure with my right foot down into the ground. I’m going to push down and out away from my body.

I’ve talked about this before, but we can imagine this is 12:00. If I’m standing on a giant clock here around my body, this is 12:00. 3:00 would be over here, I’m going to feel like I’m pushing down and out towards 1:30.

If you look at the animation on my screen, you’ll see kind of a skeleton figure here, and you’ll notice how that pressure is moving up and to the right. There’s a big arrow coming out of his foot, his right foot, that’s moving up and back.

What that means is, he’s pushing down and out in that direction, and the ground is pushing up and back against him in that direction the arrow is going. That’s what rotates our body.

The more pressure I put into the ground, the more that’s going to turn my hips, the more that’s going to turn my shoulders as go to the top. If I don’t put pressure in my right foot, if I feel like I’m keeping my weight on my left, it’s going to be difficult to rotate as you go back.

Try that out. Try putting most of your pressure on your left foot, keep it there throughout the backswing, and I want you to go ahead and try to get a good hip and shoulder turn. It’s really difficult to do.

Now let’s go ahead, as soon as you move off the ball, feel like you put a little pressure in your right foot, then you’re pushing down and out, you’re going to be able to really cause your body to rotate back to the top very easily, get that good full powerful turn. So that’s where it starts.

In the very beginning of my swing, as soon as my club starts to move back, my weight is moving to the right. I’m pushing down and out.

Now as my arms get around halfway back or three-quarters of the way back, what’s actually happening is my weight is beginning to shift over to the left.

You’ll notice in that same animation, the weight goes from that player’s right leg, the arrow being longer, the longer the arrow the more pressure that’s in the ground, it starts to shift over to the left leg.

Then as you come farther into the downswing, then it’s going to be mostly on my left leg going the opposite direction. We can again imagine that clock, I’m pushing down and out towards 10:30 on that block, 12:00 is the ball in front of me.

I’m going to let that clear my hips and my body open as I’m coming on through. That’s how we shift our weight in the swing, that’s how we load up our hips. That’s the only way we can get speed.

So if you look at players like Jamie Sadlowski, or Bubba Watson, or really long hitters, they’re putting a lot of force into the ground.

You’ll see their feet actually come off the ground sometimes at impact, that’s because they’re putting so much force into the ground and rotating their body just like I’m showing you here.

To recap, to make the backswing my weight needs to shift, my pressure needs to be in my right foot very, very early, as soon as I’m taking the club away. I’m going to max that out about halfway back or a little farther.

Then as I start to shift to the left, then I’m going to complete my backswing, start my downswing, and as I’m halfway down, now I’m pushing really hard out to the left to clear my body on through the shot.

It’s a simple one-two punch with the legs. What I want you to do is go ahead and work on that. Start out by pushing your right foot down and out.

I want you to do a couple practice swings with me. Push down and out, get to about halfway back. I want you to shift over to your left, push down and out as you’re coming on through. It’s going to look just like this.

Pushing out with my right, pushing out with my left. So I’m really feeling like I’m doing that. Now that’s a little slow-motion swing, let’s go ahead and go full speed.

Let’s get that good, full Power Turn if we want to have some distance, just like we talk about in the Top Speed Golf System let’s get loaded up.

We’re going back and really rotate on through using that same pressure. So I’m going to do the same thing. Right foot, left foot. That’s going to allow me to rotate. Do a good 20 or 30 of each of those, and then let’s go ahead and go to the range.

Let’s hit some golf balls and I want you to really concentrate on right foot early and then left foot as you’re coming through the ball. Let’s try it out.

There we go, guys. Hit that one pretty hard. Got a good, full turn. If you guys do the same thing you’re going to be able to pick up some distance right away.