The backswing is one of the most important determinants in creating and retaining power. A break down in the first few movements of the backswing can rob your swing of power and reduce your chance of solid contact. Many instructors have talked about a one-piece takeaway; this move involves the arms, wrists and club moving away from address together. Seen front on, the arms and wrists make a triangle. This triangle is very important to retain in the first movements of the backswing on all full shots.
To help encourage this move try the extension takeaway drill. Grab a box of a dozen golf balls and head out to the range. Setup without a ball and place the box of golf balls directly behind your club. When you perform your backswing, focus on pushing the box of balls as far away from you as you can before cocking your wrists and completing your backswing. While doing this it is important to try and retain the triangle you initially created at address for as long as possible.
If you find your wrists breaking and you’re just flipping the box of balls out of the way, you’re not doing this move correctly. Work on maintaining this throughout the start of your backswing. By delaying your wrist cock on the backswing you create a wider swing arc. This will encourage you to have a better angle of attack and help create more swing speed from the leverage of a wider swing arc. An early wrists cock robs you of power, by making your swing very armsy and your swing arc very narrow.
Not too sure what I mean when I refer to swing arc? Try and think of it this way… if you were to swing a 3’ stick, the outer tip of this stick would be moving pretty fast, however if you now swung a 5’ stick at the same pace, the outer tip would be moving much faster. This is the difference between swinging with only your wrists (narrow swing arc), or including your arms (wider swing arc). This drill helps you to incorporate your arms into swing – thus widening your swing arc and increasing your clubhead speed.
You can see that in the bottom picture, my wrists are just beginning to cock. Incorporate this move into your golf swing and you’ll see a dramatic increase in your distance and consistency.
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