Golf Swing Transition Creating the Feel for a Proper Transition

I'm Ted Norby, Director of Golf Instruction for the National University Golf Academy. What I want to talk about today is the transition and that's this change of direction from backswing to forward swing. Too often people get hung up on the backswing, making these perfect motions, turns, set the club to the top of the swing. Then we start talking about shifting forward, turning, releasing the club but we're breaking it up into a backswing and then a forward swing. Most of the good players are actually going in two different directions at the same time as I'm completing this turn of my shoulders and the arms kind of finishing, my lower body is already started shifting back the other way.

Just like throwing a baseball, tennis, anything else. This dynamic stretch is built by one thing going back as the other is already going forward and I've got to create that feel for myself and I need to practice that overall motion. So, what I'd like you to do is start thinking of it more as a backswing and your backswing is, yeah, the turning of the shoulders, the club setting on plane, whatever it is you're working on, get to about two thirds of the way back, then the transition which is this completing of the backswing and starting the forward swing.

So, now that I've created the feel of that transition where I'm completing the backswing and starting forward now I can just let it go forward from there. The momentum of the lower body should pull and get the club to go all the way to finish, so from two thirds, now I'm going to complete and let it go ahead to finish. So, two thirds of the way back, complete and again as I'm completing my shoulder turn, I'm letting my lower body kind of start the other way.

Go ahead and hit some shots like that where you stop at two thirds of the way back, still set up, still getting to that position two thirds that we want, but now just feel like your shoulders turn as you're kind of squeezing this lower body forward and then let it go to target and you'll start feeling the lower body start forward first and the arms and upper body trail. Obviously, then I got to build that so I can do it from the takeaway all the way to the top and create the transition but think of the swing more in three parts instead of two parts.

The backswing about two thirds of the way back, the transition which is completing the backswing with the rotation as you're shifting, then the forward motion to the target. You'll feel a little more dynamic where there's not a stopping and starting to the golf swing. That'll create a little better rhythm, get you to the target a little more often.