Backswing width

Many players think that width in the backswing comes from the left arm.  Often with this conceptual fault, players will create too much tension in their left arm in an effort to make a wide backswing,or  big arch etc.  However, width should come from the right arm.  If you maintain a 90 degree angle between your forearm and bicep, and triceps and lats, your backswing will not be narrow.   Follow the exercise in the video to give you a better understanding of this and a feel for the correct movement.

Transcript

Hi, this is Robin Symes. I’d like to talk to you about width, how to make your golf swing wider. Very often, when I’m looking down the line of players at the driving range I see a lot of people talking about big arcs or trying to make their swings wider. Very often they’ve got a misunderstanding of how they actually achieve this. A common fault would be the players think that width is all about keeping your left arm as straight as possible. Well, generally speaking this creates more faults than it fixes. For me, width in the backswing comes from how the right arm works; what we should be trying to achieve is at a position at the top where there’s no less than ninety degrees between where your forearm and your bicep and no less than ninety degrees between your triceps and your ribcage or your lats.

If you do this your golf swing will not be narrow. Here’s a little exercise you can do to feel how the right arm should be working in the backswing. Separate your hands on the club, putting the right hand around about the middle of the shaft and the left hand at the end of the club. This places the right arm in a longer position and will help you feel a wider right arm as you start to swing. From here, place your hands together, feeling the width in your right arm, and I just make a small turn to the top maintaining that radius. Repeat this exercise a few times, feeling the difference in how your right arm is working and how you’re maintaining width in your swing with your right arm, not your left arm. Once you’ve got a feeling for that, you can go ahead and start to swing as normal, learning to create a wide swing without creating too much tension in your left arm. That’s what we’re trying to achieve.