Tip #50 - The Downswing

I've always found it helpful to think of the golf swing as a horse race among the various body parts. It's an unusual race in that every horse leaves the starting gate at the same time, in a unified takeaway, and everyone hits the finish line simultaneously in a mass photo finish, but in-between the field spreads out a bit.

In a good swing, your position at impact is almost identical to your final position at address.

The first horses to reach the top of the backswing are the knees and hips, followed by the shoulders which have had to rotate twice as far. After the shoulders complete their rotation, the arms go a bit farther and then stop before the wrists complete their cocking as the weight of the clubhead gives a final downward tug.

It's the same leaders on the way down to impact. Even as the wrists are completing their part of the turn, the lower body has moved into the backstretch. The left knee moves laterally into the downswing and pulls on the left hip which in turn pulls the left arm downward. At the same time, the right knee begins to drive toward the target, taking with it the shoulders, arms, and hands.

At the last split-second before impact the race tightens again, as the swiftly moving arms catch up with the bigger muscles in the shoulders, hips and legs.

When you execute the swing properly, the leadership of the legs creates a lag of the hands and clubhead, resulting in what's commonly called a delayed release. In this position, just prior to impact, the wrists have not yet uncocked and there is a tremendous amount of club head speed ready to be unleashed.

That's what happens in the final millisecond-the club whips through and catches the rest of the body parts, all of which have achieved their roles at impact at the same moment. In a good swing, your position at impact is almost identical to your final position at address.

If you've executed the swing correctly, the club will move straight along the line for about a foot on either side of the ball.

One good way of encouraging this action is to imagine a second ball about a foot and a half past your actual ball, and then striving to hit that ball in addition to the real one.

- Greg Norman