Ever feel like your swing is out of SYNC? If so, it’s typically because your arms and body are out of SYNC due to the arms overswinging on the backswing.
Understand that the arms really don’t swing on the backswing–they raise slightly, the trail elbow folds, but no more than about 45′, and the arms also rotate slightly clockwise (right hand golfer) which is the way they are designed to work. The rotation of the body moves the arms/club and gets them around but not behind the body.
For most folks the swing is moved and controlled from the “inside out”–think of a merry go round–the motor (your chest) in the middle rotates and moves the horses (your arms) on the outside.
This is one of the hardest things to fix in a golf swing for a couple of reasons:
1. Unless you are videoing every swing you can’t see it. And what feels right is not!
2. The perception that a longer swing is more powerful and it’s really not.
The best way to fix this is by making a lot of lead arm only swings with the club upside down (grip the head end and swing the grip end) in front of a mirror. With rotation of the chest, a slight raising of the lead arm while keeping it straight, you’ll find that when the chest stops turning the arm will stop swinging. Stop at the top then add your trail arm to the shaft and check the position. You’ll see something that looks like the picture of John Rahm that I’ve attached. The result will be a much shorter, “tighter” backswing with very little trail arm bend and a lot of width. The swing will get a little longer than this when gripping the grip end, but it doesn’t need to get much longer or you’ll OVERSWING.
In the attached picture of John Rahm look at how his shoulders have turned 45′ in the second frame and how straight both arms are. Then in frame three the shoulders and chest have continued to turn to about 80′ and the arms are still fairly straight, now the wrists are starting to hinge. At the top he’s fully WOUND and the swing looks short but it’s not because he doesn’t allow the trail elbow to fold as much as many other players. The entire sequence is dictated and moved from the inside out and the arms DO NOT OVERSWING.