Footwork in the golf swing is one of the most misunderstood topics in all of golf instruction. Television commentators constantly label a player's footwork as "good" or "bad" without ever explaining what actually makes the difference. The truth is that in a mechanically sound golf swing, the feet are primarily responding to the movements of the body above them rather than initiating motion on their own. Understanding this distinction is the first step toward building a more efficient and powerful swing.
In other words, truly great footwork is really "no footwork" at all. The feet certainly move during the swing, but when a golfer exhibits what instructors call "bad footwork," it is almost always a compensation for other flawed swing mechanics higher up in the kinetic chain. The feet become overactive when the body fails to move correctly, and fixing the root cause upstream will often quiet the feet automatically.
In this video, I am breaking down the critically important movement — or deliberate lack of movement — of the trail foot (right foot for right-handed golfers) during the downswing. As I mentioned, the foot is not driving itself independently; it is being moved as a consequence of what the torso, hips, and legs are doing above it. When you understand this relationship, you unlock a much simpler path to consistent ball-striking.
That said, the trail foot serves as an incredibly reliable diagnostic tool. It is very easy to detect common swing flaws simply by watching what the right foot does through the downswing and into impact. Training the trail foot to behave correctly will frequently correct other problems such as spinning hips and a poor weight shift. Once a golfer sees what proper trail-foot movement looks like from the transition all the way to the finish, many compensations disappear on their own. If you want objective data on how your lower body performs, try a free AI swing analysis and see exactly where your motion breaks down. Now let's examine a swing of mine and focus closely on the right foot.
In this first image you can see that from the top of the golf swing through the initial phases of the downswing, my trail foot heel has barely lifted at all. If we switched to a face-on camera angle, you would clearly see that my weight has already shifted toward the lead side. This is the hallmark of a proper weight shift — the pressure moves forward while the trail heel stays quiet and grounded.
In the next sequence of frames, you can see that my trail heel remains very low to the ground, yet the entire foot has rolled slightly inward, up off its outside edge, and toward the lead foot. This rolling action is a passive response to the lateral shift of pressure, not an active push.
If you tend to be a "hip spinner" — as I discussed in the Hip Spinners video — training this trail-foot pattern will create a powerful sense of being anchored to the ground. You will feel a refreshing level of stability at impact that you may have never experienced before, and that stability translates directly into more consistent contact and better ball striking.
To better understand the problems that arise when the trail foot heel lifts too early and too high off the ground, let's examine the comparison image above. In this case, the elevated heel is actually a symptom of other improper mechanics rather than the golfer deliberately pushing off the right foot itself. Recognizing this cause-and-effect relationship is essential for lasting improvement.
On the left side of the image is a student who demonstrates the classic hip-spinner pattern. His aggressive rotational move causes his arms to get stuck behind his body. Notice how his trail elbow is actually still behind his torso, and the arm remains noticeably bent at the elbow at impact. This trapped-arm position robs him of both speed and consistency.
Now contrast that with my position, where the trail elbow is in front of my body and the arm reaches near full extension, delivering maximum clubhead speed right at impact. Also notice how much more his hips have rotated open compared to mine — and it is that excessive rotation that is pulling his trail foot heel high off the ground. This is a perfect example of the right foot not being the cause of the problem, but merely a visible symptom of it.
This chain of compensations leads to numerous faults: a swing path that is too in-to-out (especially with the longer clubs), frequent fat shots, and often thin shots as well. Beyond the ball flight issues, of supreme importance to the Rotary Swing Tour golf swing pattern is injury prevention. An efficient motion should protect the body, not punish it.
In the photo below, you can clearly see how much more stress the golfer on the left is placing on his lumbar spine (low back) due to the significant side bend created by thrusting the trail hip toward the target and around. You can easily spot this by looking at the curvature of the lower spine and observing how high the trail foot heel is off the ground — the two are directly related.
Contrast that with my hip position, which appears far more stable with considerably less side bend. My spine sits in a much more supported and neutral position, significantly reducing the probability of injury. Having less hip rotation through impact creates less lateral spinal tilt and makes the golf swing easier on both the lead hip and the lower back — two of the most common injury sites in all of golf. Excessive trail-foot lift is one of the most frequent causes of these injuries, so pay close attention to this video and consider getting a free AI golf lesson to identify whether this pattern exists in your own swing.
In this screen capture from the video below, you can see one of the simple diagnostic checks I use when reviewing a student's swing on video. I call this the Trail Foot Plane or Trail Foot Line, and it is one of the fastest ways to assess whether your lower-body sequencing is correct.
In the video, you will learn how to verify that your body is moving correctly by using this straightforward checkpoint, along with a targeted drill to help ingrain the proper movements of the trail foot during the downswing.
Video Transcription: Right Foot in the Downswing
Now we've talked about that sitting into the left side in the downswing, keeping the hips a little bit more square and releasing everything, getting the club to come back down, using our arms to help facilitate that process.
We need to add the right foot movement. Some of you, if you do this correctly already, great. A lot of you don't, because what I see as you come into the downswing this right heel is up off the ground real early, and it's moving in this way and it's getting your hips spinning really fast. You're losing the stability and being able to use the ground for leverage, so you're trying to drive too hard with your hips.
What we want to do at first when we have that problem - when the right foot is coming up real early and we're spinning the hips - we want to work on keeping that right heel on the ground and rolled slightly in while hitting shots.
Basically, what you're looking for is as you come down into impact, this would be an ideal impact here, with my right foot. Not up off the ground, not moving my knee in.
It's going to roll slightly in as I shift my weight and my right leg is relatively passive here, as I shift into it. Now that right heel is rolling in. As the club releases it continues to roll, and then I can come up to a full finish. It's not getting it up off the ground as early as I can.
When you're hitting balls, for those of you who spin the body really hard and leave the arms trapped back behind the body, this is an excellent drill to start learning how your arms have to release and swing what is going to feel like past the body. If you keep the right heel on the ground it makes it possible.
In other words, if you get really stuck with your arms and club coming down, and the body's way out in front, this drill is going to help you start to reverse that, where your arms are going to feel more out in front and the body's going to feel a lot more quiet.
This is going to be a lot more efficient way for you to swing the club because you don't need to move your body that much. Your body absolutely has an important job to do, but you don't need to be spinning your hips as fast as you can. It doesn't add anything for you unless you've got your arms and hands moving just as fast.
What we want to feel is going to the top of the swing and work on sitting into the left, firing the right arm. Notice how I keep my right foot down until it's pulled up.
You want to exaggerate keeping the inside of the right foot down the whole time, until your arms are about 9:00. Then you're going to have to come up at that point, but that's a great feeling, to get here and then let that right heel come up.
I'm not saying to keep your right foot flat. We're getting to the inside of it. Notice, if I kept it flat then I'm going to be hitting balls off my back foot like this. Now I've got a lot of weight back here.
The weight is moved to the left, which gets us rolled to the inside of the right foot. The outside of it is coming up off the ground just a little bit. Then as I release the club, it rotates on in.
If you're not doing this correctly and you look at your swing on video, here's a simple check for you. I call this the right foot line. It's a simple way to check this. Basically, if you imagined a vertical plane on the outside of your right foot, your right foot should never break that plane in this direction.
Let me show you exactly what I mean by that. I'm going to put it out in front of my foot so I can move it. From your perspective, if my right heel ever does this, that's breaking the plane. If you imagine, Mike Hogan used an example of a pane of glass. If my right foot does this, that's breaking the plane.
That's showing that I didn't shift far enough, and I spun out with my hips and that kicked my right foot out like this.
What we want to see is shift, that foot's going to roll, and now notice once I'm stacked over this side and it gets pulled up instead of me actively pushing it up, now it's going to roll up to here, and you'll notice that it never breaks that plane. It didn't go this way. It's here.
A lot of people refer to that as footwork. I call it a lack of footwork because we're not doing anything with this foot. For those of you who have learned to spin your hips, you're going to feel pretty awkward at first, keeping that foot down and learning to let the club release, but that's exactly what we need. We need that speed.
That's free speed, letting the club release. If you get your body out in front, though, the club's not releasing until out here, and that happens when you spin the hips and get the right foot spinning like that.
Again, practice shifting into the left. Use the last video that we did, on the sitting into the left side. Bring the arms down, start to fire the right arm. Keep that foot rolling to the inside, and then let it come up and never break that plane, and you're going to have a lot more control of your body and be able to get your club to release in the downswing.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
Right heel up
Ideal impact posture
Right heel stays down until pulled up in follow through
Right heel should stay on the line (above), not break the plane (below)
Correct foot movement
