Golf instructors teach many different approaches to the takeaway.
There are countless ways to start from the vertical setup position and get the club 90 degrees up into the backswing. You can set your wrists early, you can shift off the ball and lift your arms, you can lift off the ball, lift your arms and set the club early, you can try to turn...
There are a million ways to do it, but there is only one optimal way to do it efficiently and correctly, while keeping yourself centered.
That is a fundamental principle of the Rotary Swing: you want your spine to remain as a fixed center point, using your muscles and joints to rotate around it efficiently. The beauty of it is, when you execute the takeaway correctly, you are performing only a few inches of movement. That may sound impossible, but in a moment you will understand.
It's Not Just Club Position
The club travels perhaps seven or eight feet during the takeaway — roughly two and a half yards. If you sway along with it and allow your head and arms to shift off to the trail side along with the club, you are obviously going to have to shift everything back to the lead side on the downswing.
Shifting to the trail side may put the club in approximately the correct position — it may even look acceptable from down the line — but it leaves your body in the wrong position and is detrimental to the golf swing.
If your goal is to stay centered and rotate around your spine, you clearly do not want a large shift to the trail side. It is true you will be making a weight shift to store power in the swing, but you do not need a big upper-body sway.
Let us say we were going to design the simplest possible mechanism to achieve this movement. How would we do it?
If you understood the Push vs. Pull lesson and how to rotate around your spine — pulling from the trail side rather than pushing from the lead side — then this will be straightforward. All you are going to do is move your shoulder blade a couple of inches.
The shoulder blades are the bony plates that sit outside your rib cage at the top of your back. Your trail shoulder blade is going to move slightly down and in toward the spine — remember, we are trying to stay centered. To stay centered, you move toward center. It is as simple as that.
For those with an engineering background, you are going to create centripetal force to allow the club to move out and around. This is a critically important concept in the golf swing: You are always going to be moving in the opposite direction that the club is moving.
That may sound counterintuitive to some, and it is actually the number one problem for most amateurs. They want to move their body in the same direction they are trying to move the club. When that happens, all kinds of problems develop.
It is certainly inefficient. In terms of rotary motion, centripetal force always moves in the opposite direction of centrifugal force.
- Centripetal force is the action: You take action by moving in toward center
- Centrifugal force is the reaction: The club's reaction is to move out away from you.
Now Apply It to the Golf Swing
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Let us look at it in practical terms. All you are going to do is move your trail shoulder blade two to three inches. The movement is so small and so efficient, you will not believe how easy it is to achieve a perfect takeaway.
Just move your shoulder blade. That is it.
Move your trail shoulder blade in toward your spine, and slightly down. It is two or three inches of movement.
If you keep your arms and chest connected, when you move your shoulder blade it is going to turn your shoulders — and your body — approximately 45 degrees. You do not need any hip rotation at this point. You achieve 45 degrees of shoulder turn with just those few inches of shoulder blade movement.
Your shoulder moves six or eight inches, which moves your hand approximately two and a half feet, which moves the club about two and a half yards. You move two and a half inches — the club moves two and a half yards. To see how your own takeaway and swing mechanics compare to elite standards, try a free AI swing analysis.
It's Not the Only Way, Just the Most Efficient Way
Of course you can try to learn to move the club two and a half yards some other way.
You can try to position it correctly every time with your hands, but that is extremely difficult because you are not looking where you are trying to move the club. It is happening behind you, and you are trying to think about sending the club up and to the trail side.
If you want to get the club in the same spot every time, you can simply learn to move your trail shoulder blade two and a half inches.
The choice is yours, but if you want to move efficiently, two inches of shoulder blade movement in toward your spine will get the club into the exact same spot every single time.
It is a perfect takeaway. You are not trying to put the club up on plane. You are not trying to make sure it is pointing down the target line. You are not trying to do any of that. You are simply trying to move your shoulder blade two and a half inches.
It Comes Down to Science
This is the way your body is designed to work. If you want to rotate around your center — your spine — you need to move toward center. You move your shoulder blade in toward your spine, and the club moves out and away.
Try it again. Just concentrate on moving your shoulder straight behind your head.
Your trail shoulder blade moves two and a half inches toward the lead side; the club moves two and a half yards to the trail side. You are not trying to move the club that way. You are moving toward center, away from the club, and that forces the club to rotate outward.
On the downswing, the same principle operates in the opposite direction.
When you start to think about your golf swing in these terms, you begin to understand how rotation really works in the Rotary Swing. Two inches of movement — that is all you need to know for the takeaway. For real-time coaching on your takeaway mechanics, try a free AI golf lesson.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
There are many ways to perform the takeaway - not all of them are correct!
The takeaway is more than just getting the club into position
Three inches of shoulder blade movement
Other methods are not consistent
