Golf Swing Mechanics – Understand Basics of Perfect Shot

Hello everyone. Chuck Quinton here, at our beautiful golf academy at the Ritz-Carlton Golf Club in Orlando, Florida. I want to talk to you about something critical, that a lot of people don’t understand, and that is that golf tips, and conflicting information, and just random things by instructors who tell you what they found works in their own golf swing is not exactly the best way to learn the golf swing.

Of course, you’ve probably figured that out by now, because that’s why you’re watching another golf instruction video, trying to figure out some secret, or some answer, or some great tip that’s going to really make a difference in your game, and the reality is everything that you learn needs to be based on fundamentals. Now, of course, that’s common-sensical,  right?

The problem is that nobody agrees on what fundamentals are. We’re going to talk about one of the most important fundamentals that RST follows, and that is the law of physics. Now, again, seems pretty common-sensical that you would follow the laws of physics when teaching somebody the golf swing, but by far and away, most people don’t actually do that.

Tell me how many times that you’ve read in a golf magazine one tip, and on the next page you literally read the exact opposite, conflicting tip from what the other instructor said. How can both of those tips be correct?

Well the reality is probably neither one is. The truth of the matter is that the laws of physics are what need to determine how you swing a golf club, because nobody, not a single golf instructor, has outsmarted Newton when it comes to the laws of physics.

So, with Rotary Swing, we don’t try and do that. We don’t try to trick you with a bunch of quick worded tips, or random conflicting things, or just ideas or concepts. We teach you facts and fundamentals, based on science.

One of those is the law of how centripetal and centrifugal force works in the golf swing. Now, hence the name “Rotary Swing.” It’s probably not going to be too hard to figure out that we teach you to rotate in the golf swing. Now, every golf swing, to some degree or another, is going to teach you rotation, but it’s the way that you learn how to rotate that is the key, and we’re going to talk about that today.

I’ve got a simple little tool here, kind of a Medieval weapon of the flail, and you may have seen this before, or something like this back in the day, with a bunch of spikes on it, that you would whack somebody over the head with. Now, we’re not going to do that today. I’m going to try to not hit myself in the head today, but this simple, little tool is going to help you understand how rotary swing teaches you to work with the laws of physics, rather than against them, which again, seems like a really good idea when working on the golf swing.

I want you to understand that this is a soft, steel cable. Has no ability, unless I’m pulling against it it’s going to just fall straight down. It’s very, very soft. It’s got a golf ball at the end, and this is just allowed to rotate around the shaft. As I start swinging this around, I want you to think about a couple of things. One, as I move this in a big circle, you’ll notice that the plane that this ball is traveling on is very inconsistent, right?

Kind of going up and down. It’s not going to hit the same spot. If I put my finger out here, it’s not going to hit the same spot every time. I’m moving the shaft of the stick a lot. It’s moving kind of all over the place, so I’m having to move a lot to get this ball to move, and it’s not moving very fast, yet I’m putting a fair amount of effort into it.

Compared to when I start moving the stick in a very, very tight circle, and start always pulling against the direction that the ball is going. Now all of a sudden the ball is going to hit my finger the same place every time. I’ll try not to do it too many times, because it doesn’t feel very good.

But you’ll notice, now I’m not moving very much, and the plane, and the path that the ball is traveling on has become incredibly consistent. Now, that seems like a great idea. How about the definition of efficiency? I move less, and the ball, or the spot that the ball is traveling, becomes more consistent. The plane becomes more consistent, and as a side benefit, notice that it’s moving quite a bit faster then when I’m moving all over the place and it’s not working very well, right?

That should start to help you understand the way that Rotary Swing works, is that we’re trying to teach you how to move as little as humanly possible, to get, in this case the ball would be represented by the golf club, the club head itself, to get the club head to move as fast as humanly possible, while you move as efficient as humanly possible, and to be as consistent as humanly possible.

To do that, you need to move less, and you need to work with the laws of physics. Now what are those laws that we’re dealing with? Well, you have two basic forces here. One is the one that you’re going to create, and the other is going to be the result. You are creating centripetal force, and that is the act of you pulling … This is going to be confusing for a second, so bear with me, you pulling in the opposite direction that you want the ball, or the golf club to go.

Now think about that for a second, like, “Wait a second. You want me to move in the opposite direction I want the club to go. Well, how do I get the club to go where I want it to?” Well, again, if you were to make one of these simple devices, you would find out very quickly that you’re always moving the stick, or the shaft, opposite of the direction the ball is traveling.

The ball is moving in this path around the club, around the shaft, because of the result of centrifugal force. If I try to move the ball towards a spot, what’s going to happen to this string? Well it’s going to go slack. If I tried to push it, and make it go where I want it to go, it doesn’t work very well. The shaft doesn’t ever straighten out, or the string, the metal cable doesn’t ever straighten out, but if I try to pull in the opposite direction, so now when the ball is going this way, I’m actually pulling it back this way, which is making it continue to travel on this plane, and keep the path consistent.

The reality is that most every golfer on the planet wants to do the opposite. They want to push, and try and make the club go where they want it to go, when the reality is you actually need to move your body, or the stick, in the opposite direction, that you want the club to go, just like you would with this, just because this is the laws of physics. This is how you create centripetal force. You’re always pulling, and moving in, towards center, to get something to go out, away from you.

Now, let’s think about that with a golf swing for a second. When you want the golf club to go out, toward the ball, what direction, according to the laws of physics, and again we haven’t outsmarted Newton yet … What direction should your body be moving?

Well, if you paid attention, your body needs to be rotating this way, to get the club to go faster, more consistent, more efficiently, that way. Again, go right back to this and build one of these yourself, try to make the ball go where you want it by going in the same direction, creating the force of movement going in the same direction you want the object to go, or just pull against it, and all of a sudden I become very, very efficient, and very consistent.

My body goes this way to get the club to go that way. Now, the club is not just traveling out. It’s traveling in three dimensions, so not only is it going out, but it’s going down, so guess what. What direction should your body be moving if you want the club to go efficiently, powerfully, quickly down and out? Your body needs to go around and up, hence the posting up motion.

When you watch the long drive hitters, on the Long Drive Association, and the longest hitters on the tour, what does their lead foot do at impact, when they’re really trying to wale on a driver? It actually comes up in the air. They jump, because they’re moving up, to get the club to go down.

That is working with the laws of physics. Anybody that tells you to take your right side of your body, and push it into the club, or push it down towards the ball, is trying to get you to work against the laws of physics, instead of pulling and moving the opposite direction, and creating centripetal force, they’re trying to be the centrifugal force, which you can do, it’s just really inefficient. It’s, again, me trying to move the ball that way.

If you want to lose lag, and start moving really inefficiently, and working really hard to try and hit the golf ball, go ahead, take your right side, and shove it in the same direction your trying to move the ball, or move the club. The reality is, you always move in the opposite direction that your trying to get the club to go.

If you look at the Rotary Swing takeaway videos, guess what we’re trying to do in the takeaway? We’re not trying to position the club, and move it over here, some place happening back behind us that we can’t see, and it’s happening really quick. That’s really hard to do. What I’m trying to get you to do is just move your right shoulder blade, as you’ve learned, two inches, in towards center, pulling it towards your spine, and if I move my right shoulder back, behind my head, toward the target in the opposite direction I’m trying to get the club to go, guess where the club goes. Out over here, exactly where I want it to go.

In the downswing, we move in the opposite. Again, if you’re tired of random, conflicting, inconsistent golf tips, and you want to actually learn the facts, and the truth, about the fundamentals of the golf swing, based on science, based on anatomy, how your body is designed, and engineered to move powerfully, safely, and efficiently, then come visit rotaryswing.com, sign up for free, and start watching videos. It’ll teach you the truth about the science of the golf swing.