New: How You Can Fix Charles Barkley’s Golf Swing (2021)
Hey Rotary Swing Golfers, Chuck Quinton here. I’m going to talk about, of all things, Charles Barkley’s golf swing. If you’ve noticed lately, Barkley has changed and tried pretty much everything under the sun with trying to fix this nasty hitch in his golf swing and I’m going to show you today how even you, not being a golf instructor but knowing the RotarySwing mechanics, can fix Charles’ swing in no time flat and he could stop chasing all these crazy, crazy different things that he’s attempted.
I’m also going to talk about one thing that he actually did that worked. I don’t think he stuck with it but I’m going to talk about that at the end because it’s going to help you guys understand why some of the things work in the RotarySwing because he went to an extreme example of it but we’ll talk about it at the end.
First, let’s talk about Charles’ normal move. I’m just going to play this here for a second because I don’t think you guys would believe me if you didn’t see the whole thing that this is what’s actually happening in his golf swing. I mean this is … it’s … it’s hard to watch. I’m not going to lie. It’s painful but more painful for him because he’s the one struggling to get the ball to go anywhere.
Oh man. Nasty. I can’t watch it anymore. Let’s go back in step there. I want to show you very, very simply, what’s going on and it all starts with the golf takeaway. Charles’ setup is actually not bad at all. He’s setup pretty athletic and he’s a big boy, of course, you can see obviously he’s not quite to scale on the right but I look like an infant next to him. As he takes the club back, you’ll notice one thing very, very clearly that we talk about all the time on the rotaryswing.com videos is this whole left side pushing motion during the takeaway and you can see that very clearly, how this right arm is already bent and the club’s moved quite a ways but his chest hasn’t turned hardly at all.
The Proper Takeaway is Critical
All he’s doing is taking his powerful arms and shoulders and trying to hit the golf ball with just that. He’s not using his core, he’s not rotating his trunk. He’s using his upper trunk, his upper torso and this is going to lead to a swing that is forced to be very, very arms-y and he continues that motion with that big left arm push across the chest and now, look how off balance he is. He’s so far back on his heel because he’s let that right knee straighten in the golf backswing which, we never want to let that right knee fully straighten like this in the back screen. It not only allows your hips to over rotate in the back swing but it also makes it nearly impossible to make a good move with your core, which is the whole key that’s missing in Charles’ swing which I’m going to talk about in a second.
This makes it virtually impossible to use your core to initiate the down swing like every good ball striker does. If you’re this far off balance, if I came and just tapped him on the shoulder, I’d knock him over forward on his butt or backwards on his butt because his heel is so firmly planted, he’s so far back on his heel that he’s way, way off balance.
Now, as he starts down, I want you to notice a couple things here. I’ll draw your attention to it with a circle and I want you to focus on just this because this move right here is what separates good golfers from very bad golfers. Watch his right shoulder. Notice how much his right shoulder is moving to initiate the down swing. I didn’t draw that circle far enough. His shoulder’s back here at the top of his back swing and notice how much it lunges forward and all this is doing is showing that he’s being very right side dominate.
He’s loaded up that right arm and right shoulder in the backswing by pushing the arms across his chest and now they feel stretched and loaded because they are so he wants to use them. Notice at the same point, that his belt buckle, his hips, haven’t really turned much at all. He does get his weight back off his heel here but his upper body has moved this entire amount.
How to Swing the RIGHT Way!
Now let’s contrast that with me here on the right. This is 18th hole at Augusta and I’m trying to hit a little bit of a cut here around the corner, which I did. Normally, that would be the point where I would try to use my upper body a little bit, to help delay the release of the club face and you’ll see here when we contrast that, even when I’m intentionally trying to hit a cut, that you’re not going to see this big right shoulder dive.
I’m going to draw a circle now. My arms are up here a little bit higher than where Mr. Barkley’s are so my right shoulder’s covered up but you get the idea. He’s right there. Then as I start down, notice how the right shoulder stays back whereas, what you’ll notice in Charles’ swing is that his right shoulder immediately moves this way and down and so, he has no room. He senses that he’s so crowded that if he did bring the club down and of course, it’s horribly off plane by … when you start to use your right arm and right shoulder like this, this is what changes the pitch and attitude of the shaft.
I’ve talked about this in my Never Slice Again course, which you can get on rotaryswing.com but that whole course talks about how the right side is what’s causing you to steepen the shaft and make it impossible to not swing over the top and slice. When you swing down steep, the club face doesn’t want to rotate at all and you’ll notice here on my swing on the right, the clubs’ coming down on plane, dropping down on plane and the whole secret to that rests right here. The difference between … op, got the wrong tool there … between my swing and Charles’ swing is this.
Use the CORE Charles!
Really, it’s this, my core is what’s initiating the downswing. Watch my belt buckle rotate. First thing I’m doing is shifting my weight and turning my belt buckle. That is what shallowed out the club on the way down. If I had went with my right shoulder and right arm from the top, I would be in the exact same position that Charles’ is in, that the shaft gets steep, that my arms get buried and all of a sudden I’m hunched into the ball where if I swung down, I would stick the ball in the dirt and that’s why Charles has this hitch in his swing.
You can see that as he starts down, his head drops a mile and that’s because he’s lunging at the ball with the right side of his body. That’s a pretty big drop there. Wow. That’s impressive. Yeah. There’s no way you can swing a driver like this. The club has to shallow out and come down like you see here on the right where the clubs’ coming down because I’ve used my lower body to bring the club down and that is the whole different. If you taught Charles Barkley to use his core to bring the club down instead of trying to use his right arm and right shoulder like everybody wants to do, he wouldn’t struggle with this anymore.
Crosshanded Grip??
Now I mentioned earlier in the video that he’s made a change that he stuck with for a while and it actually completely got rid of this hitch and it was, he actually switched to left hand low or a cross handed grip. Why would a cross handed grip get rid of Charles’ swing? The cross handed grip forces you to pull with the left side of the body instead of pushing with the right side. If you haven’t watched my push versus pull video, that will enlighten you to understand why you’re struggling with your golf swing. You can see in Charles’ swing, if you go on YouTube, you’ll search for his cross handed grip, you’ll see he got rid of his hitch completely and of course, he went on to try something else because that’s what golfers do.
Instead of sticking with something, they just keep trying a bunch of random things and then that’s kind of the nature of the beast. We want you to stop chasing a bunch of random things. Fix your golf swing by fixing your golf swing fundamentals and that’s what rotaryswing.com is going to help you do.
