Stop Overswinging | Get Your Backswing Under Control
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A powerful, compact backswing is essential for creating good contact with the ball. If you bring the club back too far in your backswing, you're overswinging. In this video, Craig shows you how to stop overswinging for better contact so you can hit more fairways and make more shots.
Hello everyone, Rotary Swing Tour instructor Craig Morrow, here.
And today, what I want to share with you is one of my favorite drills I work on with my students to help stop the dreaded overswing in the backswing.
A lot of players struggle with overswing in the backswing because they're overusing their arms.
Well duh Craig I understand that I'm overusing my arms how do I stop it?
Well the thing that you have to do is you have to focus on what really moves the arms in the backswing.
If you're trying to move the club to a certain spot or stop the club at a certain spot in space you're always going to struggle with this problem.
I'm sure you at home have tried to say, well, I'm going to take this golf club.
And I'm only going to swing to nine gonna What you need to do is you need to actually take the focus off the arms and focus on what actually moves them in the backswing.
If you start to focus on the engine of the swing, the core, the body, you'll realize that the arms have little to nothing to do as you take the club back.
So what I want to do is I want to teach you a drill that allows you to start to feel the inside, allows you to start to stretch and recruit muscle fiber in the backswing.
And the beautiful news about it is, once you kind of max out your muscles, tell your brain, Hey, I can't go anywhere anymore.
And that's the signal to start going the other way, to keep the arms from continuing to go back, which is going to wreck that downswing sequence.
So what we're going to do is we're going to start with a little drill.
And I want you to really start to be aware and start to feel what you're doing in this.
And I'm going to show you how easy it is to keep the club in a nice, compact spot at the top.
Take your setup, I'm going to start over here from down the line to show you the position, take your setup as if you're going to hit like let's say a seven iron.
So hinge from the hips right here, let the arms and hands hang nice and free from the shoulder sockets and I want you to extend out your hands like you're shaking hands with yourself.
And when you get into this position, I want you to get your fingertip length the same, and I also want you to get the spacing between your hands roughly about two inches.
So that's the view from down the line, from face on.
Just let your arms and hang.
Hands hang nice and neutral from the shoulder sockets about two inches apart, both hands kind of in the shaking hands position, fingertips extended out and then about two inches apart.
Now what I want you to do is I want you to focus on maintaining that position all the way up to about lead arm parallel to the ground.
And what you're gonna feel is you're gonna start to feel some compression, You're gonna start to feel some tightness in your core, and that's because what you're doing is you're starting to transport the arms with your rotation.
So take this setup, arms and hands out in front of you hanging down nice and freely as if you're gonna hit a golf shot two inches apart, fingertip length the same, and I want you to just start to make a backswing.
Start to rotate back, feel your trail shoulders start to work behind you and as you work on this motion allow the arms to work up a little bit.
The arms only kind of work in the vertical space in the golf swing, so just allow them to work up.
Just enough to keep them in front of the sternum to this shaking hands position.
And when you get here, what you'll notice if you've maintained both requirements is that your core is gonna start to get tight.
You're gonna start to feel some compression in your lungs.
The more and more I do this, you can hear.
Right now.
I'm starting to kind of lose my breath a little bit, and that's because my muscles are really starting to engage right here.
I'm learning what it's like to move my arms by using rotation.
Setting up going all the way to about lead arm parallel.
This is about as max I can go.
My body right now is really tight, really coiled, feels very powerful but also the good news is my arms are pretty relaxed because I've put all the tension in here moving up to this position.
If I get to this position I realize I really can't go anywhere.
If I'm gonna go anywhere from here the only thing I can do is start to change these two relationships.
I can change the spacing or I can change the fingertip length.
But when I do that, all of a sudden I lose all that healthy tightness, tension that I had right here.
That's where you start to get into over swinging, flying elbows, club running away.
That's because as you get to this point there's really nothing much left to do.
Let me show you from face on.
Get set up, arms and hands out in front of you, two inches apart, fingertip length the same.
The goal is to maintain this same relationship all the way to lead arm parallel.
Take that trail shoulder right behind you, nice big rotation and you'll start to hear I start to lose my voice a little bit.
You'll see I have almost a full shoulder rotation right here.
This is about as far as I can go.
My lead arm is straight, my trail arm is straight, everything's in a nice position to just finish the tiny little bit of the backswing.
When you do this you're going to feel muscle.
You're not going to feel the arms doing a whole lot and that's the beauty of it.
In the backswing you're trying to make a really big turn and do as little as the arms as possible.
Now most of you're going to look at this position and be like, well Craig you know how do I finish because right now your lead arms parallel to the ground there's a little bit more motion.
It's very simple.
In the backswing there's a lot of rotation.
The arms elevate just slightly and then there's a slight bit of flexion from your trail arm.
So take the setup position, go through the drill all the way to lead arm parallel and when you really feel that tightness that you can't rotate anymore, arms and hands still in front of you, still straight.
I want you to grab your lead thumb like a gun and I just want you to allow for just a little bit of flexion of the trail arm and that's it.
Just a little bit of flexion of the trail arm.
Keep this elbow pointing down.
Just kind of look like a backswing position.
A nice powerful loaded compact position.
This is all that the backswing requires.
This is all that it necessitates and when you get to that position you're going to feel really tense.
Not in arms and hands, but in the core.
And when you feel that tension, that's going to kind of start to be the signal to your brain.
Hey, it's time to start going the other way.
From down the line when you're working on the move keep it two inches.
Rotate going back.
As you rotate get to this kind of shaking hands position.
I don't want to see trail hand on top of the lead hand or lead hand on top of the trail hand.
Shaking hands two inches apart.
Both arms still straight.
Should still be in front of the sternal.
When you get there grab your lead thumb like a gun and just add a little bit of flexion.
No more than 90 degrees in this trail elbow.
And you've just created a nice compact powerful backswing.
It's all that you need.
A lot of my students always relate to me.
When they work on this drill.
And they start to get the club back in their hand, that everything feels really short.
Fantastic.
Most people are trying to do too much in the backswing which wrecks their sequence coming down.
I want to show you a couple pitfalls with this drill that I see my students try to break it on that I don't want you to fall into.
Then I'm going to show you with a golf club the exact position you get in.
So when you take your setup and you're maintaining this spacing letting the arms and hands hang down.
You can watch yourself in a mirror.
You can watch yourself on camera.
I don't want you to get to this position and say all right Craig well I've maintained my two inch spacing and my fingertip length but what's wrong?
Well you can see I've completely come out of posture.
My shoulder planes now flat.
My head's now moved.
You need to do this while staying in proper golf posture.
Rotating on a proper shoulder plane.
Well Craig I did it and I got to here but this is about as far as I can go.
If I keep going my arms and hands get a little bit behind me.
Remember as I mentioned earlier the arms are going to elevate just a little bit.
Okay and that's what's going to help them stay in front of the sternum going back.
They don't swing side to side.
They're just going to elevate just a little bit.
Big rotation maintaining this with a little bit of elevation and when you get here both arms still straight.
Nice in front of the sternum and you're going to feel all this tightness.
All this good coil.
Get to that position.
Lead thumb.
Add some flexion.
Now if I grab a club over here what you're going to notice is if I set up same position we just did.
Now I start to rotate going back.
Does that look like a nice powerful backswing?
Full shoulder rotation.
Nice and compact.
No overswing.
That's the exact same position I'm training right here.
I'm not thinking about the club.
All I'm thinking about is moving with my rotation to transport my arms to transport my hands.
That's how this club gets into position.
Same thing with down the line.
You're feeling the same thing.
I don't I don't want you to worry about the club.
Try to feel the same things that you're doing in the drill.
Being aware of your core.
Not trying to move the arms and hands.
You're allowing them to get moved into position by rotation.
Does this look pretty good?
Nice and powerful.
Nice and compact.
You can hear me lose my voice.
I can't go any further than that.
I get the question all the time.
Craig how do you keep your backswing so short or how do you keep it nice and compact?
It's because I can't go any further.
If I stay connected, if I'm using my rotation to transport to this position, I physically can't go any further.
The only way I could go any further is if I got to here and then I started to let my right elbow fly.
But what would that be doing with our drill?
We're not maintaining that same relationship.
I'm now swinging with my arms.
So if you want to stop over swinging, stop swinging your arms.
You need to focus on what really moves the arms and hands and club in the backswing.
You're going to feel a lot of rotation.
Very minimal arm movement.
And the beauty about it is.
You're going to reach a point to where you can't physically swing back any further.
And that's going to be your signal to start going the other way.
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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