AXIOM Refine Your Backswing
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Dial in your arms during the backswing to start easily shaping the ball, changing trajectory and power with the backswing that is best for you.
By now you've got the big picture of how the pros make the swing look so simple and so smooth and hit the ball so far with so little effort. And you're probably starting to become a great ball striker in your own. Right? But now you're probably starting to think, okay, now that I'm hitting the ball consistently, I want to start shaping the ball or getting a specific ball flight as my default shot, where I want to change the trajectory of my shot. So the next logical step is refining the position of your arms at the top of your swing, because that can have a huge but simple effect on your downswing, that you allows you to start changing the way that you shape the ball off the tee or with your irons. You know, now that the position of the arms is not nearly as important as the direction of overall movement of your swing.
That club acquires movement is far more important than having arms in a perfect spot per se, at the top, but understanding how the position of your arms and the, the angles and things that you're creating with your arms at the top and how you arrive there at the top will start letting you understand how to have complete control over your shots and just like everything else with the Axiom. It's super simple, but there are two different ways for you to arrive at the exact same position at the top. And it's going to feel wildly different depending on if your lead arm or trail arm dominant. So let's first take a look at the trail arm, dominant movement, the trail arm, dominant movement. And even if your lead arm dominant, you still want to watch this because it's going to help you understand how to achieve the proper positions like the pros at the top, the lead arm, or the shooting of the trail arm dominant movement is very much like throwing a ball.
How would you get your arm in a position to throw a golf ball down to the ball on the ground? Well, pretty simple as you learn from the takeaway movement, initiating the swing with that little shoulder blade glide. So you stay nice and centered and getting your arm to float up to the top. As it folds at the elbow and elevates at the shoulder, your risk begins to set. That is a whole back swing. That's it. If you can create this simple movement, and of course, you know, it's going to start to fall with that clockwise movement to shallow out the shaft. You're in a great position at the top. Here's a couple of simple checkpoints for you. First, your elbow needs to be roughly in line with your shoulder. Now, of course, it can ha you can have the old flying right elbow at the top, like Jack Nicholas and Freddy couples.
They did okay with it. But all you're doing then is increasing variability in your swing. If you have the time to pound gazillions of balls and you like that feeling, it's fine. But what we want to see is that elbow pretty close to being in line with the shoulder. And when you go to do your check-out, that'd be one of your checkout points. The wrist should also be close to in line with your shoulder and elbow. They should almost form a straight line, but it will be if you have the mobility in your shoulder to get a little external rotation in your arm, that can help as well. Again, that's a clockwise movement for right-handed golfers. These are the simple ways to think about your backswing. Can you do this? Yeah, of course you can. So now, if I just did this and I hinge forward and there's pull that shoulder blade back, look where I'm at at the top of my swing, that's perfectly fine.
All I need to do now from here, bring my left arm up. My right arm, supports it. If I do it with the club, let me see. I'm in a great position at the top. And all I did was get ready to throw the ball again. It's not so important that you have these perfect positions at the top. It's the overall flow of movement and getting the positions in the ballpark. That's going to allow you to play really consistent. Now, if you're a lead arm dominant, it's going to feel different. You're going to feel that you're swinging your lead arm up. And the trail arm is supporting the lead arm at the top of the swing. They both get in the exact same spot, but if you're going to feel lead arm dominant, it's going to feel wildly different. So I can swing my lead arm up to the top, bring my right arm up to support it, same thing, or I can swing my right arm up to get ready to throw and bring my left arm up there in the exact same spot.
There's no difference, but the feeling is definitely different. The more important thing to remember about your backswing is that this is not a destination. It's not a position that you arrive at. It's a move position that you move through. Remember your hands are never stopping that subtle clockwise motion. I can make it really exaggerated, but that's obviously more like Matthew Wolfer Ryan Palmer. We don't need to do that, but we can. But my movement is very subtle. When you look at my down swing and back swing, my hand movement is very, very small. That reduces variability. It makes my swing simpler, and it helps you again. Remember that. It's not that you're trying to arrive at a specific spot at the top. It's that you're trying to move through those positions at the top of your swing. The overall goal of the swing is to make one continuous one directional movement, always moving clockwise throughout the whole swing until you get to the release when everything switches over, but that happens automatically as you release the club.
So your goal is just feeling this movement moving through it. And once you have the basic idea of where your arms should be, it'll be very easy. If you just kind of go like, okay, I'm going to throw a ball, just bring my club up here. Now feel what that feels like, check it in the mirror and then just feel yourself moving through it. And now all of a sudden you've got the ability to feel and hit the same positions at the pros that we're going to look at next. So let's take a look at the best players in the world and see what their arms look like at the top. And the variables that you see there so that you can start achieving a very simple, very compact, very consistent backs.
Let's take a look at Justin Rose on the left and Stuart Appleby on the right. These are two guys who are very different sizes, but they look very similar as they get to the top of the swing. In fact, even the whole swing, the takeaway, you can see them keeping the club head outside their hands, and when they arrive at the top, they look very, very similar. Now, one thing that you'll notice difference here is that the arm, depending on how much elevation you have, and basically what elevation would do would be raising your in relationship to your chest. So you can see in this case, Justin roses base of his elbows here, the base of his Peck is about here because he doesn't have a lot of elevation in his swing that moves his hands to a deeper position, which is totally fine. A lot of this has to do with height.
He's a very tall guy and he's hinged forward quite a bit, and this is a nine iron. So that's going to affect the position. But the goal here is that the arms are staying more or less in front of the body. And that's going to change depending on a little bit of how much elevation you have, how much you're hinged forward and how much you rotate. Obviously, if Justin kept turning his body, his hands would look deeper. But what you're going to see in a lot of players at the top, if we just drop a line straight down from the top, it's going to tend to be over the foot. Stewart's a little bit deeper. He doesn't have as near a hinged forward posture as Justin Rose does in this case. But you can see at the top, both are in a very similar position, but they have a little bit different elevation looked in some other players.
We're going to look at just a moment. So you're going to see that their lead arm has L is very much in close to being in line with their shoulders, but they're still going to bring the club down very much the same way. If you compare somebody like myself with tiger woods, you're going to see a slightly different angle. You can recall from looking at Justin Rose and Stuart Appleby that their lead arms were a little bit shallower. So it was more in line with their shoulders. Tiger's swing. And my swing at the top look a little bit more similar. My arm is a little bit above my shoulder, plain as is tigers. If you dropped a vertical line straight down from the butt of the club, you're going to see over my ankle, like you saw in rows, you're going to see a very similar position in tiger.
But again, the goal is not so much a position. It's the movement. And if you move correctly, you're going to end up in these positions. Your arms are going to be in front of your body. It's a very, very simple movement based on just what I just showed you, whether you're feeling like you're going to throw, which is tiger is a very right-hand dominant player. And in this swing here, I am swinging. Right-Hand dominant. And then people who swing left-hand dominant are going to feel that they swing the arm up and to get into that same position, but they both arrive at the same spot. Let's take a look at one more tour pro look at Kevin knob because he's a great balance of being in between. You'll see, at the top of his swing, right, as he gets to the top, it's the same position I just showed you that right arm is right in front of the right shoulder.
He's got a little bit of external rotation, that right arm that helps set the club on plane. He's in a great spot here at the top, and it's going to be very easy for him to shallow out the club on the way down. So when you're trying to work on your back of the swing position, the top of your backswing position, don't make it complicated, get it in a reasonable spot. Either let your lead arm swing up or feel like your trail arm is going to load up to throw and combine those motions to feel a very simple backswing. But when you combine the, the movement of the Axiom with these very simple understanding of the fundamentals of where your arms should be at the top, you're going to start becoming very, very consistent because you're taking out a ton of variables out of your swing.
Asle
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Asle