After studying all the pros and watching the top players in golf swing, it’s abundantly clear that there are several things that every one of these golf professionals does.
So, we thought to take on the challenge and study some of the best golf swings to find out just what it was they all had in common.
Which is the best golf swing?
The one you feel incredible after making, that’s which one. And we’ve got loads of tips here compiled from the best in the industry to help you make that happen.
There are several professional golfers who we studied to make this compilation of tips for you. And we know you’re here for the advice, but some of these swings you have to see.
So, before we get into all the tips, let’s catch a quick take of Anne van Dam. You have to admit; she’s got one great swing
Perfecting your swing may seem like a tedious task, but with some of the best golfers in the world sharing their swings, we can compile their efforts to create a master list of tips to help you out.
Let’s dive in, and we’ll check out some more of the world’s best swings along the way.
How Do I Get A Perfect Golf Swing? Try These Tips
Have a Pre-Shot Routine
Have you ever wondered why some of the greatest athletes have strange routines? It’s because they’ve mentally adapted to perfect their craft through repetitious practice.
And many do this by creating a routine or set of habits to reinforce good practice for best results.
When it comes to setting up your shot, having a routine that you have deliberately developed is a wise move that most of the pros do on every attempt.
Watch some of the pros set up their swing, and you’ll notice patterns they will repeat. Whether it’s movements or gestures, the pros have deliberate actions to set their shot up just right.
You might start with a simple routine of standing feet together, lined up with the ball. Then you might move your right foot, followed by your left. You might adjust both, starting with your right and followed by your left.
This routine might then have a slow-motion partial swing followed by a full slow-motion swing—all the while keeping your eyes on the ball.
A routine like the one I just mentioned would be planned out and practised. Many of the greatest athletes have habits like this to ensure they follow certain practices they have learned along the way.
An example of this might be a routine for setting up the best golf ball placement.
Keep Your Eyes On The Ball
A big mistake a lot of golfers make is to take their eyes off the ball. It tends to happen to golfers in two critical parts of the swing – the top of the backswing or the ball’s point of contact. The latter being the more common.
Many a golfer has had issues with hitting the top of the ball. They line everything up, and everything seems like it should work, but because they are lifting their head too soon, they wind up raising the club as well.
Keep your eyes on the ball at all times. Focus on it until your eyes water (okay, not really, but you get the idea).
Keeping your eyes glued to the ball ensures you won’t lift your head early, messing up your swing.
Stay Loose
Keeping your body loose and moving with an almost fluid-like motion is a critical part of maintaining a good swing.
If you are cramped up and stiff, your shot will be cramped up and stiff as well. Watch how the golf pros move like it was easy.
Take a look at Adam Scott’s swing. It so fluid and loose; he makes it look incredibly smooth.
In case you’re having a bad day, here’s a slow mo of Adam Scott’s golf swing.
— GOLFTV (@GOLFTV) January 3, 2020
Switch off and enjoy… pic.twitter.com/dnNUykz7Yc
Keep Your Weight Centered
We’ve all seen the new golfers take a swing and stumble or even fall over after, right?
A big mistake people make is shifting their weight too far off their centre during a golf swing.
When you finish your backswing, you should be comfortable standing with balance, not wavering around or even needing to take another step.
The video above with Ernie Els shows how he keeps his weight cantered throughout the swing.
Don’t try to Kill It
Speaking of keeping your weight centered, the primary reason why golfers lose their footing is due to trying to smash the golf ball with as much force as they can muster.
However, if you think that pure aggressive energy makes the best golf swing, think again.
If you’re looking for more power in your swing, take a look at our article A Guide To Power In Your Golf Swing (With 7 Ways To Add It)
If you Slice, Tuck The Elbow
One of the best lessons for those who slice is to tuck the trailing elbow.
It’s known as shallowing your swing, and it is nothing to be ashamed of (we can correct it).
The concept is to maximize your control of the clubface to ensure that the point of impact has a suitable angle. When you have a swing that’s too steep, you wind up hitting the ball with an open clubface causing the ball to go away from you (and not the direction you want).
One of the most common issues that cause the clubface to strike the ball open is not tucking in the trailing arm’s elbow during the downswing.
Keeping the elbow tucked and the leading arm straight is the key to shallowing out the swing and avoiding hitting the ball with an open clubface.
Follow through
Look how smooth Ernie Els swing is, and watch his follow-through. It looks so natural it’s like the easiest thing in the world.
His follow-through is fluid.
Having a full and smooth follow through to your swing is vital to ensuring you’ve connected with maximum force.
Any attempt at slowing your swing near or before impact with the ball will drastically reduce your swing’s power.
Keep your Leading Shoulder In Line
Those who have served in the military know that you’re in trouble with your commanding officer if you step out of line. Well, you need to take command of yourself when you take on a perfect golf swing.
One of the biggest problems many golfers have is with their leading shoulder.
When you start your backswing, you rotate your leading shoulder back from its original position.
Sometimes, if you start your swing, you might not turn your leading shoulder back to the place it started but rather rotate it, trailing its original position.
To fully take advantage of putting your weight into your swing, golf pro Johnny Miller says to make sure you practice returning your leading shoulder to its original position when you impact the ball.
Or even push the shoulder a little past the original starting point at the place of impacting the ball. It ensures your body weight is transferred through the swing adding vital power to the outcome.
Don’t Overthink
The worst thing you can do is try to remember all the tips, tricks and training you’ve received all while taking your swing.
It’s a good argument for a routine where you silence your mind.
A great little trick for quieting your thoughts during a golf swing is to focus on your breathing.
Do not talk to yourself in your mind; only hear your breath.
It will stop you from overthinking your game
Psychology Tip – The power of questions!
Our mind and body are linked via our nervous system. So the way we use our body’s will have a direct effect on our thinking.
Poor body language will lead to negative thoughts.
Negative thoughts will lead to bad feelings then more than likely a bad shot!
Ask yourself the following question.
If I was supremely confident of hitting a good shot how would I act?
Answer = I would have a good strong tall posture, my breathing would be relaxed and full and I would move positively into the shot.
Now simply go ahead and act out that character!
Want To Hit The Ball further Off The Tee
Could your leading arm be the key to greater distance and creating that all important soft draw to help get more yardage?
I believe this simple piece of advice could help get you on the way to realizing your true potential when hitting your woods from the tee box.
The advice is simple but the implementation of it could prove to give you a whole new feeling to your motion. This is a good thing as it ensures you are doing something different and implementing a change for the good.
Pulling the Driver out the bag often instantly affects the way in which we swing the club.
Mentally you know you are trying to hit the ball a long distance and your body starts to prepare for this power hit.
This engagement into the act of hitting it big will often cause problems.
One problem is the amount of body tension you start to build up and possible shallow breathing which is high into the chest.
With this kind of red mist syndrome, just becoming intent on smashing the ball out of sight and you immediately create an opposite effect and actually start to lose power even before you have attempted to hit the ball.
The body tension will cause a tighter grip pressure and tighter fore-arms.
The high chest will restrict upper body rotation.
Let’s look at these in more detail.
Firstly breathing high into the chest, as opposed to belly breathing, restricts the amount of rotation your torso can make during the back swing.
Minimising this rotation reduces power that is derived from the body turn as its speed is also much slower.
As the top half of your body is so tense its synchronicity with the lower half (the legs) diminishes.
Its very easy for the lower half to get ahead and power through the shot well before the upper body.
Often resulting in wild shots to the left and right as the upper body gets left behind.
Secondly the tight grip and forearm muscles will allow the leading arm to rest well against the wall of your chest on the back swing and as you start the down swing this will only get worse.
The club and arms lag well behind the chest and accentuates the wild shots even more.
In essence too much grip and body tension is a sure power and accuracy killer.
So how do you fix this.
Well its quite simple really.
Try to breath deep into your belly whilst on the tee box preparing for your shot.
This will help to keep your torso relaxed.
Keep your grip pressure firm enough to keep hold of the club but at the same time relaxed enough to freely move the wrists.
Finally keep the leading arm relaxed as you make your swing.
Golfers are generally very aware for the need to keep their front arm straight throughout the first half of their swing to maintain radius.
Unfortunately this is often overdone and the arm becomes locked out and completely poker straight. Which only adds extra tension!
This arm should only remain comfortably straight with in fact a very small bend to it, almost forming a slight crescent shape.
This position will still maintain the swings radius, reduce arm tension and help to synchronize the arm and torso movement.
An added benefit of having relaxed arms will be that the forearms are free to naturally rotate on the downswing promoting a draw shape to the shot, adding yardage to your drive!
Using Ground Force For Extra Power
There are only two constants when you make a golf swing. Firstly your feet start off connected to the ground and secondly your hands are connected to the club.
Here we are going to look at the role of the feet and shoes relative to the ground.
Without good pressure pushing down through the shoes into the ground it becomes very difficult to generate power. The ground is our constant, it is our stable platform which we can swing back and through and use it to generate resistance.
Imagine trying to swing a golf club whilst suspended off the ground. There would be no resistance build up from the lower body and subsequently minimal power.
Your golf shoes are a very important factor when it comes to generating power by compressing your body weight down into the ground.
The shoes need to be flexible enough to follow the movement of your feet throughout. But more importantly provide lateral stability as you make a back swing.
Helping to promote a rotational motion without allowing the back foot to fall over onto its out-step.
This lateral stability also helps to provide a firm and solid foundation to transfer the body weight through onto the front foot as you change direction from the back swing to the forward swing.
With lateral stability going forward as you fire through impact it helps prevent the front foot from rolling over onto its out-step.
The front foot can now act as an anchor allowing the swing to unwind around it at speed.
This crucial stability also goes hand in hand with balance. It makes it more difficult to maintain great balance with a pair of golf shoes that don’t offer this level of support throughout the swing.
You might have heard of tour players practising in their bare feet.
This increases your awareness of what your body weight is doing throughout but also makes it more difficult to maintain balance when moving at speed. Putting a bigger workload on your intrinsic muscles to keep you balanced. I’d go with a decent pair of shoes any day.
Applying downward pressure through the shoes also causes the cleats to grip more into the ground helping create even more traction.
A regular inspection of the condition of your shoes is very important. Monitor your cleats and get them changed if necessary, don’t leave it until its too late!
As you are on your round have a quick check of the soles of your shoes and use a tee peg or pitch fork to scrape away any grass and mud stuck in or between the cleats.
Keeping them clean will give you more traction.
Happy Golfing
