G112. How to Shift Your Weight in the Golf Swing

Why You Need This: Today, you'll discover "How to Shift Your Weight in the Golf Swing"

If your hands and arms aren't working together with your body during your golf swing...

...it can really throw everything out of whack.

When your swing goes from feeling like body parts are fighting against each other...

...to all working together in unison...

...it leads to a much more powerful and consistent swing.

The key to making this happen lies within making a properly sequenced weight shift.

In today's video, you'll discover the 3 main keys to a perfect weight shift (almost nobody gets the timing right on #2)...

...and a progression of drills to make sure you can make it happen in your swing!

 

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 9:05

Video Transcription:

Clay Ballard: It’s great to have you here today. Let me walk you through a series of drills. Very simple drills, you can follow right along, that make the weight shift so easy.

Here’s the deal. In the golf swing, if your weight shift isn’t correct you’re going to feel like it’s almost impossible to sync up your body and what your arms and your club are doing. It’s going to feel like they’re fighting each other.

But once I get this weight shift correct, it’s going to feel like I’m moving the momentum of my body through the golf ball.

I’m having the swing of my arms and the weight shift in my body timed up to where now I feel like I can deliver the force through the golf ball and everything is just working together.

The best news is I can make this happen really easy when you follow along with this progression. So grab a club, let’s go ahead and get started.

All right, so first let’s talk about what exactly is the weight shift. Well, let me go through the technical jargon. I’ll get all that mumbo jumbo out of the way, and then let’s jump right in and make it easy.

So the first thing is to understand what do we really want to have happen? In all great golf swings, there is a pressure shift or a weight shift to the right foot very early in the swing.

I like to think of it as the weight shift almost starts before you start to move the club back. So that weight goes into the right side, then you’re going to begin to swing that club back.

You’ll notice with me, you’ll see a trigger that I do every single swing. I don’t even realize I do this, but I actually lift up, I kind of tap my left foot, my left toe, and that’s actually my trigger to get my weight kind of moving to the right to start my swing.

So that’s what’s going to happen in every single swing. Notice on this swing, I’m going to begin to shift my weight to the right, and then you’re going to see me make my backswing.

Let’s go ahead and try this out. There we go. That weight went to the right early, and then I can transfer through the ball when I’m doing that.

So let me go ahead and walk through the rest of the swing now, what exactly happens.

The weight shift to the right is the trigger. If you try to eliminate that weight shift, it’s a big mistake. If I try to keep my weight very centered and not shift, now it feels like I’m fighting against what my body and my arms are doing.

My club is swinging back, I’m kind of artificially trying to keep my weight in the center of my stance, and then it feels like I’m going to fall back this way when I start my downswing.

You don’t want to fall back this way and have to push across your body. It can be a little bit more difficult than things have to be. So don’t stay centered in the take away. Get my weight moving right early.

Now once you get to about halfway back, your weight’s actually going to be shifting a little bit to the left. I want to get my weight feeling like it’s starting to go left, and I feel like I get a little pressure in my left foot, and then I make my downswing.

So the advantage of that is that if I feel like my weight is shifting left, now all my momentum is moving through the golf ball as I make my downswing.

I feel like my weight is moving to the left as my arms and club are moving to the left, and it’s a very heavy hit. So I feel like my body momentum and my arms and club are all transferring through that golf ball.

As I finish my swing, I’m going to be balanced completely over my left leg. All my weight is on my left side, and I really just feel like I’m standing here looking down the target.

It’s not anything where my body and my arms are ever disjointed. In the backswing as my arms swing to the right, my weight shift goes to the right.

In the downswing as I want to begin swinging to the left, I shift my weight left and then everything comes down and through finishing nice and balanced over my left leg. That’s what makes things easy.

Now let’s go ahead and let’s walk through a progression to make this really, really simple for you.

All right, so grab a club, grab a broom, whatever you have, any kind of stick. Umbrella, doesn’t matter. You’re going to be able to get this down.

So I’m going to start out with my stance, and I’m going to actually feel like I’m swinging a baseball bat here.

I’m just going to go to the top of my swing. I’m going to feel like I make a step like you would in baseball, and when you step what happens is you’re un-weighting this lead foot.

When my lead foot is in the air, where’s all my weight? It’s on my right foot. Same as in the golf swing. As I load up that front feet as it barely comes off the ground, my right side is loaded up. I’m getting to the top of my swing.

Now when I swing down, we’re going to do a little modified baseball swing here where we plant on our left foot and swing.

In baseball you stay back a little bit more like this, we’re going to go ahead and let everything come around all the way to our front foot. So everything’s nice and balanced over my left foot when I make this little swing.

So just like that, go ahead and act like you’re hitting a baseball from a pitcher. I’m going to take a little step, shift left, and then swing through that so I almost feel like all my body momentum and the swing are moving through the hit.

Then all I’m going to do is go ahead and do the same thing, I’m just going to angle it down to what would be the golf ball.

Let’s get rid of the golf ball for now. We’ll add it in here in a second. I’m going to feel like I do my baseball swing now. Unweight my lead foot, that gets everything loaded up. I’m in a really powerful position.

Then as I step, I’m going to then swing down. So it’s step, my weight starts to shift to the left, then I make my downswing.

The mistake that I’ll see a lot of players do is they’ll start the downswing and then try to shift left. It gets all disjointed. You have to get left then make your downswing to be able to get through the golf ball.

So now, again, let’s tilt it down toward the golf ball here. I’m going to aim at this tee. I’m going to do the same thing. A little baseball swing, start from here, step. My weight shifts, then I swing down.

It’s going to look just like this when I take the pause out. Notice how I’m finishing with all my weight going toward the target.

If you want to exaggerate a little bit, you could even do a little Gary Player. You know I’m going to step and then come on through with my right foot so everything is really going through the shot.

Now in reality, I know you’re not going to do that when you’re really hitting a golf ball, but we’re just trying to get the momentum moving through the shot.

Once you’re comfortable with that, let’s go ahead and make this into a real swing with a little mini step starting from the address position.

So here, I’ve gotten used to getting that momentum moving through the ball. Let’s do another drill that makes it even easier.

I’m going to set up to this golf ball, or what would be a golf ball, I’m going to put my feet a little bit closer together here and then I’m going to step in my backswing. My weight’s going to go left, then I’m going to swing down.

So if I do this correctly, it’s going to look just like this. Step, weight left, and then swing all the way on through. Let me do that again.

You can see how the momentum of my body is going through the hip. I’m going to try that again. There you go, you can see how that would actually add a decent amount of energy into that shot.

Now with that particular drill, the mistake that I always see is that when players make that step they wait until the downswing then they try to step.

Remember, I have to shift my weight left then I swing down and I’m finishing over my left side. So do about 10 or 15 of those until you really feel comfortable with it, then we’re going to do the same thing just hitting a golf ball.

We’re going to take out the step, but we’re going to keep the same sequencing. We’re going to keep that same weight shift where now I feel like a little weight on the right as I go back, I’m going to shift left, and then I’m going to swing through.

So the real key here, what you’re trying to get down, is that as your momentum is moving to the left, you get it left, and then you hit through the shot so your weight is all the way coming through there.

Once you’re comfortable with that, that makes the weight shift really easy. It’s as simple as starting right, get the weight left, then make your downswing.

Let’s go ahead and give it a whirl. There we go. Get the weight shift down, it will make it a whole lot easier to be consistent.

All right, so now that we get started on that weight shift, how do we build this so it really just becomes a very consistent swing and we don’t ever have to think about it ever again.

Well, it comes down to what your body’s doing over all with your spine angle. The next thing, if you’re a member of the website what I’d like for you to work on is to get that Stable Fluid Spine.

What that means is I’m going to get my spine angle very stable. Even when I shift my weight to my right and my left as I’m coming on through, my spine isn’t tilting around. I’m not losing my balance.

That way, I can get my weight shift, my head can stay very stable, and I can be very, very consistent.

So once you start to work on the drills from this weight shift, I recommend going to the website, going to the Instruction tab, click on the Top Speed Golf System, and then working through those Stable Fluid Spine drills.

Now that you can be very, very stable through the shot, and again, it just makes it really easy. So work through level one and you’re going to get the hang of it.

But as you work through level two and level three, you get those drills down, it’s going to make it to where you never even have to think about it again.

You’re going to be very consistent. Your weight shift’s going to be great. Your stability’s going to be great, and you’re just going to hit a lot more solid shots.

So best of luck, and I’ll see you in the Stable Fluid Spine.