As seen in Golf Digest | Gain distance and power in your golf swing

🏌️‍♂️ The biggest skill separator between good and bad golfers is the early motion in the backswing.

📏 Golftec uses a motion measurement system and video cameras to analyze every swing in detail.

🦵 Turning your trail foot outward can significantly improve your hip turn and overall swing mobility.

🧠 The best players turn their shoulders 53 degrees and hips 25-30 degrees when the shaft is parallel to the ground.

🚫 Many golfers mistakenly believe they lack flexibility, but the real issue is understanding and measuring proper shoulder turn.

🔄 Changing knee flex during the backswing is crucial for maximizing hip turn and improving swing efficiency.

📊 Golftec measures swings to help golfers understand their swing mechanics and improve their game.

00:00:00 - so there's an article in the september issue of golf digest and it's about how to make a magic move in your backswing something that anyone can do that we see is the biggest separator of skill between good players and bad players it starts early in the backswing so i thought this would be a good way to add a little color to the article and discuss in context to touch more how we would actually do this at golftex we're going to take a good look at the motion

00:00:24 - measurement system and then how we use a couple video cameras and this awesome system to measure your swing in every single lesson so let's start with what these numbers are when you look up at the screen you're seeing the same thing that i'm looking at right now this number right in front of me shoulder turn so that's the amount that you can turn your shoulders closed or open you hear that a lot on tv but we can measure that in degrees and then we've also tested a few 100 tour players to

00:00:49 - decide how they actually move when they swing this number right here though hip turn that's the amount i can move my my hips as well so both of these sensors that are on me are being measured at all times the numbers that you see up there in the middle those are important but have nothing to do with that article so let's talk about the ones that do first one is that shoulder turn number so at address the best players that you see on tv are pretty close to zero with the amount

00:01:11 - that their shoulders are turned you know so i'm reading seven eight nine ten degrees open with that and then my hip turn is very close to zero so from that side view camera those are the measurements that we're reading now on the backswing the entire article is really written on how the pga tour average or out of all the golfers that we've tested when the shafts parallel the ground have their shoulders turned about 53 degrees like that number that you can see up in front of my face right

00:01:36 - there and then the hip turned somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees now this one becomes important because this is the beginning of trying to turn your shoulders enough at the top of the backswing so many people come to us either saying i want more distance or the most common problem that they believe they have is that they're not flexible enough or mobile enough to be able to do this and i would outright object to that that theory all together everyone is flexible enough to make a shoulder turn

00:02:04 - at the top of their swing that's close to 90 degrees the problem is really how to do that and an understanding of it and then being able to measure it like we're doing here so the couple parts to first understand the best players turn their shoulders 53 degrees at this point in time right about there the worst players that we see or there's a direct correlation to handicap going up and how low this number is at that same point in time so we have so many people who come in to start with us and

00:02:30 - start with their hips and shoulders too open you can see how those read in the 20s for my shoulder turn and my hips are 16 degrees open that's the beginning of aiming your swing direction too far to the left and getting ready to slice the ball but also that makes it more complicated in the backswing to turn enough so often times we see people like this three degrees of hip turn instead of 25 and the shoulder turn in the mid teens there now from that point in time it's really

00:02:57 - tough to then turn yourself 90 degrees at the top of the swing so what most people end up doing from that small turn that you have at this point in time start to lift your arms turn very little and pretty soon this is the top of the backswing turned about 50 degrees with my shoulders and 30 with my hips so if you want to hit the ball farther that's the first place to skip skip out on is that sort of technique turning as much as you can would be a really good start to helping every

00:03:23 - single person draw which would be an awesome piece for golf a whole world where golfers didn't slice would be a great spot second one is that people can start just swinging faster so this is how you do that so if you find yourself not turning enough the first thing i would do is turn my right foot outward so that's my trail foot my back foot turning that out makes it much easier for you to turn your knee out and then in effect as well turn your hips more degrees you just have more mobility the

00:03:51 - hardest way to try to hit a shot high and far is to turn your foot in turning your knee in and then now you're limited how much you can move your hips so the first thing you need to do if you struggle with turning or hitting the ball far enough is make sure you turn your foot out so i might suggest turning it out if this is straight maybe 15 or 20 degrees and both feet really because the same function helps you in the follow-through to turn and not have your foot and a lot of

00:04:16 - strain on your knee so it's rare when you walk up and down a pga tour range to ever see people's feet straight a lot of great golfers throughout history sam snead had his trail foot turned out much more than what i'm describing to and same thing for ben hogan even in his book though he wrote it as though keep it really straight but rarely if ever hit a ball that way so there's your start second one is on the backswing if my knees flexed a few degrees at address on

00:04:42 - the backswing that needs to straighten and at the same time your lead knee that should flex downward towards the ball too many people don't change their knee flex enough in the back swing and that starts limiting how much you can actually turn your hips all together so change your knee flex from there just the understanding that your hips can turn a lot more early in the backswing most people who come in for help with their swing for me or any golf tech coach they don't really realize how

00:05:09 - many degrees you want to try to turn your hips in the backswing but there's a there's such a misunderstanding of that try to do it as much as you can if you want to hit it farther so from there let's do a quick comparison of good and bad so normal swing that you might expect to see on tv

00:05:29 - okay let's take a look at that shot shot starts just slightly right at the target curves back towards it and we'll pull out those shoulder turn numbers and see if i actually can do exactly what i'm trying to describe to you first one's shoulder turn second one's hip turn let's move this one to where the shaft is parallel to the ground

00:05:53 - and right about there and then you'll start to see these numbers get color coded 53 is what i usually shoot 4 and 25 for my hip turn so i'm pretty much there from the front view that's what you can see in the article a similar look and feel to that one people who don't do this very much have a hard time with this knee not flexing enough and their trail knee not straightening enough so you might notice the difference between those knee positions a lot of you if you wear

00:06:17 - shorts you can at this point in time a good way to practice would be to actually be able to see some space that's actually between your legs something that would look right in there you want to see a window of air now the other part that a lot of people get worried about at the same point in time and this is where you need to prioritize what it is that you're worrying about if for whatever reason i'll just put this one back into live in the backswing what i would start with here

00:06:44 - is don't worry about the shaft so if you do the hip turn a lot the shoulder turn a lot but you can see where the shaft is actually to the left of that hip turn measurement i have in there don't worry about that the first thing you need to worry about is actually moving yourself around like a pga tour player second part is then where your hands are moving so i'm always suggesting at that point in time when the shaft's parallel to the ground your hands are pretty close to where the

00:07:11 - edge of your belt buckle would be from that side view camera so here's the edge of my belt buckle my hands are really almost covering that up don't push your hands out too far and they really don't need to go in any more than that that's a good measurement and then the last part would be worrying if the shaft is too far in and trying to straighten that part out so the priority is move like a tour player move your hands around yourself like a tour player then worry about the

00:07:33 - club shaft and the face angle last so there's a normal swing let's take a look we'll save that one as a a previous okay and then let's do one as if you could just walk up and down the range a place like topgolf or your local driving range where the handicaps get high and the swings start looking like this so that shot started to the left slicing a lot if i wanted to design a swing that didn't go very far and sliced this is how i would do it so let's just spend our time on this side view

00:08:12 - so first i talked about how a lot of people that come in have their hip turns more open than the pga tour average so this would be your thumbs up swing your good one on the left and then this one is no bueno on the right also the shoulder turn is more open from 16 to 10 and you can see how we color code those just to help give a nice little reference of good and bad no one's trying to teach you to move just like the tour players but you can learn a ton from these guys and exactly how

00:08:42 - they do it so now you see green numbers on the left and then you also see the red numbers on the right so i'm turn with my shoulders about half as much with my shoulders and 23 degrees less with my hip turn that's the start of slicing we can go right up to the top of the swing as you also notice in here the difference in my knee flex changes compared to the other side how much more that's changed and then also the angle of my left arm how much more that's pushed away from me and this one's ever

00:09:13 - so slightly starting to move inward let's just go up to the top that's the swing of the slicers and then there's the swing of someone who can hit a push in a draw they take away some of these lines and let's talk one more time about this top of the swing notice how my knee flex hasn't changed very much especially my trail knee over here how that little window of opportunity right between my legs is occurring there how much longer my swing is as opposed to this one so 68 degrees of

00:09:43 - shoulder turn this one's in the mid 80s and 38 degrees of hip turn this one's in the low 20s that's the beginning of the next picture let's go right down here we'll go back one frame and let's take a look at the difference in the path of the club so from right here the direction of my swing is slightly into out and then this one is slightly out to end that's the beginning of slicing on both of those so if you want to get your swing measured to figure out where you live on

00:10:16 - the spectrum that's what golf tech does we measure swings like this and we can make this information as complicated or as simple as you want i think this one is so simple but it's so misunderstood in the whole golf world people don't realize that at this point at the time during a swing about 60 of your shoulder turn is done by right here when the shaft is parallel to the ground if you don't do that you're ready to fall victim to the mistakes and the excuses that we

00:10:42 - hear all the time of i'm not flexible enough or i just sit at my desk too long anyone can learn to do this just have to know how to do it enough so follow us on our social channels here if you really like content like this and go ahead and like the the video below just click the thumbs up if you want to see some more like this like the videos and keep watching our content thanks

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