Simplify Your Swing

The modern swing is all about using the bigger muscles in the torso - the stomach and the shoulders. Controlling the turning motion from here, the 'core’, is the key to consistent ball striking. That’s what the strong young players coming out on tour have been brought up on. The key is to start from a good athletic set-up and focus on combining a dynamic turn with a positive weight shift for a simple and repeating backswing.

For me, the benefit of controlling your motion with the bigger muscles is that you don’t have to worry about what the hands are doing, which for too many golfers seems to have become something of a preoccupation. As long as you have a good grip and you set up to the ball correctly, you will find that a natural hinge is created as you turn and swing the weight of the clubhead.

All this fiddly business of hingeing the wrists early and 'setting’ the club with a conscious hand action is likely to have you picking the club up too early in the backswing, losing width and not turning your body properly.

Strong players today such as Tiger, Ernie Els, Charles Howell and Luke Donald all make a simple move away from the ball and continue on with a big turn. Of course, to achieve that you do need to be reasonably flexible, so within this article you will find a few simple exercises that will help you to develop your flexibility and make this simple two-step backswing easy to repeat with every club in the bag.

First base - a primed athletic set-up has to be everyone's starting point 

Count "one" as you make your first move, keeping both arms relatively straight and your grip relaxed as you establish the width and the tempo of your backswing 

A count of "two" coincides with a full turn of the shoulders to complete this simple two-step backswing. Note that a braced right thigh provides the resistance as your weight flows into the right side

Iron Play - Follow basic principles for a compact swing

The way you set up to the ball naturally determines the shape and plane of your swing with the irons. That's why it is so important you work on your posture and your alignment, to give yourself the best chance of repeating a good swing.

Here I have a 6-iron, for which I like to have the ball pretty much in the middle of my stance, while my weight is evenly balanced between the feet. As you can see, my hands are only fractionally ahead of the ball with this mid-iron, the hands relaxed on the grip. 

From a good set-up, I want you to focus on this concept of a 'two-step' backswing.

The first move again sees the left arm work comfortably across the chest as you gently turn your upper body away from the target.

There is nothing complicated about this move.

All you are doing is controlling the swing with a gentle turn of the stomach and shoulders, the hands passive to this point.

Check the position of the clubface when you get it to here.

As the shaft reaches parallel, the toe should be pointing up towards the sky.

To create a good athletic posture, you simply bend over from the hips, flex the knees, and stick your butt out. That's important as it enhances the quality of your spine angle, leaving your arms free to hang down comfortably from the shoulders. As you can see, the alignment of the feet, hips and shoulders is square to my target.

Use legs for balance as you turn to the top

Once you have negotiated the first move, completing your shoulder turn is all it takes to arrive at a compact backswing position. And this is as far as you need to swing back with the irons - you don’t need to worry about getting the shaft all the way to parallel.

This is compact and easy to repeat. The legs work like shock-absorbers to balance the turning motion and you have established good width - all the ingredients you need for solid ball-striking.

The key to realising long-term benefit is to train a little and often.