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GET THE RUST OFF YOUR GAME! Part 4: The Club Set

The fourth key element that I’m looking at to really help get the rust out of my golf swing is having the club properly set on my backswing. We’ve had a nice job looking at our grip, our posture, and certainly our takeaway- this next one is incredibly important. Once we have the takeaway its now looking at making sure that the club is set properly in order to load the backswing for the most power that we can get out of it. 

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So there’s really two things I look at in the club set position every spring of course that I’m really rusty at and it might help you as well. The first one is once you’ve done your takeaway and you’ve gotten the club back I usually stop with the club parallel to the ground. And at this position I really want to make sure that my club is rotating properly. For me, that position when the club is parallel to the ground, is that the club face (in this case an 8-iron) is pointed straight up at the sky. I should be able to now rotate my body 90 degrees, put the club back down, and be completely perpendicular to my initial target. So again, we get over the ball, we’ll move our club back, and when the club is parallel to the ground, again see that club face it  should be pointed straight up to the sky. For me I tend not to rotate my club very much on the way back in the spring, so here it gives me a nice chance to be able to check to make sure that my club is opening up and that my alignment is proper to the target. So again you should be able to move 90 degrees sideways to be able to bring the club back down perpendicular, but you’ll also notice at this position that when my club is pointing straight up to the sky that my club path should be pointing straight down towards my target as well. I get really sloppy with this in the spring, especially with all the new movement after taking the winter off, so again make sure that when that club is parallel to the ground, the club face is pointing straight up to the sky, and the club shaft is pointing straight down to your target.  

Here’s a little hack that I have in my golf swing that I look at to really kind of help make sure that my club is set properly on my backswing. So, the wrists have to hinge in your golf swing on the way back, and that’s a great way in order to generate a lot of power in your golf swing, what a lot of people do is they don’t hinge their wrists properly and I’m in the same boat as well on my backswing. So there’s a way of being able to check that - have the club pointing straight out, like we did in our posture video, making sure that the club is parallel to the ground, but in this case instead of bringing it down to check for our posture, what I want you to do is to take the club and try to point it straight up to the sky. My wrists are really inflexible after taking the winter off, you’ll notice that over the summer I’ll be able to get a bit more wrist hinge, but for right now have that club parallel to the ground, point it straight up to the sky, and then move it back into position. That’s the way that your wrists should be moving on your backswing, it’s not any of these awkward ways that you see a lot of people (myself included) come out of the winter with, it’s being able to have that club parallel, bend your wrists straight up, and then move it back to that position that we had when the club was parallel to the ground. 

So again in this position you’re really starting to now point your wrists straight up. You really need to have a wrist hinge in your golf swing in order to  generate the maximum amount of power, and certainly I want to come out of the spring season with a lot of power in my golf game. So being able to have those wrists hinge properly, combine the two elements together, club parallel to the ground, then hinge those wrists straight up, and again a great little hack for that is have the club right out in front of you, bend the wrists, put them back into position, and you’ll notice that my club is hopefully on the correct plane for my body to really generate a lot of power in my golf swing. 

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