The Mystery Of The Transition

All quality strikers increase knee flex through transition. It’s the way to do it. If you bend your knees the head is going to drop-as it should.

Then depending upon how the torso works, a player can pull back with the torso to resist the club from moving away from them due to centrifugal force, straightening slightly at the waist like Nicklaus OR they can stay down longer through the impact arena with a more level rotation and lower hands that maintain wristcock as Player did.

Most players-even very good ones-do raise their hands somewhat through impact-centrifugal force wants to do this, so your ability to resist this is going to have to do with strength and a definite assist in how you setup the lie angles of your equipment. The wider road to consistency and control would revolve around if you can assign power to post impact rotational acceleration-and the more the merrier.

If you have the pivot go beyond the call of duty and substitute that in place of right elbow straightening or shoulders steepening, left knee straightening and wrists uncocking upwards-the more solid and reliable your swing is going to become. If you can do this from flexed knees through impact you also have the advantage of flatter lie angles to help reduce your bad shot dispersion because of the positive geometry that comes with that.

Stabilizing low point consistency of the strike (where the middle of the divot is) creates the big concern for proper strikes and its really important if you want solid repeatable shots. As such trying to keep the head still from address to long after the ball has gone is a fool’s intention. The head moves where it has to move based on turn, weight shift, knee flex and body rotation.

To get a better sense of transition try this- As you approach the top of the backswing , could even be before that-quickly drop or flex your knees as if someone had pulled a chair out from underneath you. Now notice how the golf club changes direction-behind you. 

If you believe in using the torso to keep moving through impact and beyond then this drop is a great way to save some of that body range of motion to turn and rotate for later.

As such there is absolutely nothing wrong with a loopy or indirect backswing. This feeling of looping the club from one way to another in transition and relating to the backswing really does keep us feeling that the swing is a flow and not a start and stop again action.

Jim Furyk and Lee Trevino-outside on the backswing to dropping inside. Bobby Jones and Sam Snead-more inside on the takeaway and then over the backswing plane coming back down.

Movement. Motion. Pressure.

Force cannot happen much at all if we are attempting to go up down or back and through on the same line.

The right elbow at transition is going to move and act according to how other things in the swing are functioning.

For instance if your late release is very good and you can lead the right elbow longer ahead of the grip towards the 4:30 entry path and the journey to impact, you will be much more comfortable with the idea of firing the hands late in the downswing. Hence the term "late hit"

This late hitting action will make it much easier for you to feel the club dropping a bit more passively at transition and you will feel the club move into the third dimension behind you . As Bobby Jones eloquently states above. 

The arms will remain more rotated to keep the wrists cocked for longer as the transition and downswing become less forced.

The more the arms are rotated the more the hands can feel like they stay out in front of the body ,rather than behind the right hip.

Your ability to start the downswing with knee flex will allow you to feel the club behind you which will help move that right elbow underneath and out closer in front of your body.

All these capabilities will have a great deal to do with how strongly you have worked the post impact-because the stronger and more aggressive the after impact is- the easier it will be for the golfer to fire from a deeper more slotted position without fear of the ball going left.

And because the release is firing, the right side of the course will be eliminated also. All that remains is more than likely to be straight!!!

Strength and Intention of what you want to do beyond the ball WILL have a direct bearing on how your downswing functions and how your swing path inclines. This ALL occurs to help meet the demands of what is coming later in the swing rather than a distinct action of over trying to put the club in a better position in this area of the swing.

To find out more visit bradleyhughesgolf.com to book your personal lesson or online lesson OR find all the secrets to the pointers mentioned in this article sign up for the "Online Drill Series" that attackes ALL this head on.