One of the most popular golf swing killers is sliding in the backswing. For any golfer who regularly does this, you know that it opens up all sorts of issues in your swing sequence, leading to inconsistent contact.
As someone who has struggled with this problem for a long time, I decided it was time to finally get some help.
So I took a golf lesson from top-ranked teacher Kelvin Kelley at Peacock Gap near San Francisco, with the focus being on one thing: Fix my backswing by making it more efficient.
The video below shows the changes, and explains how just a subtle move can help your contact improve, too!
How to Properly Shift Weight and Stop Sliding in the Golf Swing
As the video shows, Kelley gets me in front of a mirror so I can compare the bad versus the good golf swing, and uses an impact bag to help me feel the differences through contact.
To help me from sliding in the backswing, Kelley says to feel like my lead leg is buried into the ground, and to use a push and pull motion for improved rotation.
"Put your tailbone towards the target, and move your head towards your right foot," he instructs. "As you turn, get your chest over your right thigh — which will give you much better shape and fix your club path."
After incorporating the new move into my golf swing, Kelley has me hit some balls on the driving range mat, making sure I maintain the new positions to keep the club on the right swing path.
"[If you were playing baseball] you should feel like you can hit the ball to right field," he tells me. "That'll be big-time in-to-out, so you need to learn to hit it from here."
By creating just the slightest spine angle in my backswing, I'm able to create a more effective golf swing after just a few minutes during Kelley's lesson.
As I continue to take practice swings, Kelley shares external tips to help me feel how this move should feel.
"Your arms should feel a bit more flat," he adds. "Now that I'm turning you more in that direction, everything's got to get a bit more around."
While it's a completely different feel than I'm used to, by making the easy changes, it helps me rotate rather than have the tendency to slide in my golf swing — which can help compress the ball for better results.
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