Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.
Consistency is king in golf. Anyone can hit an occasional great shot, but the key to becoming an elite golfer is consistently executing those shots over and over again.
The problem is, consistency in the golf swing is hard to come by. From the moment you take the club away to the moment you hit the ball, lots can go wrong. To hit great shots more frequently, you need a swing that is consistent and repeatable.
One of the biggest golf swing killers comes in the form of poor sequencing. As you can see in the video below from Athletic Motion Golf, this happens when your body and your arms lose connection during the swing.
“In a good golf swing, the arms, they absolutely need to swing to be in good balance,” says Athletic Motion Golf founder and GOLF Top 100 Teacher Shaun Webb. “It’s matching [your arms] up with [your body] and learning to blend those together. That makes a good-looking, on-plane, consistent golf swing.”
When those components — the arms and the body — get out of sync, you run into problems. If you fire your hips too quickly and the arms lag behind, you’ll get stuck and hit blocks and hooks. And if you turn your shoulders too far ahead of the hips, you’ll get steep on the downswing and lose power.
“That’s where the issue of not being synced up comes from, and it kills consistency,” Webb says.
To help with your sequencing, we turn to another Top 100 Teacher in Debbie Doniger. Earlier this year, she posted a video that explains a key move in transition that can help you stay in sequence all the way through impact.
“Feel your trail hip, or even your pelvis, stay closed or loaded in transition,” she says.
This feeling should keep your hips from firing too quickly and outracing your arms to the ball. Try it next time you feel your sequencing getting out of whack and you should be back to hitting it pure in no time.
