Welcome to Shaving Strokes, a new GOLF.com series in which we’re sharing improvements, learnings and takeaways from amateur golfers just like you — including some of the speed bumps and challenges they faced along the way.
If you find yourself shifting your weight wrong in the golf swing, there’s a good chance that you have no control over where the ball actually ends up.
You may spray it right. You may hook it left. You may even get lucky and actually hit one down the middle of the fairway. Regardless of the outcome, you don’t have the “why” helping provide the reason your ball goes where it does.
Weight transfer in the golf swing is key to hitting solid shots. Just watch videos of any all-time great ball-strikers like Ben Hogan, Moe Norman, or, more recently, Tiger Woods or Rory McIlory, and you’ll see how they’re able to shift their weight at the right time in the backswing.
By doing this, they generate speed through their hips, maximizing each swing to perfection.
Now, look, neither you nor I are those type of players, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn some basic fundamentals when it comes to shifting your weight.
To help provide some insight, GOLF Teacher to Watch Rick Silva speaks about the differences between good and bad players, and shares a quick tip on how to correct a common issue with the latter.
How to properly shift your weight in the golf swing
In the video above, Silva starts by stating the obvious: How every good golfer knows they need to shift the weight forward on the downswing.
Next, he uses an alignment stick (available here) to demonstrate how the upper body should look in the golf swing, and how the weight should shift throughout the entire motion.
“Imagine if we were to lay an alignment stick right across our hips,” Silva says. “Here’s what golfers who struggle with doing that actually do.”
“Here we are at address, and, in a backswing, this [the alignment stick] rarely moves, causing us to drift off in our backswing with our upper body.
“This creates too big of a separation between our upper body and the middle of our pelvis. So on the downswing, we start to move our lower body, and the center of our pelvis actually goes backwards,” Silva adds.
As for the good golfer, Silva then demonstrates how they’re able to shift their weight properly.
Like the superb ball-strikers mentioned earlier, Silva says that, golfers who do this, are more likely to hit the ball with power and precision.
“The good player starts swiveling the [imaginary alignment stick] to the right, and then right at the top of our backswing, our upper body actually settles right between our feet.
“What happens here is, this propels our pelvis forward, allowing the [club] shaft to swivel,” he says. “That’s what helps us get our weight forward and hit great golf shots.”
