How one piece of duct tape can give your backswing a power boost

As they say, duct tape fixes everything — even your golf swing. And the best part of this swing tip is that nobody can accuse it of being a Band-Aid solution.

Alright, enough of the bad jokes, because this actually is a handy (handyman, even) swing tip I came across the other day via our friends and partners at GOLFTEC. It’ll help your backswing, (and before we get going, you can follow the link right here to book your own swing evaluation, clubfitting and/or tune-up before the season swings into primetime.)

Let’s get to the tip. The problem is that lots of higher-handicappers tend to make a backswing like you see below. They sway off the ball — two inches more, according to GOLFTEC’s SwingTru study, — and pair that move with about seven degrees less of shoulder tilt. Both those swing killers combine for an open clubface and more often than not, consistency issues.

Which is where the piece of tape comes in. Pull a piece about two feet long and attach it from the center of your chest to your lead thigh (for right-handed golfers, that means their left thigh). Once you do that, your goal is to make your backswing and separate the tape from yourself so it’s no longer attached at the top of your backswing. This’ll improve your backswing in two ways.

  1. It’ll prevent you from swaying by putting your spine into flexion at the top of the backswing.
  2. It’ll increase the length of your arm swing, which will result in more clubhead speed.

And all with a piece of tape! You can check out the full video below, and book your own trip to a GOLFTEC right here.

Luke Kerr-Dineen

Golf.com Contributor

Luke Kerr-Dineen is the Game Improvement Editor at GOLF Magazine and GOLF.com. In his role he oversees the brand’s game improvement content spanning instruction, equipment, health and fitness, across all of GOLF’s multimedia platforms.

An alumni of the International Junior Golf Academy and the University of South Carolina–Beaufort golf team, where he helped them to No. 1 in the national NAIA rankings, Luke moved to New York in 2012 to pursue his Masters degree in Journalism from Columbia University. His work has also appeared in USA Today, Golf Digest, Newsweek and The Daily Beast.