The one-piece takeaway is a mistake.
Some instructors have long preached the importance of a one-piece takeaway, where the club, hands, arms and shoulders start the backswing together. Actually, the clubhead should start first. Some players might feel like they have a one-piece move off the ball, but feel and real aren’t always the same. Taking everything back together gets the club too far inside the target line and starts a chain of events that typically produces a slice.
Looking at the swings of the best players with 3-D technology, you can see that the clubhead moves away from the ball first, followed by the arms, shoulders, torso and, lastly, the hips. This is the proper kinematic sequence, which keeps the club tracking on a good path, so you can simply reverse the order coming down and deliver it efficiently into the ball.
To nail this move, focus on giving the clubhead a head start. This might feel like an earlier wrist set, as opposed to moving everything together. A good thought is, small to big. The smaller muscles of the hands, wrists and arms move before the larger ones of the shoulders, torso and hips. If someone were filming you with the lens square to your chest, it should appear that the clubhead starts before the hands or arms.
Mark Blackburn, voted No.1 by his peers on Golf Digest’s 50 Best Teachers in America, has coached dozens of pros including Justin Rose, Max Homa and Collin Morikawa. His golf academy is located at Greystone Golf & Country Club in Birmingham, Alabama.
Photographs by Jesse Rieser, J.D. Cuban
