Long Hitters Put Their Backs to Ball

By T.J. Tomasi

Universal Press Syndicate

You’ve seen Tiger Woods with that high left arm just before he ends his swing. That’s a very powerful move that results from the way he starts his downswing: He drops down toward the ball, but he also pulls the club into position using a major back muscle that accelerates the club at a high rate of speed.

I call the mechanism by which Tiger unloads his back to the ball the “lat pull,” and it’s a staple of all long hitters.

Research conducted in the biomechanics lab at Penn State University focused on muscle activity during the golf swing, primarily the left latissimus dorsi of the back (the lat) and the left pectoralis major of the chest (the pec) for the right-handed player? the reverse is true for the left-hander.

During the downswing, the target lat helps rotate your target arm counterclockwise, moving it down and across your chest. The target pec moves the arm in the opposite direction, toward the midline of your body.

In every golf swing recorded in the study, the target lat began its contraction at the start of the downswing, reaching its maximum activity when the arm was just past parallel to the ground ? the position Tiger is in in the first photo below. This action pulled the club down toward the ground and closer to the body, allowing the maximum buildup of energy.

As the pulling action of the back muscle began to subside, the target pec became very active, reaching maximum activity just before impact. This indicates that the role of the pec in the downswing is to put the brakes on the target arm, thereby slowing it down as it approaches the hitting area, and in effect centering the shaft in front of the body.

Slow Down to Speed Up

The message from the research is clear: To have an efficient golf swing, your lead arm must initially speed up as it takes on the energy passed to it from your body coil, then it must decelerate near the halfway point in your downswing in order to pass its energy down the club shaft and into the clubhead at impact.

Thus the recommendation so often heard to “accelerate your arms through impact in order to speed up the club” is incorrect. As a matter of fact, by speeding up your arms during the second half of your downswing, you retain energy in the arms, preventing it from flowing into the clubhead.

This not only robs you of speed where it counts ― at the ball ― but because it would misposition the shaft, it is no doubt responsible for many of the blocked shots and push slices that bedevil those who try to make the club go fast with their arms.

Don’t be caught in this counterintuitive trap: You would think that speeding up your arms at impact speeds up the clubhead, but it does not; it slows the clubhead. Move the clubhead with your back, not your front.