what do you feel on your takeaway?

[forelife]

I'm right handed and I feel like my left side is pushing the clubhead back

[BrianW]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

The left arm should trace the arc of the takeaway to the point where it is in line with your feet with the club pointing up and down the ball and target line.
There should be no use of the torso at this point.

[LowPost42]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

I'm the same - I push back with my left arm.

[tigress]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

Hi,

I also take away with the left 'arm' making sure not to dip my left shoulder.

Tigress

[shootin4par]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

I have my body shift to the right while the left hand pushes the club back, This has helped me to better get behind the ball.

[edshaw]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

For me the feeling is a simple
integrated turn for the purpose
of getting into position to begin
the backswing. Takeaway, in my
school of thought, ends when
hands are hip high.

[tiketyboo]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

Jeez, i thought the takeaway was supposed to be with the shoulders, i'm confused now

[LowPost42]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

Jeez, i thought the takeaway was supposed to be with the shoulders, i'm confused now

Actually, truth be told, the takeaway starts with a small movement of the lips. They usually form the words 'please God, let the ball go where I want it to'.

[rharris06]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

I just use the shoulders! Simple and effective!

[Robert O' Keeffe]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

I start with

[Robert O' Keeffe]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

Sorry, i start with feeling the left grip being lighter than the right. This gives me an easy way of pushing the left hand back at the start of the takeaway. From there, I concentrate on getting the back of the left hand into a flat position, and finally hit down on the back of the ball

[james.welsh]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

Go to any web site where they have videos of good pro swings. Do what they do.

The "one piece take-away" is what a lot of teachers try to ingrain. This is where your chest, arms, hands, shaft and club head ALL move back at the same time until you begin to cock the wrists to begin lifting the club which is where the back swing really gets going.

For me, once I've completed the take-away I have the idea of throwing a sack of potatoes over my right shoulder which by that time will send the club directly up and over toward the target.

Of course there are many schools of thought and I think this approach is considered the "2 plane" swing. A single planer would start thing differently.

[edshaw]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

forelife:

Disregard the collar button on
a dress shirt. Count down three
buttons. Under the soft spot
beneath the breast bone, approx-
imately in the center of the body,
lies the solar plexis. The solar
plexis, so named because, like the
sun, it rules the center.
Imagine the spinning globe, but,
unlike the globe, the rotation is
along no particular axis. This is,
depending on the understanding,
the fourth chakra, understood by
Westerners as a center of instruction
or energy, and by Easterners as
the center of life force that rules
body movement.
Ben Hogan, in his brilliance,
identified the heart, which is
another, the third, center of
life force, in his classic
instruction, "Five Lessons in
the Fundamentals of Golf". Hogan
may be forgiven this tiny over-
sight, because he wrote before
martial arts and Eastern practices
were common knowledge in the West.
Hogan was about four inches from
correctly identifying the fourth
energy center.
It would be a mistake to try to
initiate the takeaway by turning
the solar plexis, but not a mistake
to assign the initial rotation of
the body to that life force center.

[GoNavy]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

I mostly feel a turning of the shoulders as my wrist break upwards. The sense I get is that of my left hand knuckles bending back towards my forearm. I try not to feel any independent movement of my arms and chest, if I do then my swing plane will not be correct. Keep in mind I play with a strong grip, neutural or weak grips will get into trouble doing this type of action. The one thing I never want to do is allow the club to get behind my hands on the backswing, in other words, the plane my hands are on are inside the plane my clubhead travels on until almost the top of the backswing. I just find it easier to accomplish this with a strong grip.

[BrianW]

Re: what do you feel on your takeaway?

A great golf swing will always be a blend of hand, arm and body motion, the takeaway is the same.

The left arm should scribe a very small arc to the inside as it moves away from the ball. Looking down at the clubhead resting in the 12 O' Clock position at address you simply move your arms, club and hands to 2 O' clock. You achieve this with a gentle clockwise rotation of the left forearm. Very little else should happen during this initial stage of the takeaway, in fact all you will have done is move the exact formation of your arms and clubhead at address to a position just inside of the right foot.

When you have reached hip height you will have a good indication of how well the backswing is progressing. Looking down at the ball, your left arm should be positioned directly above an imaginary line running across your toes, the shaft should point directly at the ball to target line.