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hey guys Herman Williams here with Herman Williams Golf and the Get
Hermanized Project. I'm coming to you today to talk about
the golf swing takeaway
I get a lot of questions about this on my website and YouTube
channel
and I've never actually done a video dedicated just to the takeaway itself
mentioned it and a lot in other videos but never done one directly on this topic
so let's dive right into the subject. the first thing I wanna say it's been like
four years but
you might want to look at 2 older videos about the setup. we want
to get generally good posture in a good setup position to start that take away
from
really quickly one important things we talked about in those videos was how
when you grasp the club in the lead arm as a right hander, that's going to be
my left hand here,
grasp it at my side and then get the left arm up over the top on my left pec
muscle up on top of the
chest. Watch Tour players pull that front sleeve up and get on the body
when they're getting set up. so I'm gonna turn to the side here and kinda
put myself in that setup position with left arm over the chest
now I'm in a ready position here.
at least I advocate that the safest best type of golf swing takeaway for all skill
levels of players
is a fairly wide one piece movement
what I mean is that it's got a lotta width to the arc
there've been some
real successful tour players that have done an early wrist set
but I I think it's more complicated I think it's
tougher to learn
if you do it that way now and you can keep the club on plane, stick with it. you
may have no problem but
I think in my estimation over all the years I've been teaching and all the film I've
taken watching amateur players do this,
a wide, simple, one-piece takeaway works the best. So let's
get back and set up to talk about what to do.So the move that we want to make
you literally going to start the motion
thinking about your arms and the club as one big unit
you can think about the arms as a triangle which if you include the shaft you
could think about a capital letter Y
here and i wanna get that "Y" or that triangle started in one piece
moving away from the golf ball. notice it's not low
that's a sweeping takeaway that's been real popularity in the past.
players
keep the club along the ground sweeping and coming way inside too early. that's no
good.
we've all been warned over time ,
be wary of picking the club up too. but to be honest I'd say more often I see the
sweepers versus the outward pick up people.
so anyways I want thee club to move back - it doesn't swing along the ground. it comes up
right out of the ground
first come up in the air that's gonna move up into a position as I arrive
roughly waist-high
you can see it's almost a perfect straight line out from my shoulder and
left arm, down the shaft to the clubhead. the other thing I want you notice if you
look closely is the clubhead itself is not perfectly straight up. you'll see a
lot of
on the older books and a lot of videos probably tell you swing back waist high
with the toe up
well I'm gonna argue that its upward
but not straight up. it's actually got a ten to fifteen degree angle of tilt when
it's done properly. so
go back and look at the set up. You've got the triangle, got the Y
like that one-piece press back and you can see the clubhead has mild angle
to have done no manipulation
now we get some players that are pretty capable of taking it straight back to
but if they roll the left arm and fanned the face open,
no good. gonna lead to problems later on. Then we get the other group which takes the club inside or
and then we've got
the last group that takes it outside. well every one of these is going to lead to a
problem at the top of the backswing. you can be laid off
cross the line with a cupped wrist and open clubface. when you get all these compound issues
and start
moving down, the downswing will be over-the-top, casting.
so you can kinda see the way I teach deals with general cause and effect. on
other thing and
we wanna as early as possible in the backswing
eliminate the mistakes that just get further and further compounded as you move
down.
you know by the time you get back to impact, most of you guys are pretty desperate
because there were five errors all stacked up on top of each other.
okay so what do you want to feel on this move? I'm gonna actually grip the club
in one hand with my left hand here
and what I want my left arm to do is make a left-sided push. I'll go ahead
and push straight back
the right side is pulling, left side pushing. I'll go with less pull and push more often
than not
I'll also add, although it's a little different
some players do better with the idea of the right shoulder blade and
upper back
feeling like it pulls out of the way. It swings the chest open nicely
but I'm definitely aware of pushing with my left hand. so all the drills I wanna
give you
just picture pressing your palm straight
back
should be pressing it straight toward you into the camera here so
straight Press over down the line like so
good to train these at home one-handed. it helps strengthen the hands wrists
and forearms
help you train with a presser club straight away you'll see my chest is
turning
body's going with that Fanning and open not leaving it that closed either
you know closed clubface is a problem
facing straight down, again no good. alright so that's one exercise
and literally just feels like pushing something straight back straight outta
the way
facing the camera the whole time I'm pushing and for the record
the left wrist is gonna pick up while you do that I'll
get a lot of confusion about that. Hey Herman I watched your videos about the flat
wrist at the top
and mine is not flat when I begin the swing. it shouldn't be when you grip the club
in the setup correctly, you will have a little bit of a cupping at the beginning
and its gonna pick up throughout the beginning at take away
that gets us to waist-high. hopefully now you've managed to do it in one piece
you're not sweeping in, you're not handing out
going in a straight line and you've got the clubface at the proper angle
roughly waist-high. now how do we get from here to the top?
two moves in there that I can combine. I just want to know about how those work
together
to get the club on plane with the entire left arm. Of course right arm as well
has got to rotate and is going to rotate from this
face position it looks slightly closed
as we're gonna rise the next two to three feet to get to the top
going to rotate the left arm and hand all
in one move. so we go from here at waist-high
and rise about a foot and a half
as the forearm rolls - entire arm rolls
it gets the shaft laying off behind me as the wrist begins to hinge. depending on
flexibility
you know to continue to move the shoulders to pivot in the backswing
you might get all the way to parallel might be three quarters might just be
right here
but you have an on plane golf swing with a square clubface
a nice flat wrist if you kinda subscribe to my
neutral grip and the flat wrist we've talked about in previous videos.
so that would get you to the top of a really great golf backswing. showing that
almost no excuses for what to do coming down
I think the pitfalls you should know about as I said earlier I mentioned
that already
fanning it open, taking the club inside or picking it up outside
Also if your chest does not turn a little bit here
you know you're going to have a hard time. you can't just arm this thing away.
you get your right arm trapped behind you. so another drill that I like is for
you to just take the butt of the club and attach it
right above your navel and grip down on the shaft.
just practice kinda making these one piece movements - a one piece takeaway.
it is a coordinated move with this triangle
it gets the core moving right away and the face is not rolling or manipulating.
alright so just one more time from the top
set it up, make a straight-back Press
rise and rotate, and hinge into the flat left wrist position at the top of backswing.
okay guys that's it on the golf swing takeaway hope that gives you enough ammo to get out
there and start
practicing your golf swing as you try and improve your golf. I'd appreciate it if you'd like
the video, favorite it, tweet it out to your friends.
just let the world know if it helped you with your golf
Let
all your friends and golf buddies hear about it as well. Also be sure to
subscribe to my YouTube channel
and check my website at www.hermanwilliamsgolf.com. As always I'm Herman Williams
and you've just been Hermaized.