If you've just started golf or even if you are quite an experienced player, we can often find during a lesson that we may not be using our legs to our fullest potential. It s very easy to not use our legs as we grip the club with our hands so therefore we can fall into a trap of being too upper half dominant. This however can lead to problems such as swinging 'over the top' or a lack of power.
The simplest way of explaining the importance of the legs is imagining you're skimming a rock across a river. In order to generate the power necessary, you will naturally step forward with your lead leg before unleashing the body through, letting go of the rock. We need to feel the golf swing in the same manner whereby we coil up with our upper half first during the backswing and then using our legs to start the downswing.
Jon Rahm actually used a famous exercise as a young golf student with his coach to show the importance of using the legs in the swing. His coach would tell him to swing half way back and then try and hit the ball with as much force as he could. When doing this Jon realised the only way to do this successfully was to engage his legs on the downswing. The feeling you want to have as you start down is the feeling of squatting into the ground while you shift your lower half forward followed by a rotation of the body. This force of squatting into the ground gives you increased power as any force that is pushed against the surface will oppose equally through the club adding swing speed.
If you are too upper half dominant on the downswing, what tends to happen is that you start throwing the club away from the body causing the path to enter into the ball from outside-in. This then causes a slice. This will worsen the longer the club gets as more speed is generated. Also when attempting to use the legs first ensure that you don't turn the body straight away on the downswing. Just ensure the lower half shifts to the left first followed by a rotation of the body. This will start to move the path to more in-out on the follow through giving you 'draws' or straighter shots.
Below is a picture of me maintaining spine angle by having my rear on the chair while I use my legs first on the downswing.
If you'd like any further help in how to use your legs, just contact myself at David Waters Golf.
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