Weight Transfer – The Key to Excellence in Any Sport

There are three fundamentals in golf: they have to do with your feet, your hands, and your head.  The feet control your weight transfer, the key to excellence in any sport; your hands control the club face through your grip; and your head anchors the swing for consistency.  When we understand how these fundamentals form the very core of the golf swing, our chances of success increase exponentially.  Let’s begin with the feet.

The Set Up

When you address the golf ball, the distance between your feet depends on what club your swinging.  The longer shafts like your woods will require a wider stance than the shorter shafts.  In the wider stance your feet are slightly wider than your shoulders.  Your left foot is opened out a little and your right foot is perpendicular to the target line.

As you swing, your weight is going to shift from evenly balanced to a little to the right and then back to the left as you hit the ball.  It’s the same motion as when you hit a baseball: balanced, load up on the right side as the pitcher delivers and then step left into the ball.  The same motion as when you hit a tennis ball: balanced, right and then step left into the ball.  The same motion as slapping a puck or throwing a football: balanced, right and then left.

At the address, your weight is equal on each foot.  Let’s say it’s 50/50.  But there is slightly more weight forward, on the balls of your feet.  Here’s how to feel that.  Place your feet in the ‘square’ position so that a line across your toes points straight at the target.  Bend your knees a bit.  Stick your butt out a smidge.  Then bend forward from the waist until you feel the balls of your feet take most of the weight.  Stop there.  That’s the ‘ready’ position.  The same kind of position you’d use when playing other sports.  You’re ready to shift your weight.  Ready to move.

The Backswing

The golf movement is a torquing or twisting of the body: coiling like a spring, and then uncoiling, cocking and releasing.  And part of the coiling involves a little weight shifting from the center to the right side and then left, back into the ball.

You can teach yourself what this feels like without swinging a club.  In fact, it’s probably better to do it without a club so you can concentrate on feeling the weight shifting in your feet.  Try the following:

1. Take a wide stance; feel your weight equally distributed on each foot, and slightly forward in the ready position.  Let your arms hang straight down.
2. Now, without moving your head, and without moving your hands, start the weight transfer by rolling the left foot in a little.  Your hips will start to turn clockwise.  As you roll the left foot in and your hips turn, some weight will move to the right side.  As it does, feel the pressure under the ball of your right foot.  The extra weight is loading up there.  This is the natural cocking motion of the swing.
3. Be sensitive to where the extra weight is under your right foot.  Keep it under the ball of your foot.  If you let the heel take the extra weight you’ll be out of balance and you’ll have a problem in the downswing.
4. Work at this shift of weight slowly until you feel the weight in the cocked position is more on the right than on the left.  Let’s call it 40% on the left foot and 60% on the right foot.  So, you’re moving from 50/50 to 40/60 and back again to 50/50.  Repeat this a few times.  Roll the left foot in, hips rotate: feel the weight shift slightly to the right foot.  Cock, release.  Weight shifts, release.

In order to make sure that you’re rotating your hips instead of just sliding them sideways, watch your belt buckle and make it move from a 12 o’clock position to somewhere in the vicinity of 2 o’clock.  Cock, release.  And remember to keep your head still and not sway back to the right in the cocking action.  Twist, don’t sway.

The Downswing

In the downswing, you’re going to release all the way through the ball and get your weight completely onto your left foot, something like a 90/10 distribution.  Here’s how.

1. The downswing begins with your hands and arms moving in unison.  But since we are not using our hands and arms in this exercise yet, just push off the ball of your right foot and let your weight start to move back to the left.  The push will make your hips start to slide towards the ball.
2. As your weight transfers from right to left, the slide gains speed, and the momentum from this sliding action will bring your weight up onto your left foot.  Your hips will naturally continue to turn towards the target after the weight has shifted, and you’ll end up standing on your left foot, facing down the line at the target.

Pushing off on your right foot starts the hip slide into the ball.  And the hip slide is the critical element that insures the proper transfer of weight, creates power and club head speed and the momentum that allows you to finish up on your left foot.  Pushing off the right foot creates a little burst of speed.  It’s like lighting the afterburner on a jet.  Slide, whoosh, and up onto the left.  No hip slide, no power, no 90/10 distribution and no picture book Ben Hogan finish.

Once you get fairly comfortable with this movement and can move through the downswing by sliding your hips left and standing up on to your left foot, try extending your arms and swinging them.  Start with your hands a foot or so apart.  Then gradually bring your palms together.

Now, the downswing will begin with the hands and arms moving in unison.   The push off the right foot follows immediately.  And, the moment of impact, with the palms together, will be just like hitting a baseball: head still, weight forward, hands moving through the ball.  Whack.

You’ve done that before.  You know how to do it.  Your weight has come forward maximizing power, your head is still and you’re eyes are focused on the ball as your arms swing through the hitting zone.  You’ve coiled and uncoiled, you’ve cocked and released.  Boom.

The first Fundamental in golf is all about your feet and the transfer of your weight.  You have to have balance.  And, you have to shift your weight naturally and comfortably away from, and then into, the ball.

Here are the five key moments:

1. Ready position, 50/50 weight distribution
2. Load the right side, 40/60
3. As down swing begins, push off the right foot
4. Slide the hips forward and into the ball, and
5. Stand up on your left foot, 90/10

(Cover Photo Credit)