On the heels of one of the most exciting Masters in history, Charl Schwartzel was able to fend off the charging competition to win his first PGA Tour event and Major. While demonstrating remarkable composure, Schwartzel appeared to be destined for greatness after chipping in on the first hole for birdie and then sinking an approach shot for eagle on the third hole. He seemed to be in command of his ball all day and birdied the last four holes in a row en route to winning the year’s first major championship. One of the greatest parts about Schwartzel’s consistency this week was his ability to reproduce a consistent alignments in his setup.

 Recent topics about the address position of the golf swing arose the question  as to whether or not the right forearm should be setup on the same plane as the clubshaft at address. Master’s champion Charl Schwartzel sets up with his right forearm above the clubshaft plane and you should as well.

Putting the right forearm on plane at address means that the right elbow (right-handed golfer) will have significantly more bend (flexion) at address than if the arms were to just naturally hang. This will prevent the elbow from bending (flexing) incrementally in the backswing which prevents the left wrist from cocking incrementally as well. Next,  if the elbow is bent too much at the address position, the club will have a tendency to be taken away too inside on the backswing.

With the right forearm on plane at address the increased bend in the right elbow will have a tendency to tilt the shoulders to the right and lead to very flat shoulder turns. Finally, with the elbow already significantly bent at the address position, most golfers will continue to flex the right arm in the backswing leading to over-flexed right arms, bent left arms, leading to the clubshaft crossing the line at the top. 

Instead, allow your arms to hang naturally at the address position and try to feel as if you are continuously trying to keep your right arm straight in the backswing  to help improve your backswing alignments!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 12th, 2011 at 4:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.