I’d have to say out of the two shoulders the right one (for a righty of course) is where I spend a lot of my time explaining and talking about to people.

The left shoulder simply turns in a downward motion as the right shoulder turns upward.

We want the shoulders to have turned 90 degrees or so at the top of the swing around the spine. But what most people struggle with is a little extension with the right side of the body during the backswing. This facilitates the right shoulder to move up and the left shoulder to move down.

During the downswing as the right shoulder moves back down and the left shoulder moves back up, this time the left side of the body will extend to allow the left shoulder to move in an upward motion.

See below how Rory and Tiger both stretch their left side during impact. Their left shoulder is high and their right shoulder  is low. This is impossible without a certain amount of stretching or extending with the left Lat. This is what Mike Bennett and Andy Plummer refer to as ‘lean’ in their stack and tilt method. They describe it as leaning towards the target during the backswing (stretching the right side) and away from the target on the downswing (stretching the left side).

Notice the hand location being directly under the left shoulder at impact.

I mentioned the right shoulder probably being the most critical because if this doesn’t guide the hands down into impact correctly we’re in trouble.

Many people turn the left shoulder too high in the backswing which actually plus them out of their posture and then they have to recover by bending back down during the downswing. This then throws the right shoulder alignment off and again we’re in trouble.

Also, the rotation of the shoulders during the swing produces power which throws the left arm off the chest during during the through swing motion. Without question, the faster you can move your right shoulder in the downswing the faster you’ll swing the club and the ball will travel further down the fairway.

As always if you’d like to get in the discussion, please leave a comment below.

Cheers

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