Golf Swing Path The Figure 8 Concept

Perhaps the biggest confusion in the golf swing relates to the golf swing path.

You will often hear good players talk about figure 8's, but what exactly do they mean by this? And why are they describing such a feel.

Before we begin please let me share my experience in giving over 12,000 golf lessons. I have found that 99 percent of golfer's are very aware of such terms as inside and outside paths, and those outside are trying to get more inside and for those inside the opposite is true, but the question is are they improving with such information?

So here it is, the golf swing is a geometrical orientated Linear path, end of story.

This explains why fixing an outside path with such instruction as swinging to one o'clock will not work as it is not linear. Linear means the club head needs to travel along the target line for a length of time, not all the time, or not towards one o'clock.

So how is this achieved?

The body or the pivot direction will determine whether or not this can happen. The movement needs to be a figure 8 through the hips related to their direction.

How this happens is the right hip turns back and loads into the inside of the right heel, then we bump towards the left toe, then around into the left heel.

When this is achieved the arms will work in the correct direction.

Trying to create store up is not the answer, sure we use radial acceleration to develop power, however this cannot be achieved correctly without the linear path.

The (outside in) problem is created when the hips move in the wrong direction. This can occur at several stages whether within the backswing or the downswing. For example spinning the hips on the way down without the lateral move will create arms that move too far away from the body.

It's an incredible experience when all this is working. The feeling I get on the downswing is my left arm is gradually extending until it is fully straight at impact, and I can hit as hard as I like!

The opposite is true should the mechanics not be correct, with a straight left arm too early in the dowswing and a chicken wing through the ball.

So what the good player's are describing with the figure 8 feel is the around, bump around feel, it is infact a figure 8.

Perhaps the best example of this has been player's like Ben Hogan post war and Sir Nick Faldo ( although he never did hit it with the left wrist flat like Hogan did for more acceleration, his size however helped with his power, much bigger in stature than Hogan was.

For your swing start with the set-up. Are you too far behind the ball to begin in relation to the upper and the lower body as they have to balance?

Get yourself stacked with the shoulders above the hips and a slight spine angle where the top of the spin is slightly further away from the target than the base of the spine.

From here work on getting the right hip turning back and loading into the inside of the right heel, then bump towards the left toe, then around into the left heel.