Tip Tuesday: Avoiding Bad Takeaways

Mike Rugg from the Steve Dresser Golf Academy, located at True Blue Golf Club and Caledonia Golf & Fish Club in Pawleys Island, S.C., explains why it is so important to have a proper takeaway, and how to achieve it.

Mike Rugg:
Hi, my name is Mike Rugg. I’m here at the Steve Dresser Golf Academy where I’m one of the instructors. We’re located at Caledonia and True Blue golf courses in Pawleys Island, South Carolina.

One of the things that we see is common is bad takeaways. And a golf swing is much like a chain: it’s only as strong as its weakest link. If something goes bad right from the word go, then there’s a series of compensations.

So I want to give you two little drills that you can do in your living room or your office. The first one is a very simple drill that’s been around forever: separate your hands and just allow the club to swing back. One of the things you hear about is the club’s staying outside the hands, and you can see what I’ve done here. I see too much of this, or even this. Lot of rolling and twisting of the golf club. Well, to hit a straight shot, that all has to be reorganized at impact, not always successfully.

Another very simple one, it’s been around forever as matter of fact (my grandfather taught me), is put your hand like you’re going to handshake with someone, and just swing your left arm back to the club, or to your hand, rather. Your club back to your hand. And you can see I’m in a pretty good position here. Again, we don’t want anything twisted too much inside or too much outside. Other than that, if you get going through here, back swing’s just continued rotation from there.