Golf Instruction for Maintaining Width in Your Golf Swing

When it comes to developing a powerful golf swing with a proper form, many people talk about maintaining width in a golf swing. What this means is keeping your arms wide and away from your body as you swing to harness power for long distances.
The thing is, not everyone needs extra help in maintaining width in their golf swing. Overcorrecting can have a negative effect on your form. To gain a better understanding of the importance of width in a golf swing and how this may or may not be relevant to your golf instruction, we’re breaking down the pros and cons of width in a golf swing, or the width in a backswing in golf, and how golf workouts play a key role in this skill. 

Do You Need Width in Your Golf Swing?

You may often hear golfers say that they want to get more width in their golf swings. Although this is a fundamentally sound objective for most players, there are times, as with most golf swing tendencies, when there may be a misguided correction taking place. 
Doing so can compromise the efficiency of the swing. The first step is to better understand the swing tendency in which width or structure is lost and then identify the proper prescription to change that tendency.
Working with a golf coach like the ones at The Golf Performance Center is a surefire way to get your swing evaluated and determine whether your golf swing could benefit from more width. 

Maintaining Width in Your Golf Swing

A loss of width in the backswing can be looked at in different ways. If someone’s lead arm (left arm for right-handed players) breaks down, then this can be seen as a loss of width. 
But, how about if the trail arm folds too much even though the lead arm appears fairly straight? This is usually an indication that the lead arm has worked too far across the chest and the grip of the club is too far in front of the sternum. 
Many players will simply look to create width in the backswing which can lead to more issues and compensations, only making matters worse as the lead shoulders protract in a reaching manner. This puts the body in a more compromised position and makes the golf club harder to control.
A typical mistake is to create width early on in the golf swing, but this leads to the body narrowing in at the top when you fully raise the club. This will have a serious impact on your control.
The opposite of this is taking the golf club back too close to your body – or too much on the inside – and then maintaining width as you bring it to the top.
However, the benefits of adding and maintaining width on a golf swing are more power in your backswing and more energy released as you hit the golf ball, leading to greater distance. If you want width in a backswing in golf, there are a few things you can do to achieve this. 

How to Create Width in Your Golf Swing

One golf swing width drill you can do to make sure you aren’t adding width too early in your swing is to place a head cover under your arm and take your backswing, making sure not to drop the head cover as you do so. By the time you’re at the top of your swing, your arm should open up to drop the head cover. This is what you want for width in a backswing in golf.
But it’s also important to note that the cause of loss of width in the backswing is usually rooted in poor rotation, which is a result of poor posture and physical limitations. When the body does not rotate well, then the arms will look to make up for that by working across the body and structure is lost. 
Therefore, the remedy is in improving rotation so that the arms can perform their role properly: working up and down to create a leveraged position at the top. Improving rotation really comes down to your overall golf fitness.

Golf Workouts to Improve Width in a Golf Swing

At The Golf Performance Center, physical fitness is one of our 5 Elements of Success that enables a golfer to reach his or her full potential. If your golf instruction or golf lessons focus only on golf skill without building up physical skills like rotation, your golf game is not going to improve without our holistic approach.
By working with a golf coach here at GPC, you can be certain that golf workouts will play a key role in your journey to improve your overall game. From a golf swing width drill to drills devoted to improving rotation, your golf coach will have a personalized recommendation ready for you. 
If you have issues with maintaining width in your golf swing, then take a deeper look at cause and effect. How is your rotation? How is your posture? Do you have any physical limitations? Allow a golf coach to evaluate where you stand now and help you get to where you want to go.
 

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