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The transition is one of the most important parts of the golf swing, particularly when you’re hitting the driver. I use this feeling to master the start of my downswing.

This feeling is how I like to start my downswing with every club, but especially the driver. Basically, I’m trying to feel that when I get to the top of the backswing, my lead side bumps a couple of inches towards the target, before then rotating my body to the left.

Why this transition move works for your driver swing

If you can master this move, it’s going to help to clear your hips, which is so important to hit good drives.

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If you get to the top of the backswing and begin to move the hands or the arms before you start to rotate your body, you’ll then start to fall back onto your trail side. If you can’t move to your left side through the shot, you’re going to lose power, and will rely too much on your hands and arms. That’s going to give you pretty weak shots, and promote some mishits as all the power in a shot comes from our core and lower body, not the hands and arms, and your timing will suffer as a result.

Transition in driver swing — Feel like you break a wall with your left hip as you start your downswing.

The feeling I have in the image above is that I’m standing with my hip beside a wall and at the top of my backswing, I want to break through that wall. That’s crucial to my transition in my driver swing. Making that bump forward is going to help transfer my weight to the left, which is key to getting more out of my swing.

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Don’t worry if you sway in your backswing

It’s only natural to sway slightly away from the ball in the backswing, which is what you want to hit it a long way. That’s going to mean that as we move away from the ball, our right hip gets further away from the ball, but as we rotate through impact, our left hip gets further from the ball.

Ailsa Murphy is a PGA Professional at Peebles. You can book a virtual lesson with her through Skillest and follow her on TikTok.