Video Tip: Lengthen Your Backswing Through a Proper Pivot

If you’re looking to make a longer backswing, you must start with the proper pivots. Allen Terrell from the Dustin Johnson Golf School at TPC Myrtle Beach shows you how to do that in this video tip.

Allen Terrell:
I had a question from one of our followers on Instagram of how to lengthen your back swing. It’s a very dangerous objective if you don’t try to do it the proper way. The two improper ways of trying to lengthen your backswing: when we say a long swing, we want to make sure that this lead wrist isn’t cupping or extending and that’s creating a long swing. That would not be a good way. The other way that we see the wrong way of trying to lengthen their swing is they separate their arms too much and this right shoulder goes too internal and they create a lengthy swing that way. Okay, that’s not the right way.

Long swings that you see on tour is from a good pivot, obviously, some good flexibility. If you see a good player with a long swing, it’s from how their body moves. One is, you cannot have a long swing if you swing back and you stay forward flexion, or bent down or your chest too low. You see the guys, DJ, Bubba, Rory. You’re going to see that, one, their trail side is very extended. Their right leg is straightening. Their chest is actually rising up a little bit. That extension gives them, obviously, quite a bit more than a 90-degree shoulder turn, and that’s how they have longer swings. It’s not a goal of theirs to have a longer swing, it’s just from a good body motion.

Try to get that length of swing through good pivots!