What should the downswing feel like?
Emily Ross
Published Jan 13, 2026
To improve your swing path, use the following points during your downswing: Feel more weight shift and lower body rotation. Feel as though your right elbow stays close to your side. Feel you keep your club head pointing behind you during your downswing.
What should you feel in the downswing?
To improve your downswing, feel like you squat and then push upward. The front leg has to straighten.
How relaxed Should a golf swing be?
To get an idea of how much relaxation you need, bend forward and let your arms hang until it feels as though your arms are falling out of their sockets. All the muscles around your shoulder joints must be completely relaxed. Now, address the ball and let your shoulders go completely limp.
Why does golf swing feel unnatural?
Anytime you employ a “pushing” force against the shaft, the club responds by trying to rotate around its balance point. Once you do this, you don't have a swing. The only way to hit the ball is to muscle it through impact. This causes a physically uncomfortable swing and is HIGHLY inconsistent!
What should move first in your downswing?
Rotate Hips Before Arms
The rotation of the body coming down helps drop the hands to start the downswing, and to move them out in the transition.
32 related questions foundWhere should the right elbow be in the downswing?
With your trail arm in a good position the lower body can initiate downswing and pass control to the upper torso, then to the arms in the proper sequence. Having the right elbow in the proper position at the top allows the trail arm to move externally and under the lead arm resulting in a shallowing of the club shaft.
How hard should you swing the golf club?
In golf, you should swing as hard as you can without losing your balance and posture. The longer you can hit the ball off the tee, the easier scoring becomes as you'll leave yourself less distance into the green.
How loose should arms be in golf swing?
Arm Slot. Teaching professional Shawn Clement agrees that the player's arms should drop to begin the downswing, but he says they must drop into the right position. Clement advises players to focus on dropping their arms in front of the body, while keeping their hands on the proper swing plane.
What is a golf swing supposed to look like?
Your left arm should remain straight, but not rigid, and your right elbow should point to the ground. The hands should swing back to 11 o'clock, with the hands and arms under the club, supporting its weight. Your right hip and ankle and your left lat muscle should feel stretched and ready to spring toward the target.
Should there be tension in the golf swing?
Ideally, on a scale of 1-10, your grip pressure should feel like a 4. On short game shots, try for a 3, or even 2! Most importantly, keep your grip pressure consistent throughout the entire swing. Change in grip pressure is a killer in both the short game and full-swing shots.
Why does my golf swing look stiff?
Rotation of your body is an integral part of your golf swing and is likely one of the variables causing you to feel that early season stiffness. Just look at how much this skeleton from Evil Dead 2 has to rotate on his golf swing! Rotation in the golf swing comes from two key places: your hips, and your upper back.
Why is golf swing so difficult?
This is because the golf swing has been over analyzed to the point that natural movements that happen without thought are being taught as things you need to think about. And by you trying to sync all these tips into one movement that lasts less than 2 seconds … well, it becomes difficult.
Do hips move first in downswing?
Once the slight pause at the top has been completed, it's time to start the downswing. The first element that starts this sequence on the way down is the hips. If you're too quick on the way down, usually it's the upper body that starts first which makes it nearly impossible to rotate your hips fast enough.
What does shallowing the club feel like?
Shallowing the golf club means that you get the club to flatten out more horizontally on the way down. Most golfers instead, have an over the top, casting motion which leads a steeper plane on the downswing. This can produce fat shots, skinny shots, and big misses to the right.
How do I stop swaying in the golf downswing?
Take the club and put your hands on both ends, putting pressure on either side to hold the shaft between your hands. Next, make a few body turns back and through while holding the shaft. Keeping pressure on either end of the shaft will help eliminate the sway and force you to turn properly.
Do you swing your arms in the downswing?
On your down swing the right arm becomes the power and the left arm becomes the guide. Continue to keep your left arm straight to maintain the maximum arc, and continue to keep the radius of your right arm as close to your body as possible.
What should arms feel like in golf swing?
The golf swing should feel effortless, with minimal tension. Think of it like a coiled spring: as you rotate and load into the backswing, you are storing up energy (just as a coiled spring would) before releasing all that energy – in one sweeping downswing motion – through the ball at impact.
Do you drop your arms in the downswing?
Teaching professional Shawn Clement agrees that the player's arms should drop to begin the downswing, but he says they must drop into the right position. Clement advises players to focus on dropping their arms in front of the body, while keeping their hands on the proper swing plane.
What happens when you swing too fast in golf?
If you loose grip of the club then that is another sign that you are swinging too fast and need to slow it down. If you lose balance then you are going to need to slow your swing down because that is another sign that you are swinging your club too fast.
How slow should you swing a golf club?
It can be tempting to swing fast when you practice, but sometimes the quickest path to improvement comes from taking things slow. The typical backswing takes 0.8 seconds while the downswing averages 0.2 to 0.4 seconds. In other words, the golf swing is a short and explosive movement.
How fast should you swing irons?
If you use a 3-iron or wood, your swing speed is probably less than 60 mph; a 4-iron is 60-75 mph; a 5-iron is 75-84 mph; a 6- or 7-iron is 84-93 mph; and an 8- or 9-iron is over 93 mph.
Where should hips be impacted?
Ideally, you want your hips to be around 45 degrees open in the backswing, and 40 degrees open at impact. Too much hip turn in the takeaway will make it difficult to get your hips open enough when it comes to striking the ball, which can hurt your swing.
How far should my hips turn in the backswing?
As GOLFTEC's Nick Clearwater says in the video above, average PGA Tour players turn their hips between 30 and 40 degrees, based on where they started, by the time they get to impact. “There aren't many who fall outside of that range,” Clearwater says. “Though it does happen on occasion.”