In this article we’ll cover the the basics of how to swing a golf club. As a golf pro I’ve had the pleasure of coaching many beginner players. Below are my top tips for learning how to swing a club club.

Golf grip & setup

The most important part of learning how to swing a golf club is actually your setup. The golf swing is a sequence of events – how you setup and hold the club really dictates the rest of your golf swing.

Build a proper golf grip

Below is a quick step-by-step guide to help you create a great golf grip. If you want more info, check out this full article on mastering a proper golf grip. The way you hold the club affects where the club face points relative to your golf swing – so it is pretty important for deciding where your golf shots will end up!

When you fist swing a golf club with this grip it will feel weird and uncomfortable, but trust me, it really will help you progress as a golfer.

Start with your fingers extended, note the wrist angle to help the club run through the correct part of the hand and fingers

Use this as a checkpoint in a mirror. Note how the hands sit together (bottom right).

There are subtle variations of the golf grip known as the over-lapping, interlocking and ten fingered grip. These relate to how your right hand and left hand link. You can read more here, but in short, make sure your hands are close together and ideally overlapping.

This will feel strange, but allows your hands to work as one unit during the swing, rather than fighting each one another.

The last golf grip tip is on pressure – how hard should you hold the golf club? Image your golf grip is a banana that you have to each after your golf swing. You want to hold it tight enough so that it doesn’t fly off, but too much pressure will bruise it.

Once you have your hands in a good position it is time to move onto mastering your golf posture.

Refine your golf posture

The next stage in swinging a club is to master how to stand. Golfers often struggle to make good contact with the ball, and have the occasional air-shot. This is generally due to poor posture.

Many golfers bend their knees, but setup with their upper body too upright, which leads to the club swinging above the golf ball. Whereas, a great golf posture tilts your upper body towards the ground, meaning when you swing in a circle around your body you’ll find it much easier to return the club to the centre of the ball.

The video below is a really simple way to create a great golf posture. For a more detailed guide on mastering your golf posture and stance check out this article.

Alignment

New golfers tend to worry a lot about where they are aiming, surprisingly they often have great alignment just through natural instinct.

The image below shows the ideal alignment for hitting a golf shot with any iron or wood. The right hand line shows the target line, you should point your club face towards your target.

The left hand line shows how your body should aim parallel to your target line. A great image is to picture these two lines when you setup as a rail track. Your ball and club fall on the right hand rail and your body aims down the left hand rail.

The backswing

When I’m coaching a complete beginner I often help them with their grip and posture, then say ‘right have a swing’. They often look at me confused, but I find this is one of the best ways to start swinging – get your grip and posture sorted, then have a big swing at the golf ball. As I said at the start of the article, your setup dictates the rest of your golf swing.

The following section gives you a little more info for the golf backswing and downswing, but the key gem for swinging a golf club is at the end of the article and it is very simple swing thought.

The backswing requires a turn of your body and a hinge of your wrists. The images below show you from setup how this is achieved. If you have your setup correct you should find that as you turn your body, the wrist automatically want to hinge – as shown by the red lines below.

If we look from down the target line (below) we see the club travels around our body making a circle. Your backswing is going well if the grip of the club is pointing at the golf ball half way back – we call this being ‘on plane’.

A little tip, keeping your right elbow close to your side during the first part of your backswing helps your arms rotate and stay close to your body. For a more detailed guide, check out this ultimate guide to the backswing.

By the time you reach the top of your backswing the club head should be pointing over your right shoulder. With your right elbow and hand sitting under the golf club, as shown in the bottom right hand image.

This position doesn’t guarantee you a perfect golf shot every time. However, from here you’ll be in a great position to unwind through your downswing and return the club back to hit the ball.

Practicing these golf swing positions in a mirror or a window is a great way to build the feeling of a great backswing.

The downswing

If you have made a nice backswing, the downswing is all about unwinding into a balance finish. From the top of your golf swing you should feel your weight shift a little towards your front foot, before you unwind to face your target.

You cane see from the images of Tiger’s golf swing below, the hands and arms begin to fall down, before the hips and chest rotate to face the target.

This sequence of shifting your weight, and sequencing the arms and body is something many golfers struggle with during their golf swing.

If the arms are too active and the body does very little you’ll run out of steam and chop across the ball. This is a common move slicers struggle with. In contrasts, if you only unwind your body the club swing down too close to your body and requires a lot of work to them extend out towards the ball.

What is the answer to this tricking problem when hitting the ball?

Imagine throwing a ball, you don’t stop when you release the ball, you continue to unwind after the ball has left your hand.

The same is true for the golf swing. Unwind into a balanced finish and let the ball get in the way. This may sound too simple, but you’ll be amazed of how this simple though creates a downswing that keeps getting better and better with every attempt.

Again, if you are after more detail here is a link to a guide to mastering your downswing mechanics – we go deep into the downswing sequence.

The follow through

The golf ball has long gone by this point in your golf swing and yet if you look at any good golfer you’ll see they display a great follow through position.

Why?

Well if you can finish in a balance follow through you were likely balanced when hitting the ball. Which greatly increases your chances of hitting the centre of the club face.

A great follow through is one where the golfer has fully turned their body through towards the target. You should feel balanced with 90% of your weight on your left foot. This is a good sign of the correct weight transfer during your golf swing.

A great tip is to challenge yourself to hold your finish until your golf ball lands. I don’t care if your shot travels 10 feet of 300 yards, see if you can hold a balanced finish until your ball stops rolling.

How to swing a golf club – The magical tip

As I mentioned previously, when coaching beginner golfers I like to teach them the setup, then let them swing with one simple thought. Over the past 15 years I’ve found this is the best way to learn the golf swing.

Many golfers try to help the golf ball up on the air, however clubs have loft and are are actually designed to hit down on the golf ball (see Tiger above). For this reason, your key thought should be to brush the grass (or mat) under the golf ball as you swing through.

As long as you brush the grass under the golf ball, the ball will go up in the air – I promise. Getting this image in your head as you learn how to swing a golf club will really help you hit some great golf shots.

How to swing a golf club – Irons

The advice detailed above is perfect for all iron shots you will hit. As the clubs increase in loft (you move from a 6-iron to a 9-iron) the clubs become shorter meaning you’ll need to stand a little closer to the golf ball. However, you should always feel balanced, with the weight in the centre of your feet throughout your golf swing.

Even very experienced golfer struggle to hit the ball well with their longer irons (5,4 & 3 iron). So don’t worry if you find these a challenge, many players opt for a fairway wood or hybrid instead of long irons.

Focus on building a great golf swing and striking your mid and short irons well. The longer irons will become more consistent with practice.

How to swing a golf club – Drivers

Drivers are normally hit off a tee and are the only club where you need to swing level or hit slightly up on the golf ball, rather than striking down. This is very simple to do. At set up, just move the golf ball so that it is positioned inside your front foot (see below).

This simple change means the club will automatically be swinging up as it approaches to hit the ball. It is also useful to feel like your sweep the ball off the tee when hitting driver.

Ball position with PW

Ball position with 7-iron

Ball Position with Driver

Additional tips for building a great golf swing

Coaching golf can get very technical, try to split up your practice time into ‘technical practice’ and ‘skill practice’.

During technical practice you can focus on golf swing positions and refining how you move. Ensure you include some skill practice where you think far less about your technique and just try hitting the ball towards your target. If you want to learn more check out this guide on three types of golf practice.

Golf swing length

If you watch the pros you’ll notice they rarely make a golf swing at 100%, and often hit most of their iron shots at 70 – 80%. This is a great way to improve your accuracy and consistent.

If your best hit with a 7-iron is 150 yards then you’ll be far more consistent making a smoother swing with a 6-iron, rather than a full swing with your 7 when you have this distance.

A great strike will solve many issues

One tricky aspect about playing golf is that you can’t see what you are doing. When beginner golfers hit a few back shots they often start questioning every aspect of their swing.

How should I take the club back? Where is my right elbow? How should I hit the ball?

Most poor golf shots are the result of one thing – not hitting the centre of the club face. If you are struggling at the range, try making a few small swings and just focus on making great contact as you hit the ball.

You’ll quickly find 90% of your poor shots disappear.

Why do I hit behind the ball?

Golfers who hit behind the ball are often trying to help the ball up in the air during their golf swing. As we covered earlier, the trick is to strike down and through your iron shots.

Make sure you transfer your weight and turn into a balanced finish if you start hitting behind the golf ball.

Last tip – have fun!

Swinging a lump of metal around your body to hit a little white ball is tough. I’ve been a professional golfer for 15 years and still have some days on the golf course where the game feels near impossible.

Just take joy in the good shot, see how many good shot you can hit and worry far less about the bad ones.

Summary

There we have a quick guide to help you swing a golf club – I sure hope you’ve found it helpful. If you have any further questions just post a comment below and I’ll update the article and get back to you. If you’re looking for golf equipment then check out this article on the best game improvement irons.

For more on the golf swing check out the long game hub. Or if you’ve mastered the golf swing after this review then check out our ultimate chipping and pitching guides.

Also, if you would like a free weekly article sent to your inbox every Monday come join the golf insider weekly post.

Happy Golfing – Will @ Golf Insider UK

How useful was this post? Click on a trophy to rate it!







Submit Rating Average rating 4.9 / 5. Vote count: 30 No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post. As you found this article useful... Would you mind sharing it to help me grow this site? Sorry that this article was not useful for you. Would you mind helping me improve this article? Tell us how we can improve this post? Submit Feedback