Golf Tips: Mastering the Inside-Out Swing

Are you a little too familiar with the woods on the right-side of each golf hole? Wouldn't it be nice to finally visit the left side of the fairway for once? Wouldn't it be nicer still to venture to that uncharted territory a good 40 yards beyond your playing partner?

The key to achieving consistent distance, reliable ball flight, and hitting your next shot from the short grass instead of from deep rough (or worse!) is the Inside-Out swing path.

Amateur golfers tend to have a distinctly outside-in swing path which means that during the downswing, the club-head takes a route that cuts across the body of the golf ball, essentially making contact with the outside half (away from golfer). This swing path results in a weak, left-to-right ball flight that tends to balloon into the air and lose distance.

An inside-out swing path is quite the opposite. The club-head comes from the golfer's side of the ball, striking the inside half, resulting in a lower, penetrating ball flight that tends to add distance to the shot in a right-to-left flight pattern. While it would be ideal to have a perfectly straight back, and perfectly straightforward swing path, which should deliver a dead-straight ball flight with minimal spin, the odds of doing this in a consistent, repeatable fashion are very slim. Instead, given the benefits of added power and distance, the Draw created by an inside-out swing path is the coveted swing for accomplished golfers to strive to perfect.

Changing your swing path can be difficult at first, however with practice comes muscle-memory. Muscle-memory is the familiarity our body makes with repeated, consistent movements and is key to developing a solid, confident golf swing.

Another important aspect of your swing that greatly impacts your swing path is your target alignment. Make sure you are setup in a stance that is square to the ball and your feet on a line parallel to where you are aiming for the ball to go. This will not only help repair many common glitches in your backswing but will help create the ideal inside-out swing path that you are striving for. A closed stance (feet aiming on a line parallel to just right of your target) allows for a natural swing path that begins on the inside and hits through the ball towards the outside.

Using these techniques, the average weekend golfer can begin to discover the benefits that many professional golfers have discovered by developing an inside-out swing path. With the promise of added distance not only well struck but also off-center hit shots along with a more ideal flight pattern that lower, boring ball flights can produce in all wind conditions, it is certainly a benefit to adapting to the inside-out swing.