The Perfect Golf Swing
If you haven’t already figured it out yet, there is no such thing as the perfect golf swing. Every golfer has their own unique swing that can produce successful shots and that isn’t changing anytime soon.
But what you’re likely here for is golf swing tips on how to make your golf swing perform better. Because the ideal outcome of “The Perfect Golf Swing” is a straight golf shot that keeps you in the fairway and helps you hit more greens.
Below you’ll find my best tips and techniques for helping you build a high performing golf swing. This isn’t an article to diagnose your errors and give you drills to fix things.
We’ve got these additional articles you can check out for swing fix topics:
Resource: How to Break 70 Golf Practice Plan
Perfect Golf Swing – Impact Position
The first step to building your best golf swing is focusing on the impact position. This is most important because it’s the moment your club face makes contact with the golf ball and sends it flying.
Think of it like a recipe for a dessert. What ingredients you put in and the timing of those ingredients will determine the outcome.
Depending on your club face speed, face angle position, angle of attack, point of contact, and many other factors, you’ll see different resulting ball flights.
Club Face Angle
Another key feature of a perfect golf swing is the club face angle. To hit the golf ball straight you need a square club face position at impact.
There are simulators today like the Trackman that can accurately analyze your club face angle at impact, giving you feedback on how many degrees open or closed your club face is.
This helps explain why the golf ball spun in the direction that it did during your golf shot, which could be draw spin (closed face) or slice spin (open face).
Then you can adjust your grip or other fixes to help shut or open the face slightly to bring it back square at impact.
Angle of Attack
Another data point you can analyze on most golf launch monitors is your clubs angle of attack into the golf ball. This is important because it tells you if you have a steep golf swing or a more shallow golf swing.
The angle of attack in your golf swing can impact the golf balls launch, dictating how high it flies, spin rates, and overall distance.
Steeper golf swings are harder to control, leading to more side spin (bigger slices and hooks) as well as bigger divots and fat / chunky shots.
More shallow / flat golf swings can increase the launch angle of the ball, giving it higher trajectory and maximizing carry distances.
But having a flat golf swing also has it’s own problems. For example, it’s easier to get the club stuck behind your body, resulting in more hooks from trying to catch the face up with the hands.
Ask yourself.. “what swing plane is my golf club on during the down swing?” and video tape yourself to find out.
Point of Contact
Another important aspect of the impact position is where your club face actually strikes the golf ball. We hear time and time again from instructors to strike ball first, then turf.
Your point of contact is a major part of your ball striking and can result in thinned shots, fat/chunky shots, or pure buttery feeling golf shots.
Are you hitting the top half of the ball? The bottom half? The outside? The inside? Or perfectly striking the entire golf ball in the center of the face?
Club Speed
Increasing your club speed does give you the ability to hit the golf ball farther than slower golf swings. This is due to transferring more energy into the golf ball which is basic physics 101; mass x acceleration = force.
But club head speed is also the magnifier that will show you how everything came together at impact when the face strikes the golf ball.
If the face angle isn’t square, it will end up further offline for someone with a faster golf swing than a slower golf swing because the club head speed magnifies the result, placing more side spin on the ball.
You hear golf instructors often say “don’t try to kill the ball, swing slower.”
The reason for this is that it’s easier to maintain control over your golf swing when it’s slower as compared to fast swings.
And fast golf swings will result in bigger errors due to the higher club head speed and higher ball speeds that result from the strike.
So by slowing down your swing slightly, you’re gaining more control to help you hit straighter as well as reducing the effect of a poor swing position at impact on times when your swing is “off”.
A perfect golf swing will find a good balance of control while still swinging the golf club at a high speed.
Perfect Golf Swing – The Swing Positions
As mentioned, the impact position is what really matters in the perfect golf swing. Your ability to square the club face and strike the ball center of the face, while hitting with the right attack angle, can all combine for a high, far, and straight golf shot.
Swing positions are usually the main focus of amateur golfers instead of impact position but today you’ve learned to flip that thinking around with impact coming first in the line of importance.
However, other swing positions are also important because what happens during the golf back swing and the down swing can ultimately dictate how your club ends up in the position its in during the “hitting window” known as impact.
The Takeaway
Earlier we discussed angle of attack and whether you have a steep or flat golf swing. This is largely effected by how you start your takeaway.
Steeper golf swings tend to take the club straight back, then out and away from their body at a steeper angle.
Flatter golf swings start the takeaway by bringing the club more inside and around the body.
Here is an image showing you flat (left), neutral (middle), steep (right) swing planes that can result from how you take the golf club away from the ball to start the back swing.
Golf Swing Path
While your swing plane is how flat or steep you attack the golf ball at impact, your swing path is important for the direction your golf ball starts.
You’ll hear the three common swing paths:
- Inside to Outside
- Square to Square
- Outside to Inside
Look at the image above again and see the person to the far right with the steep swing.
Now imagine on the downswing they move their upper torso outward / forward, pushing their hands right, pulling their upper body out over the golf ball and their hands become outside of the golf ball.
The only move from here is to pull the club swing path back inside since the body got out “over-the-top” during the down swing.
This leads to the “outside to inside” swing path and is the most common reason golfers slice!
On the flip side, look at the photo to the far left of the golfer with a really flat swing plane.
His hands will start inside the golf ball on the down swing and his swing path will likely be coming from the inside to the outside.
If his body timing isn’t synced up, then his hands and arms will get trapped behind, leading to blocked golf shots that fly right.
And most amateur golfers will compensate a blocked shot by flipping their hands fast right before impact, which can lead to a hook.
Focus on One Fix at a Time
There you have it folks, the three major things to focus on improving if you want to improve your golf swings performance and get close to achieving a perfect golf swing;
- Impact Position
- Takeaway
- Swing Path
If you start your golf swing with a good take away, it can set your swing plane in a neutral position which then makes it easier to swing the club down on a straight path to the ball.
Focus on one of the 3 areas at a time and make adjustments to your golf swing until your issue is corrected. This isn’t the article to diagnose your swing faults but we recommend seeing a golf swing instructor.
He or she will be able to analyze your takeaway, your swing plane at the top of your back swing, as well as what movements you’re making in the downswing with your torso, arms, and hips that is resulting in the swing path you have.
Lastly, they’ll watch your ball flight to help you understand what your face angle and swing path are doing at impact that’s resulting in the way the ball is flying.
Overall, don’t expect to build a perfect golf swing. There really is no true perfect golf swing a golfer can work towards other than building the best golf swing for your body and physical traits.
Before you go, make sure to check out these golf practice plans! Each has proven drills to help you improving your scoring and build a strong short game!
Golf Practice Plans (Follow these Programs)
- Break 90 Practice Plan
- Break 80 Practice Plan
- Break 70 Practice Plan
- Short Game Practice Plan
- Indoor Golf Practice Plan
- All Access Lifetime Membership – All Video Courses + Practice Plans
Golf Video Courses
Don’t miss out on these amazing training programs. They’ll help lower your golf scores.
Or hop onto our email newsletter and get the free weekly golf tips we send out to our community plus updates and other announcements you don’t want to miss!
