Swinging Left

by: B. J. Hathaway

The phrase “swinging left” is often associated with Ben Hogan and I think it’s a terribly confusing idea for most amateurs. The problem is that most amateurs already swing left or “over the top” on the down swing leading to huge slices and pulls. Then along comes some discussion that Ben Hogan swung left and this creates a problem in the minds of most golfers who want to emulate his swing.

As seen above, Mr. Hogan may appear to be swinging “left” especially after impact but he is in no way swinging across the target line. What you are seeing is the hands move left because his arms are so well tied into his pivot.

Looking at the pre-impact frame on the left, his shoulder appear square to the target line with hands in front of the body. One frame later (old film could not capture all the movement) his hands appear to go left, but note his shoulder position. Now we see a majority of his back and how the shoulders have opened. His hands and arms are “tied into” his pivot rotation so well that the hands move left, but we can clearly see that on the downswing he was never swinging “left”.