Andrew Johnston on How to Stay Unstuck (Video)

Any opportunity to see Beef is probably a good idea!

Andrew Johnston was on The Golf Fix recently. He told Michael Breed how he keeps from "getting stuck" on his downswing. This is extremely simple, but it's usually the simple things that mess up our swings.



Beef talks about two things.

• The first is spine angle. You want to keep your spine as straight as is reasonably possible from setup to finish. I stress the words "reasonably possible" since your hips are going to move backward and forward some during your swing... but you want to avoid exaggerated moves. Just think about standing tall during your swing and that should help a lot.
• The second is "covering the ball with your chest," sometimes referred to as "keeping your hands in front of you." Basically it just means that you create a triangle with your arms and shoulders at setup -- which you already do -- and then you maintain it as long as reasonably possible during your backswing and downswing. This sounds tricky but it's actually a pretty normal move. If you were holding a tray of drinks in front of you with both hands, most of you would have no problems keeping the tray centered in front of your chest as you turned to either side while serving guests at a party. That's all this is. And that's all a one-piece takeaway is -- just another way of thinking about making the same move.

Beef has a very natural-looking swing, don't you think? That's because he doesn't overthink things, and he doesn't try to make technically perfect moves when he can just swing the club and hit the ball. I'm not advising you to be sloppy with your swing. I'm just saying that the less you try to manipulate your swing, the less you try to be too perfect, the better you'll probably hit the ball.