I played softball/baseball for years growing up, and while it helped me to be able to make very powerful swings in that sport (along with having swung axes and sledgehammers growing up the son of a carpenter-then-construction contractor), there is an element in the baseball swing that can really inhibit good golf swinging.

That element is the non-requirement to swing the bat behind you before swinging at a ball.

If that doesn’t make sense, let me expand – before you swing a baseball bat, you are usually holding it to the side with the bat handle near your trailing shoulder.

Below, you see a professional baseball player swinging a bat beside the model of how I would have swung a bat in my youth – my swing hasn’t changed so the fact I’m 43 years old below is irrelevant:

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Notice how both Giancarlo Stanton and I are holding the bat off the trailing shoulder before the swing begins – essentially, there is no back swing in a baseball swing, just a swing forward from the cocked position.

So, having come from that particular youthful experience (I not only played league for a few summers, baseball was the activity of choice at recess and lunch breaks in the spring), it took me years to realize that part of my OTT problems was the failure to properly swing the golf club behind me on the back pivot.

This way swinging works with a baseball or cricket bat because reflex and speed of reaction are key in these sports, not to mention you’re standing with shoulders more or less square to the home plate and you swing the shoulders open to hit a baseball – which is a death move in golf.

In fact, having my particular scoliosis issue of the shoulders twisted to the left of square in relation to my hips actually helped me swing a baseball bat instead of hurting, now that I think of it, because my shoulders opened more quickly with that deformity, allowing me to “turn” on a pitch and hammer it to left field.

Back to the golf swing – you are going to struggle with an OTT swing and outside-in path if you don’t make sure to swing the club behind you, rather than jacking it up to the side.

Behind You

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Remember how I mentioned that you don’t swing at the target, but rather down to the swing bottom?

Well, that means you’re swinging the club at a target in front of you (the ground at or around the swing bottom), and that means the back swing must go behind you in order to do so properly.

My baseball experience allowed me to generate pretty decent club speed, enough to be able to drive the ball over 300 yards the first year I actually took golf lessons (two years after being introduced to the game in my mid-20s), but I was always swinging way over the top and severely outside-in.

Of course, there were other factors involved, such as my offset shoulders, the fact that I was swinging lead-arm or left-dominant, but also because I wasn’t swinging the club properly behind me.

Part of that is psychological – due to my baseball past, I couldn’t bring myself to swing the club behind me, because once I got to the position where my hands were passing the spot where my right shoulder is at address, my baseball instincts would kick it and I’d then yank the club up as high as I could to feel “cranked” at the top:

Q: “How OTT Would You Like?”  A: Yes

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Whether or not you’ve gotten in bad habits from having played a different sport or you just aren’t making sure to do so, it is essential to swing the club back behind you rather than just to the side and then up.

It won’t feel as powerful if you’re just trying to do it with the arms and hands – use that hip and leg action to get that shoulder turn, and you will be amazed by the stored energy that you release when you shift that weight back to the leading foot to swing down.

The key is leverage, remember, and you get that leverage by using the hips and legs to get those hands and that club behind you.

When you get it, you won’t believe the difference in club and ball speed!

I’m getting as much speed and distance now as I was getting ten years ago – while not as agile or strong as I was then, I’m using better leveraging in my swing, which keeps me level with my younger self, and I’m actually trying to set personal speed and distance records now in my early 50’s.