The Rotary Swing Book

by Chuck Quinton

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As you have learned from the Swing Fundamentals section, the body is the engine of the swing. Understanding how to properly use the body is 90% of learning the rotary swing. It is simple to learn and understand, but it is incredibly important.

To begin, stand straight up with legs spread a comfy shoulder width apart, body poised and relaxed, with the arms across the chest. With your weight evenly distributed between both feet, rotate your body to the right (for right handers) while maintaining your spine angle. It is important that your spine not tilt away from the target more than a couple degrees and that the base of your spine stay rather stationary. If the base of the spine slides away from the target, your weight will shift more on to your back leg which is not necessary. The turning of your body to the right will pull your hips back as well. It is perfectly ok for them to rotate around as the upper body pulls them, in fact they must be allowed to turn. The hips will rotate around an imaginary fixed point at the base of your spine as well, with no lateral slide to the right.

It is ok if you cannot rotate your shoulders to 90 degrees without feeling a lot of tension in the torso or without making a large hip turn. During the actual swing, your muscles will more naturally stretch as the body becomes alive and athletic. For now, simply rotate your shoulders a comfortable turn to the right while keeping your weight fairly evenly distributed and your spine angle constant.

From here, "bump" your core to the left to set your weight on your left leg and simply unwind your body back to the left. Feel as if everything is rotating together, with no one part out racing the other. In actuality, the hips will lead the way, but you needn’t think about this, it will be a natural response to the coiling of the upper body against the lower as the hips will not turn as far during the backswing. Again, the spine angle is critical. It should remain constant with the base of the spine acting as an “anchor” for the rotation of the torso. If the hips slide, the base of the spine will move toward the target changing the angle of the spine and thus, changing the shoulder plane that is of utmost importance. The shoulders should rotate around the spine at a 90 degree angle throughout the swing. If the shoulder plane changes, the path that the club will take to the ball changes and you will be forced to make compensations to strike the ball.

Now that you have a feel for the rotary motion the body makes throughout the swing, you need do nothing more than tilt your spine from the hips and make the exact same motion back and through. The only thing that should change here is the angle of the spine tilt toward the ball. It should not be angled away from the target more than a coupld degrees, but should remain more vertical just as it was before. Make the same motions while the spine is tilted and you have mastered the body movement of the rotary swing.