Take-away plane an optical illusion?

I'm trying to groove my swing quickly so I can stop all this expirimentation. Since I have been playing around with my swing majorly - many balls have been deciding to drive rather than fly.

Anyway, is it correct to describe the take-away as: shoulder comes around, wrists hinge up and hands move back? The reason say optical illusion is because to me it feels as if the club is heading way inside. But, on camera, since the wrists are hinging up, the club head follows the plane of the shaft. This method gets me on a good plane - butt of club is pointing halfway between feet and ball.

I have another question too. Using this method I find I get stuck half way back and find it hard to get to the top of the swing. Any advice there?

Thanks.

I am not sure why you are getting stuck. However, I think that the most frequent cause of getting stuck in the backswing is taking the club too-inside during the takeaway. That causes a too-flat backswing plane. The hands then get stuck at the back and the golfer subsequently lifts the hands to the top of the backswing position.

If you are feeling stuck with a steeper clubshaft plane, then you may not be completing your backswing - the left shoulder needs to get behind the ball, or you may be reverse pivoting.

Although it is acceptable to have the butt end of the club pointing halfway between the toes and the ball (when the left arm is parallel to the ground in the backswing), I prefer to see that the butt end of the clubshaft points at the ball, or just inside the ball. That allows the backswing clubshaft plane to more closely match the downswing clubshaft plane (where the butt end of the club should point directly at the ball-target line when the left arm is parallel to the ground).

You can consider reading the advice I give on the takeaway in my backswing chapter at http://jeffmann.net/backswing.htm

I am presently writing a 8-10 chapter critical review of the modern golf swing for a new personal website on the golf swing, and my website should be ready in the spring. That's the first draft version of my incompleted backswing chapter.

Jeff.

I had a lot of problems with this in my last round. I found myself rotating my entire body back around an axis that is practically vertical. I have a good set up with a bend at the waist but at the same time I am trying to turn everything back. The club stays low except when I finally lift my arms and the hands are way behind me. This opens the club face and totally screws up all timing in my swing. It makes it near impossible to get a steep downward angle at the ball because my plane is really flat. When you said in describing the swing that "shoulder comes around" it reminded me of what I was doing wrong. I think it is wrong to think of it that way rather than that shoulders turns around axis of your spine which means the the left shoulder turns under which means the right shoulder turns up. Our lower body should stay solid with a hip turn that is dictated more by what our upper body rotation is doing. Just a thought. I am by no means and expert, just a struggling golfer trying to find my swing.

You have to cock your wrists up during take-away if you are doing that - thats the optical illusion.. It also stops your hands getting behind you to an extent

To check the correct takeaway position: From address raise your arms to waist high, do not change your wrists. Now rotate your shoulders 90 degrees. This is the exact position you should be at the end of the takeaway. If you roll your forearms, come too far inside or outside you will not get into in this position.

http://jeffmann.net/backswing.htm
Pretty nifty stuff on there Jeffmann

Yeah, to an extent, but I was still over rotating my body.