My question focuses around the start of the downswing - Tom, you have some superb advice on letting the club come to rest at the top of the backswing and then fire off the hips toward the target to initiate the downswing. What I find is that even following this advice I still tend to pull my left shoulder back when I start the downswing which pull me closer to the danger zone coming over the top. I don't quite get there but I do tend to have a noticeable outside-in swing that is enough to start to the left of the target and often times produces a fade/slice, as expected. The worst thing that happens is heel strikes and man, I really need to get away from that, it's killing me.
Now, one thing I have been trying to do is finish the backswing and then focus on pushing my left/leading shoulder towards the target and not focusing so much on the lead hip and it has really made a difference for me. My question is this: is this poor practice that can cause potential problems with my swing? The reason I started putting more focus on my lead shoulder is that whenever I would see video of my swing I would see my hip starting to point at the target but my left shoulder would start pulling back causing that outside-in swing path.
Bottom line is, putting the focus on my lead shoulder when the downswing starts has made a difference for me and I was wondering what your thoughts were on this or if you actually had lesson regarding this technique that I may have missed...?
Sound advice, thanks, Tom!