What is your downswing trigger?

Golf Monthly Top 25 coach Keith Wood explains the importance of having a clear downswing trigger in your swing.

Golf Monthly Top 25 coach Keith Wood explains the importance of having a clear downswing trigger in your swing.

Try these downswing tips if your swing lacks any real power and you often find your weight getting stuck on your back foot.

While their swings have all been personal to them, there is one simple move the game’s greats have all incorporated.

This relates to the most effective way of triggering the downswing. By simply bumping your hips towards the target, you create the lag in your arms that creates power and keeps the club working on a good plane. This starts the ideal sequence as you transition from backswing to downswing.

I don’t want you to get bogged down in the technicality of this move. Simply place a golf bag or similar item next to your left hip at address.

Make a practice swing and when you start down, bump your hips lightly into the bag, as I am doing here.

Repeat this move over and over again and groove the one essential move that all of the game’s great have relied on.

Like when you incorporate any new movement into your swing, it just takes repetitions to ingrain it into your subconscious.

It will soon become something you do automatically without thinking, and you'll have mastered a basic fundamental of the transition between the backswing and the downswing.

Top tips

  • There is one simple move the game's greats have all incorproated into their swing in one form or another - an effective downswing trigger.
  • Just by bumping your hips towards the target, you can create lag in your arms to create power. This will help keep the club working on a good plane.
  • Don't get bogged down in the fine technicalities of this move.
  • Try just placing a golf bag next to your left hip at address.
  • Make a practice swing, and when you initiate the downswing, bump your left hip lightly into the bag.
  • By repeating this movement over and over, you'll groove this essential move that all of the game's greatest players have replied on over the years.
Thomas Patrick Clarke
Sports Digital Editor


Tom Clarke joined Golf Monthly as a sub editor in 2009 being promoted to content editor in 2012 and then senior content editor in 2014, before becoming Sports Digital Editor for the Sport Vertical within Future in 2022. Tom currently looks after all the digital products that Golf Monthly produce including Strategy and Content Planning for the website and social media - Tom also assists the Cycling, Football, Rugby and Marine titles at Future. Tom plays off 16 and lists Augusta National (name drop), Old Head and Le Touessrok as the favourite courses he has played. Tom is an avid viewer of all golf content with a particularly in depth knowledge of the pro tour.