Build The Perfect Golf Swing By Learning From 6 Of The Best Players In The Game

What can you learn from the best players in the world? When you’re sitting down on a Sunday, watching the cream of the crop battle it out for the game’s biggest prizes under the most intense pressure, what little nuggets can you take to the range?

Sure, we’d all like to model our swings on Justin Rose’s or Adam Scott’s.

However, most club golfers would be happy enough to gain a bit more consistency and eradicate one or two costly shots, or to simply ensure a centred strike with driver.

With the winter months upon us – the ideal time of year to put in some work on your technique – we’ve asked one of our Top 50 Coaches, Norman Marshall, to analyse some of the best swings in the game and offer a few helpful pointers.

Come the spring, we’re confident you will have picked up a useful tip or two towards improving your ball striking.

Build The Perfect Golf Swing: 6 Components To Study

Below, Norman analyses key components of the golf swing that every amateur should study, with specific reference to six of the world's best golfers and the incredible example they set in each area.

1. Scottie Scheffler – Set-up

Scheffler’s golf swing gets a lot of attention because of his rather unique foot slide but, like most tour professionals, he demonstrates solid fundamentals.

The World No.1 led in strokes gained off the tee in 2025, which you can’t do if you’re hitting the ball everywhere.

One of his greatest assets is how he’s comfortable shaping the ball both ways, often riding the wind and using it to his advantage, as opposed to fighting it.

I like to see big, powerful players like Scheffler hitting fades – it’s more fixable and easier to control. He keeps things simple. If he wants to shape the ball a certain way, he’ll adjust his set-up instead of altering his swing.

When he sets up for a left-to-right drive, you’ll see him stand slightly open with his feet and shoulders.

He’ll sometimes position the ball position slightly further forward than just inside the left heel – more towards the toe – to help raise the angle of attack.

He also ‘bumps’ his lead hip towards the target side to create a slight tilt away from the ball, which, again, increases launch.

Note the athletic posture. I see a lot of club golfers with their legs too straight. Think of a tennis player preparing to return a serve, physically ready to spring into action. Flare your trail foot slightly, too, which helps the hips to turn more on the backswing.

2. Bryson DeChambeau – Rotation

It’s not just DeChambeau’s physical strength and flexibility that help him to create such power and consistency; there are other aspects of his swing that we can learn from, too.

There is a minimum of wrist hinging and unhinging, aimed at giving him maximum clubface control. He also has a weak left-hand grip, keeping the back of his left wrist flat.

His arms and club shaft almost form a straight line at address, which encourages a one-plane swing in which the club tracks along the same angle on both backswing and downswing.

He allows his right leg to straighten on the backswing, freeing his hips up to turn more. His shoulder turn is massive.

Interestingly, he doesn’t put as much emphasis on lower body clearance. Instead, he pulls down, with a lot of arm speed being added early in the downswing movement.

You may have noticed that as he builds towards the top of the backswing, he lifts his left heel off the ground. Try giving this a go if you struggle with hip turn as it can really free you up to turn more in the backswing and, as a result, create more swing speed.

3. Justin Rose – Rhythm/Transition

If you watch Justin Rose play, rarely do you see him ‘go after’ the ball, something even a lot of top players can be guilty of.

His rhythm and balance are the two outstanding features of his golf swing, the lubricants that have made him such a consistent performer over the years.

For most world-class golfers, as they’re completing the backswing and the shoulders are moving one way, the hips are actually starting to move the opposite way. This can be hard to get your head round, but it’s what should be happening.

Club golfers tend to get too quick from the top – they ‘snatch’ at it and get out of the correct sequence of movements, with the speed coming from the wrong place.

One of the oldest rhythm drills is to say the words ‘back and through’ to yourself as you swing the club.

The word ‘and’ is key as it makes you aware of the sensation of a slight pause to give your lower body a chance to initiate the downswing, which starts with the feet, then knees, hips, torso, shoulders, arms, wrists and hands in that order.

Try it on the range first and you might get closer to swinging with the same kind of rhythm as Rose.

4. Ludvig Aberg – Swing Plane

The Swede makes maximum use of his physique: 6ft 3in with very long arms. Combine that height with the width of his backswing, and you can see here how far he’s able to stretch his hands back behind his head.

The benefit can be seen in his stats: top 15 in driving distance and strokes gained off the tee. He’s also incredibly straight.

From the top of the backswing, he gives his hands and arms plenty of time to accelerate in a nice smooth manner – there are never ever any signs of jerking or lunging.

For amateur golfers, the key takeaways would be to build the shoulder turn and keep tension out of the arms at address and through the backswing. This will help the momentum of the club to stretch the arm swing.

Club golfers should seek efficiency as opposed to using force or strength, where extra moving parts put maximum strain on coordination. This is the key to greater consistency.

5. Rory McIlroy – Impact

In the past, McIlroy has spoken about how he would sometimes collapse into his left side through impact, which was because he didn’t have enough strength and stability in his left leg to hold onto the power all the way through the ball.

He has trained his body to be able to control his speed through impact – so he did a lot of lower-body training, mostly on his left side, for better control.

I love the shot here where you can see his right knee squeezing towards his left, which illustrates how he comes onto the inside of his right foot through impact. A lot of amateurs spin out and get onto their toes too early.

Note how he also keeps his torso behind the ball through impact. He’s pushing off the instep, like a boxer throwing a punch.

Look at those neck muscles, which are helping to keep his head behind the ball for a fraction of a second more. It’s a major power source, allowing him to create an ascending blow.

6. Tommy Fleetwood – Finish Position

Fleetwood’s curtailed follow-through stems from his work with swing coach Alan Thompson many years ago.

He had been struggling to hit the ball straight, so Thompson got him working on some straight arm swings, which encouraged him to really turn his body, taking out the arms and hands.

The more he practised the ‘windmill swings’, the more it fed into his swing during play – and he’s stuck with it.

It improved his connection, which, in the golf swing, refers to the effective sequences of movements of the large muscle groups of the body.

This has made him one of the most consistent iron players in the game. Rarely, with an iron, will you see him go into a full long swing.

His sternum acts as the hub, which stays centred, and he rotates nicely over his belt buckle.

He works from the ground up, through the centre of the body, rather than depending on the smaller muscles of the hands and arms.

If you’ve lost control with your irons, put a ball on a short tee and focus on just clipping some balls away with a mid-iron using this curtailed swing.