Stop Swaying In The Golf Swing With A Footwork Drill To Strike It Pure
Inconsistent ball striking could be a result of swaying off the ball, but improving your footwork with one simple drill can help you to strike it pure
Swaying in the golf swing is a common issue for amateur golfers, but it's also a direct cause of inconsistent ball striking.
If you want to shoot lower scores and cut your handicap in 2026, identifying and addressing a sway in the golf swing is super important.
Ben Emerson is a PGA Fellow Professional who has more than two decades of experience coaching amateurs and professionals to play better golf, specialising in the fundamentals of movement and how to build an efficient golf swing from the ground up.
In this article and instructional video, Ben helps one of our readers to stop swaying in the golf swing with a great golf lesson that centres around the best ball striking tips...
Swaying In The Golf Swing
Single-figure golfer Neil visited our Game-Changer Clinic after suffering with inconsistent strikes.
It's a problem that plagues the games of many amateur golfers, irrespective of their ability level, but it's often caused by ineffective footwork in the golf swing.
After watching Neil in the studio, Ben quickly identified the fault and provided an actionable plan to fix it – one you can also use to improve the consistency of your strike via better footwork.
Ben Emerson is a Golf Monthly Top 50 Coach with a modern approach to the game. His methods have seen him become one of the most revered coaches in the country, and even has a few celebrity clients on his books. In his coaching career of more than 20 years, Ben has helped golfers of all ages and abilities to improve their performances and enjoy the game. He is also the author of the brilliant golf instruction book, Strike It Pure.
Swaying: What Is It?
Swaying – the fault Neil arrived with – is when the trail hip moves away from the ball instead of turning behind you in the backswing.
It's not the upper body moving, it's the lower half. Specifically for Neil, it was his right hip moving up.
If you move away from the ball (sway), you have to move back again to make good contact. This creates far too many moving parts for club golfers to achieve any degree of consistency in the strike.
How To Identify A Sway
Ben Emerson helped our reader, Neil, to fix a sway in his golf swing in just 30 minutes
Any amateur can identify this fault by recording their swing face-on - which something every golfers should do at the driving range. Stop the video at the top and draw a line along your spine.
If your spine angle (and your head) have tilted towards the target as you seek to retain balance after shifting your centre of gravity laterally, instead of remaining loaded directly above the hips, you've likely swayed off the ball.
How To Fix A Sway
This force pedal drill helps you to feel the correct loading into the trail foot and hip in the backswing
To fix the issue, I needed to stabilise Neil's trail foot in the backswing. We achieved this by placing a force pedal (or you can use a tennis ball cut in half) under that foot.
I encouraged Neil to squeeze into the pedal as he swung back to help him get off that foot and push towards the target side in the downswing, when the weight shift occurs.
To stop moving away from the target in the backswing, we needed to create a blocker, and the best way for Neil to do this was to push hard into the inside of his trail foot.
Loading correctly in the backswing helps golfers, like Neil, to overcome a sway and stay more stable in the golf swing
Another way to try to prevent a sway is to imagine you're swinging with your feet and legs inside a barrel.
You want that rotation in the backswing to exist within the perimeters of the barrel, without your trail hip bumping into the wood. Another drill we tried was for me to loop a band around Neil's waist and pull.
Any hint of swaying rather than rotating would allow me to pull Neil over towards me. A big lateral movement in the backswing is not good for controlling the low point, which impacts strike location and consistency.
