Golf clubs: Champions - Tiger Woods' swing analyzed

There can be no better way to improve your game than by taking tips from the great golf champions

If you want to pick up tips on how to improve your golf swing, you could do worse than study Tiger Woods. However, no-one is perfect and despite his status as world's number one, the American champion is not always consistent in his technique. While most golfers would love to have Tiger's swing, some would argue there is still room for improvement.

Leading golf coach Nick Bradley looks at how Tiger's action still needs fine tuning:

Backswing

According to Nick Bradley, Tiger's problems stem from his backswing. When he arrives at the top of his backswing it looks pretty but it hasn't got there the right way. Tiger needs to work on the synchronization of his swing i.e. getting everything timed in the right order. He suggests that you imagine you're looking at a record spinning on a record player. In the middle the record doesn't have far to travel, but the outside of the record has a lot further to go. The outside needs to travel faster. Now imagine the outside of the record being the club head and the inside as the body. In Tiger's case everything is travelling at the same speed when, in fact, the body needs to be slower.

At the top

Nick Bradley comments that Tiger Woods is obsessed about the fact he can sometimes get across the line at the top of his backswing. That means the shaft is pointing to the right of the flag. To avoid that, he's made his swing wider, resulting in the club pointing just slightly to the left of the flag. The problem with a very wide swing, says Nick Bradley, is that the body completes the backswing too early. This is because the club head has got further to go and it can't keep up. Tiger needs to get his club head, his arms and his hands away from the ball a lot earlier and he needs to stall his body motion. Otherwise his arms are then just lifting up to the top.

Downswing

Tiger's lack of synchronization on the backswing, says Nick Bradley, has the same effect on the downswing; when the body moves down towards the ball, it is arriving too early and the arms and the golf club are left dragging behind him .

Impact

Nick Bradley thinks the arms come through on too steep a path. This results in the big blocks which cut the ball away to the right, or with the shorter irons he gets a quite heavy divot pull to the left. Everyone is position-mad at the minute; they say it's all about getting your arms and club into the right place at the top of the backswing. But the thing they miss is that the body and club not only have to move in time, but also in the right order.

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