Rewiring the Backswing: Lessons from a Patient Coach

I’ve been working with Erik Barzeski on my golf swing for a while now, and the last few months have been a deep dive into the backswing — specifically, three interconnected changes that sound simple on paper but feel like rewiring your brain on the range.

Erik demonstrates

And I’m a wee bit stressed because I’m playing in a member-guest in Arizona next week and even Erik chastised me for going so deep into swing changes so close to an event like this

The Problem: Everything Was Behind Me

Here’s the pattern Erik kept seeing in my swing videos: my trail arm was getting stuck behind my body during the backswing. The elbow would end up way back, the club would cross the line at the top, and from there I was fighting physics to get back to the ball. Sound familiar? If you’ve ever heard a teaching pro say “your hands are behind you,” you know the feeling.

The root causes turned out to be a chain of related issues — grip, arm motion, and wrist action — all feeding each other.

Change #1: Get the Grip Out of the Palm

This one has been a recurring theme across multiple lessons. My left hand grip was sitting too high in the palm, almost back near the wrist, instead of running perpendicular across the base of the fingers. Erik’s fix: grip the club in the air, not off the ground, and place it at roughly 45 degrees across the finger base. Curl, wrap, done.

Why does this matter for the backswing? A palm grip limits your wrist hinge. And wrist hinge, as it turns out, is the engine that makes everything else work.

Change #2: Lift the Arms — Seriously, Lift Them

This was the big revelation, backed by GEARS 3D motion capture data from tour pros. Erik showed me the numbers: the angle between the trail upper arm and the shirt seam should increase during the backswing. For PGA Tour winners, that angle goes from around 40° at address to 60-75° at the top. Their elbows bend well under 90°.

My pattern? The angle was decreasing. My arm was dropping and rotating around my body — the exact opposite of what the best players do. The old idea of “staying connected” with a towel under your arms? Erik calls that the opposite of what good players actually do.

The fix sounds almost too simple: lift your arms away from your chest as you turn. Feel the trail arm moving away from the shirt seam, not glued to it. The result is hands that stay in front of the chest instead of disappearing behind your head.

Change #3: Hinge Earlier, Roll the Club

The most recent feedback tied it all together. My wrist hinge was happening too late — the club shaft was still wide and flat when it should have been setting upward. And I wasn’t rolling the club enough: the back of the left hand needs to rotate slightly skyward as you hinge, so the club doesn’t stay shut and cross the line.

Erik’s checkpoint: freeze at the top. The club should point at the target or slightly left of it. If it’s pointing right (across the line), the hinge was late, the roll was absent, or both. The hinge creates momentum that helps the arms lift — they work together, not against each other.

What I’ve Learned About Swing Changes

A few things stand out after months of working through these changes:

They’re all connected. Fix the grip and you unlock the hinge. Hinge earlier and the arms can lift. Lift the arms and the club finds the right position at the top. You can’t really do one without the others.

It feels wrong. Every single one of these changes felt bizarre at first. The arm lift felt like I was throwing my hands to the sky. The early hinge felt rushed. The roll felt like I was opening the face. Erik’s direct instruction on that: “There’s no sense in doing the same thing you’ve always done.” Commit to the new feel.

Data helps. Seeing the GEARS numbers for tour pros — the actual degrees of arm lift, the elbow bend angles — makes it concrete. You’re not guessing. You know where 60° is versus 24°. It removes the ambiguity that makes swing changes feel like a leap of faith.

Slow practice works. The main drill through all of this has been slow swings with a freeze at the top — pause, check the position, then chip the ball down from there. It’s not glamorous, but it builds the pattern.

I’m not there yet. The club still crosses the line more than I’d like, and under pressure my hands want to go back to the old palm grip. But the direction is clear, the feedback loop is tight, and for the first time in a while, the backswing feels like it’s getting simpler, not more complicated.

That’s usually a sign you’re on the right track.