[O.B.Left]

Pushing the club back in Startup with the Left Arm or Shoulder tends towards:

-Angled Hinging , with the club face "looking at the ball" some what , so to speak. Instead of a proper Horizontal Hinging type takeaway assuming you're Swinging with Horizontal Hinging.

-Lifting . The left arm being less than ideally situated on the other side of the body from where the Hands and Club are for the most part raised makes it very weak . Trying doing your left arm Takeaway with just your left arm attached to the club.....it struggles to get the hands and club Up to Top. Which normally results in the shoulders and left arm "lifting" the hands up. The Right arm being situated directly under the area in the swing where the club and hands are raised Up Plane can get it done with very little effort. Again try this with just the right arm attached. Its easy right? Less heavy lifting more swinging.

- The push back can negate a lagging takeaway. A very nice component for the Swinger as it establishes Lag and Drag very early in the swing, gets you "swinging" early so to speak.

-the introduction of the Shoulders as boss. The Shoulder Turn Takeaway , Pivot to Hands. Under plane backswing.

Having said this there are many players on tv employing a Shoulder Turn takeaway. So if it works for you , go for it! If it stops working then consider reading the following.

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Hey sorry about the shoulder turn push away breakdown . I suspect your original problem was related to how you RFT'd rather than that RFT didn't work for you generally speaking. I personally have really benefited from getting rid of any trace of push away .

Hogan, Snead, Nelson , Jones all showed a Lagging takeaway. Despite this there came a time when the left sided push away or Shoulder Turn takeaway became standard instruction. At the extreme (Dick Altman , Square to Square) it went something like this: Left Arm/Shoulder push away , keep the club looking at the ball , take the club straight back on a line from the ball ....... STEERING on the backswing so to speak . It required a lot of lifting , tended towards very high hands.

As an aside , Homer termed this the Turning Shoulder Plane. The plane constantly shifting up up up and then down down down to the elbow plane. All resulting from a desire to take the club straight back with a square face he reasoned. Im told JIm Furyks dad used to put a ruler behind his ball for him to cover on the backswing . Homer would raise an eye brow to that revelation I bet.

In contrast Homer reasoned that the golf club head travelled in a circular orbit , not a perfect circle due to the moving centre and shortening radius but an ellipse which put its geometry under the geometry of the circle . Ellipses being derived from circles. As such there are no straight lines in the path of the club head, no "flat spots". No need to take the club head straight back. The club head travels an Arc as it approaches the ball or in startup. The turning of the body , golfs basic rotational movement being the main contributor to the "stone on a string" circular like physics, what Homer referred to as CF (rightly or wrongly.) The wrecking ball.

So logically , the swinger who wishes to approach a purer form of "swinging", a Bobby Jones like free wheeling say , needs to get his Pivot more involved ABOLUTELY ........ earlier to set up the "swing away", lagging takeaway. YES. But the pivot isn't particularly well suited to lifting the club UP in the backswing either (like the left arm) ...it tends towards under Plane motion. So we have a problem. A problem some teachers have tried to resolve by getting the plane of the shoulders more aligned to the Inclined Plane. Which isn't necessary in my opinion, respectfully. The solution to Homers mind was the introduction of the Right Forearm (elbow) Pick UP. Just a tad of Right Elbow bending pick up , a drinking beer like motion added to the rotationally powered backswing. Enough to get the club swinging UP the Inclined Plane. It takes the pivots swinging motion and redirects it up plane.

Instead of aligning the plane of the shoulders to the plane Homer introduced a second motion with a second directional vector....It sounds complicated but its exactly how we move around , grab things in every day life. Its what we do all day and we don't even think about it or realize we do it!

Two Vectors of motion. The pivot turning around, the right forearm lifts up. Or more correctly; the Pivot provides the IN and some of the BACK , the Right Arm elbow provides the UP. BACK, IN and UP being the three dimensions of a circular , planar takeaway. No straight line club head paths. The face describing the Hinge Action desired through Left Hand control.

In this way in Startup, the Right Shoulder can , may describe a relatively Flat Path back to the Inclined Plane (thereby limiting the amount of Plane Shift) while the Hands go up the Inclined Plane. Two separate paths which intersect , meet up on the Turned Shoulder Plane. From which the Hands and Right Shoulder share a brief ride down plane together. The hands getting a free ride from the Right Shoulder . Ensuring proper Downswing Sequencing. Its brilliant! Its a little weird! Its what we do when throwing a ball overhanded .. why its natural!

The RFT does not imply that the Pivot is dead during Startup!!!!!!!!!! Id say its still the main source of power, for me it moves early, gets the club head moving its first few inches. When does the RFT pickup? Anywhere between right away and slightly after right away. Its a fanning and bending motion. I find ideally done with the #1 pressure point, the same pressure point used to exert Extensor Action. OH by the way your stiff left arm can be considered another form of Extensor Action ....its not a deal breaker to my mind.

Shoulder turn takeaways have won a lot of majors so they can't be all bad but this was Homers logic on the subject given his quest for the uncompensated swing. Makes sense to me. Assuming I have it right. Which is a big assumption.