Your golf backswing sets the stage for everything that follows. You’ll hear lots of advice about plane, path, length and more when working on the backswing. Yet there’s one key element many golfers overlook: the role of the knees, specifically the flex in your right knee. Ignoring this crucial detail can severely limit your swing’s effectiveness and consistency.
The Problem: Keeping your right knee too flexed
A common misconception is that your knees should stay in the same position during your backswing. While stability is essential, completely restricting knee movement does more harm than good.
Proper knee flex increases your upper body rotation, allows your hips to tilt and even decreases the risk of injury.
Benefits of allowing your right knee to change flex
When you set up to hit a golf ball, you’ll have some flex in the right knee (for right-handed players). However, as you swing back, you should lose a little of that flex and straighten the right knee slightly. Here’s why:
Increases your shoulder turn
Try turning your shoulders without using your knees or hips. You’ll quickly find your rotation is severely limited (around 20-30 degrees).
Allowing your right knee to straighten slightly during your backswing naturally facilitates hip and torso rotation, enabling you to reach the necessary shoulder turn for powerful shots.
Tilt your hips correctly
Good golfers tilt their hips toward the ground during their backswing. Maintaining a rigid knee flex with no straightening restricts this movement.
Allowing your left knee to flex slightly while your right knee straightens helps tilt your hips, leading to more predictable contact and improved ball striking.
Promotes proper hand path
Changing your knee flex opens up some room on the downswing for a natural inward hand and club path. When your knee stays rigid, your swing becomes overly vertical.
This can lead to weak and inconsistent shots. A correct knee movement may not fix your path entirely but it just allows your hands and club to follow an ideal swing arc.
Reduces unwanted sway
This is probably one of the most interesting impacts of working on knee flex in your golf game. Ironically, holding your knees too rigid can cause excessive lateral sway. Your body searches for ways to generate power and a sway away from the ball can feel powerful for amateur players.
Allowing your knees to change flex appropriately helps maintain a centered pivot, reducing sway and improving consistency in your ball striking.
Lowers injury risk and strain
Your knees are designed to flex and extend naturally. Restricting this natural movement places unnecessary stress on other body parts like your lower back. Allowing your knees to move naturally reduces joint strain and minimizes injury risk. Don’t let this be the reason you have to sit out a season!
How much should the knee straighten?
Now here’s the natural question: How much does this lead knee need to straighten? The video of Collin Morikawa below lets you see this happen in real time. You’ll find that the amount of movement will vary from player to player.
Flexible golfers may need less visible motion while older or less mobile players may benefit from more. What’s important is that the motion supports a smooth pivot, not that it meets a specific angle or appearance.
Focus on feeling balanced and centered, not rigid and stationary. Just make sure your lead knee (the left for right-handers) bends inward, not toward the target or the ball.
Final thoughts
Changing your knee flex in the backswing is a subtle adjustment with significant benefits. This overlooked backswing tip might be the game-changer you’ve been waiting for. Head to the range and take face-on and down-the-line videos to see what your knees are doing.
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