“When they broke my foot and got it back in the correct alignment, they had to cast it and keep recasting it, so it de- veloped slower than my left leg,” Rahm says. “And so the limitation of my right ankle sort of dictated how far I should take the club back to stay in control of my swing. “I mean, I can take the club back to parallel. If I wanted to be a long-drive champion, I could probably get there, but my accuracy disappears.” That’s why Celles got Rahm to stop his backswing when the club is still pointing relatively skywards. But before he gets to that spot, he’s already changing direction with his lower body and moving aggressively down and towards the target. It’s a move that happens in a flash and is fuelled by Rahm’s strong hands and powerful 6-foot-3, 250-pound (113-kilogram) body. If you tried to copy him, you’d likely not be able to stop the club in the same spot – and that’s the real secret to why Rahm’s quick-and- short backswing could be the key to bet- ter ball-striking for you, Phillips says. Most amateurs rush into the down- swing before fully completing the backswing windup. Worse, they start down with their arms and club instead of initiating the move into the ball with the lower body. When trying to copy Rahm’s move (even though you likely can’t duplicate it), you force yourself to complete the backswing with your upper body while simultaneously starting the downswing with your legs and hips. Your body is going in two directions at once – just like a pro. It’s similar to cracking a towel or whip. Your hand is still moving away from what you are trying to strike as your arm goes forward, creating the “snap.” The numbers don’t lie Your golf instructor might have told you to take your time starting back in the hopes you wouldn’t rush and ruin the sequencing of the swing. But do you think that’s how most pros do it? Data provided by Michael Neff of GEARS Golf in Portland, Oregon, shows that tour pros start back quick, reaching a point in the swing where the lead arm is parallel to the ground in only 0.62 seconds on average (Jon Rahm’s time is 0.53). “Jon is definitely one of the fast- est in the takeaway among the players we’ve tested,” Neff says.
BY THE TIME JUSTIN ROSE MADE IMPACT WITH THE BALL, MY BALL WAS 150 YARDS OFF THE TEE.”
a word about your swing – and what’s wrong with it – unless you ask. “God, no, I would never,” says Rahm, the LIV Golf Individual Champion in 2024 and 2025. His Legion XIII squad also won the ‘25 team championship. “But I do have a drill that I use, one that came from my coach as a kid, that I give if they ask for my help.” The drill: “Grab a 6-iron and swing it back until you feel like your hands are at hip height,” Rahm says. “When you get to that spot, hit the shot at full speed.” After a handful of reps, you’ll start to understand how this abbreviated-back- swing drill gets you to use your body to generate power and speed, creating the whip-like action where the club is still moving away from the target while your lower body is shifting towards it. “There’s a disassociation between the lower body and upper body, and it creates a lot of energy,” Rahm says. “I teach this drill when I see people slow and out of sync. If you don’t use your hips, there is no power in the swing. “It’s funny because when I tell people about the drill and ask them to take it back only until their hands are hip high, they actually take it back much further than that. But it’s this change of direction that gets them swinging much better.” At the Titleist Performance Institute in Oceanside, California, where Phillips also works with average golfers, they have a drill called the “pelvic punch” that is similar to what Rahm teach- es, and it also gets the body engaged correctly. Again using a mid-iron, Phillips has students set the club’s shaft in the back-
How do those times compare to the move of an average Saturday-morning golfer? Neff says their lead arm hits that mark in 0.75 seconds – and Rahm already is done with his backswing by then (0.70). Furthermore, the cadence is often the opposite of an elite golfer, says Tyler Standifird, a college professor in biomechanics and an advisor for Super- Speed Golf. Amateurs typically swing slow going back, jerk the club at the top and then decelerate into the ball. Elite golfers start back fast, slow down near the top and then ramp up again on the way down. It’s slow-fast-slow (bad) versus fast-slow-fast (good). In a test conducted for Golf Digest, Standifird timed the takeaways of 17 “solid college golfers” and 17 average players with Handicap Indexes rang- ing from 10 to 25. What he found was that the average time it took the better players to reach the arm-parallel point was 0.28 faster than the regular golfers did it. “Not one good player was slower than 0.60,” he says. To get faster off the ball, it’s impor- tant to understand how to grip the club, Rahm says. “At address, you want your hands to be loose because if they get tight, you instinctively start to get tight in other parts of your body, restricting your takeaway. You don’t want the club to be too loose, though. You should feel in control because when you swing down you’ll be squeezing hard.” Jon Rahm’s drill for you If you ever get the privilege of playing with Rahm at a LIV Golf event or else- where, just know he’s not going to say
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