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If your clubs are "fitted" a main point is after you have put yourself in the correct stance the bottom of the clubhead should lie exactly even to the ground. Of not, you can adjust your bending while making sure the arms hang straight down. Many pro golfers, on using a driver, may not have their arms straight down, but a little pushed forward. You can always choke up on the club. See  next tab on the right.

Beginners many times are using left over clubs hanging around the garage. Mostly these are men's clubs and are too big for women. This is not a useless situation. The level a beginner achieves make fitted clubs an expense whose time has not arrived. Choke up a few inches, enough to make the bottom of the clubhead match the ground evenly. This keeps the ball close enough to your toes for a reasonable swing,

If a club is too long, "choke up" on the grip a inch or so. Illustration It's the same grip used if you were grabbing the end of the grip, just the ball will be closer and maybe easier to hit.

The distance, as you see in the "Setup" video and this Illustration, from your toe to the ball directly away from you, is determined by taking a proper stance (see menu choice Setup) and noting how far from your toes to the clubhead. The position from front to back foot are determined by what kind of shot you need to make - again see section below.

Note that Nicklaus thins the ball should allways be in one place for all clubs except the driver, which is hit on the way up. Tiger likes to move the left/right position as he likes lots of tricj shots. Generally, most shots can have the ball placed about 2" back of the forward heel. For us average golfers one the 2" position is just fine.

Really good golfers exhibit coordination average people don't even know exists. To help the integration of the parts of a good swing many of our exercises help your body's physical coordination.

Whereas GLG has many specific exercises for coordination, every exercise path is very concious of the need for coordination. Pros have great spacial perceptions of where their body parts are at any given time, but you probably can only notice one part of a swing (or part of your body) at a time. This is where Muscle Memory is necessary for each part of the swing so you may move on to the next stage with the arms, hands, feet and legs coordinate into a good swing.

The reason we "tee-up" our golf balls on the tee is simply we do not want the lowest point of your swing to touch the ground. Since the driver should hit slightly on the upswing. This lowers the rotation of the ball and makes the ball go further. Notice the driver doesn't have the ridges of the irons that cause rotation and the accompanying backspin. Don't worry too much about all this as until you can compress the ball and take a divit it won't make any difference in your game.

You will see in the video clear pictures of what you need to modify in your swing for the different clubs.

Note also the sweet spot of a driver is fairly high compared to the other clubs, and since we are not taking a divot the only way to hit the club in the right place is to raise the ball.

A guide for how high the ball sits:  Place the driver clubhead bottom on the ground behind a teed up golf ball. Illustration Link Adjust the height of the ball until the center of the ball is at the height of the top of the clubhead.

Of course, people normally don't use tees on the fairway. One reason hybrids and fairway metals work is a smaller face with a sweet spot accessible near the ground when the ball is struck. Pretty much your fairway clubs hit the ball at the bottom of your swing. You might see where the club bottom hits the fairway as a small swatch in the fairway. Hitting out of short rough makes it easy to hit the sweet spot. 

Not everyone can hit irons well. The best iron shots need to make a divot to hit the ball when the club is still going downwards for spin and for the ball to meet the sweet spot of the clubhead.

If you are hitting on a driving range carpet not only is a divot impossible, the rug forces the club face into the ball if you hit the rug early and makes the shot look better than it would be on grass.

 After you have reached the back 70 degree position, raise your forward arm over the back shoulder. Why? You are rotating around your spine and this keeps you in the swing plane. If your arm is not over the back shoulder you will have to make a correction in the downswing to bring, with extra movement, to meet the ball correctly. Also, moving the arm to over the back shoulder will finish your body's rotation to 90 degrees. Some really flexible people can do the 90 degrees on the first rotation.

If you slide your hips, as many videos seem to promote, you add moving parts that require compensating another part of the swing. You are changing the axis of twist to the front leg with maybe 6-10 inches of movement forward, but inside the front foot's arch. Do not slide the hips or the knees. That is an old fashioned swing, not the one the current pros use. Tiger and Jack didn't slide and you shouldn't either.

Slower swings usually constantly increases speed all during the entire swing. You see this especially on the women's tour. The men generally swing so fast it's impossible to tell if they increase power at the horizontal. If you look at the golfers of the 80's and 90's some pros had visably slower swings from top to 90 degrees.

It's about reaching the 90 degree point on the downswing and what happens at that point. This is the only difference between one and two part swings: at the 90 degree point, where the club is horizontal, the swing becomes stronger compared to the swing from the top to 90 degrees.

Yet this two part swing may actually work better for you. The video will clarify the difference and you can decide what's best for you.

Has it ever occurred to you as you start the swing backwards the weight of the club goes backward too. You have no choice, according to physics, about weight shifting more to your back leg.
In fact, Ben Hogan specifically mentions the weight transfer goes from the just before the heel on the back foot to the toe of the front foot. If the club at the top is behind you, your weight must go to the ball of the back foot, which you need to load up to be ready for the forward swing.

The backswing rotates around the back leg. What position the back leg should take will be discussed later. When the club passes the hitting zone the weight should have transferred to the front leg and not much sooner. The body must always face (be perpendicular to) the club shaft. If not the body and arms are out of synch. Pros can whip the club around. On the other hand, amateurs shouldn't have so many moving parts.

A combination of weight shift and body shift will make the club face feel like the bottom of your swing has a touch more horizontal movement when the ball is struck. The whole stroke will feel better.

Keep in mind the sweet spot of the clubface is not at the bottom of the club, but the middle. By coming forward through the swing you will learn to take a divot, yet hit the ball first. 

When the stroke feels right, most likely you will be able to see the ball being hit and feel much more in control. 

Coming forward also make the swing much more repeatible.

Baseball pitchers load up the back foot on the inside, or arch side, and then push off. No pitchers shoves off the outside of the back foot. You need to do the same.

Never straighten out the back knee, always have some knee bend otherwise you cannot load and push forward. It's one reason GLG exercises work on building up the leg muscles and the tendons around the knees.

Well, if you don't have any weight transfer you will reverse pivot. Possibly even tilt your back sideways. Proper weight transfer occurs, at a maximum, from the inside of the back foot to the inside of the front foot. If your center of gravity remains between your feet you are probably standing straight.  This produces the best swing.

If you start to sway the knees and hips you have to use conservation of angular momentum not to fall over. Besides, a straight stance and swing are the easiest to reproduce.

The two schools of thought about head movement: 1. Keep the head steady from front to back and up and down,resulting in swivel knees and hips and 2. The head moves with the body as the weight shifts, that is from back to front (in the direction of swing). Much easier for amateurs.

Some people like their heads to bob up and down. For better golfers this bobbing is from the action of the knees during the swing.

GLG goes with the straight up body and legs and moving the head with the body.