Find Out How You Swing – And Why It Matters

There are two basic types of swingers: throwers and draggers. Both camps have had great success on the professional tours, but they are truly different.

Draggers use a rotary method of swinging. The terminology they use—early wrist set, minimal weight transfer, releasing with the body—sounds more like engineering than golf. I call them draggers because they drag the club to the ball by turning their bodies. They tend to be accurate and take big divots.

Throwers start releasing the clubhead from the top of the swing and go through the ball without a hint of dragging the club. They tend to be long hitters, and their divots are shallow or nonexistent. Although the dragger concept is as old as the game itself, Jack Nicklaus popularized the thrower method in the 1960s.

There are extreme examples on both sides, but most swings are a blend of the two. The trick is finding out where you are, and what you need. If you hit high, weak shots, pitch poorly or can’t take a divot, you’re throwing too much—you need more drag. If you hit pushes and hooks, tend to fall back or hit the ball too low, you need more throw. Let’s walk through the swings and see where you need help.

Throwers

1. Start It Back Wide
Extension and width on the takeaway are hallmarks of the thrower. You see very little wrist hinge in the first half of the backswing, with the hands extending well away from the body. Nicklaus exemplified the thrower swing, but top teacher Jimmy Ballard later helped codify it. Ballard’s teaching incorporated the wide takeaway and delayed wrist set but also included a lateral move away from the target, seen in players such as Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and Ken Venturi. It’s a great power move taught to a degree today by Butch Harmon.

2. Turn Behind The Ball
With most throwers, the head moves behind the ball as the body coils, shifting significantly to the golfer’s right. This is a direct result of a major weight shift into the right side. In some cases, the thrower’s head will slide laterally up to six inches on the backswing. This is in stark contrast to the old Scottish turn-in-a-barrel idea, which stressed a steady head throughout the swing. Here you can see that a full backswing positions the left shoulder under the chin, also in a powerful, fully loaded position behind the ball.

3. Release From The Top
The most distinctive characteristic of this swing method—and where it gets its name—is the feeling of throwing the club in an early release or of uncocking the wrists on the downswing. Just past halfway down, the right elbow is separated from the body as it straightens (moving the arms in front of the torso, avoiding a “stuck” position). At this point, the wrists are already well into a release that will be completed through impact. This unhinging action is often accompanied by a significant slide of the knees and hips toward the target.

4. Making A Full Arm Swing
Throwers generally release the clubhead fully through impact, rolling the forearms over. They extend the club dramatically toward the target and parallel to the target line and finish with the belt buckle facing the target. Often the result is a super-high trajectory for a distinct advantage on long shots where carry is critical, such as long approaches into firm greens. Classic thrower Greg Norman hit long, towering moon balls off the tee—and also a lot of fairways. Many people consider him the best driver of all time.

Draggers

1. Set The Wrists Early
Because draggers focus more on control than power, the takeaway tends to be narrower, with much less extension and an early wrist set.  Often the left arm hugs the body going back, and the right elbow remains in close as the player maintains a connection between the torso and the lower body. Lateral movement of the head and body away from the target is minimal, and weight distribution remains essentially centered. In extreme cases, the body weight will favor the front foot throughout the backswing.

2. Stay More Over The Ball
For a classic dragger (think Hunter Mahan), the top of the backswing reveals the swing’s rotary aspect, where everything—head, shoulders, hips—appears centered over the ball. This position enables draggers to simply pull the club down and through the shot, staying on top of the ball for a super-low ball flight. That’s why this method is great for playing in the wind or on firm fairways. Lee Trevino, arguably the game’s best shotmaker, routed his club differently than most, but he had a huge amount of drag through impact.

3. Maintain The Hinge
To feel the sensation of the clubhead lagging before the body drags it through, try hitting knockdown shots focusing on body rotation. As you start down, your wrists are fully hinged and will feel as if they stay that way through the shot, releasing in tandem with your body. This “big-muscle’’ knockdown—left arm tight to the chest and right elbow in close to the side—minimizes wrist action through impact, just like in the dragger’s swing. The angle of attack is steeper, resulting in bigger divots, and the ball starts and stays low.

4. Make A Body Release
The dragger’s finish features a shorter arm swing, with the focus on body rotation. The torso stays in posture through the shot, the spine keeping some of its tilt toward the target line. You won’t see much head release through impact—certainly nothing like Annika Sorenstam, a textbook thrower who turned her head before hitting the ball. Many dragger swings look abbreviated, ending in a crisp, posed finish. This controlled action, compared with the freewheeling thrower, maximizes accuracy and distance control.