Lee Trevino cautions on 3 ‘bad habits’ players commit on the backswing

Lee Trevino, in a sweet slow-motion video, rockets a tee shot down a fairway. He laughs. 

“Now there’s a perfect backswing,” he says.   

Indeed. There’s a bigger point here, though. Moments earlier, the legendary ball-striker, all-time talker and six-time major winner had dished on a trio of “bad habits” players commit on their backswing. 

And Trevino talked about how to make the “correct” one. 

The insight came via a recent post on the Golf Teachers App Instagram page, and you can watch the full video below. Below that, we’ll break it down.

3 ‘bad habits’ players commit on the backswing, according to Lee Trevino  

1. Wrists ‘break too soon’ 

“One of the bad habits that you have is that you break too soon away from the ball,” Trevino said. On the video, in demonstrating the point, he cocked his wrists before any other backswing movement. 

2. Club goes ‘too far outside’

“The other one,” Trevino said, “is that you pick the club up and you take it too far outside.” On the video, with the camera facing him, Trevino lifted the club, and it pointed at about a 7 o’clock angle. 

3. The elbow breaks  

“The third one,” Trevino said, “is you break the right elbow and pull the club back way inside.” On the video, the right-handed Trevino pulled his right arm backward.

So what was Trevino’s thought on the “correct” backswing?

He advised to match a righty’s left shoulder with the clubhead and to be cognizant of hip movement. 

“The correct backswing is actually it works from the left shoulder to the clubhead,” Trevino said on the video. “It works away from the ball all in one motion. 

“Now, if you want to take the club back inside, you have to close your hips because the club will only follow the alignment of the hips, so it’ll come inside. If you want to go straight down the line, you square up your stance and you go straight back. If you want to go a little outside the line on the way back, you open up your stance and you go a little outside.”

From there, Trevino hit his tee ball and laughed. 

Let’s keep the Trevino tip conversation going. In 2021, GOLF.com wrote an article headlined “Why your ball position is hurting your golf swing, according to Lee Trevino,” and you can read that story by clicking here or by scrolling below. (Notably, the advice given is some of this author’s favorite.) 

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What do you ask golf legend Lee Trevino, who doubles as potentially the best ball-striker of all time, when the opportunity presents itself? With a seemingly infinite amount of golf wisdom at his disposal, I decided to keep it simple:

“What’s some advice for golfers who struggle to hit the ball solidly?”

For a moment, I was worried the question was too broad, but The Merry Mex, speaking at the 2021 Berenberg Invitational, didn’t miss a beat.

“Your arms are only so long,” he says. “You have to understand that your arms are like the limbs attached to the trunk of a tree. My body is the trunk, and my arms are the limbs. They swing back and forth.”

The analogy is a useful one because it describes something lots of pros think about: The ‘radius’ of their golf swing. Your arms are going to straighten as you swing, Trevino says, which means you need to monitor the literal space between yourself and the golf ball you’re trying to hit.

And in that regard, there’s nothing more important than your ball position.

Let’s go back to Trevino’s tree limb analogy. Your arms — the limbs — swing back and forth around the trunk of the tree. As your arms do this, there’s a point where they begin moving up and around your body, away from the golf ball. This is why, Trevino says, a common mistake occurs when golfers play the ball too far forward in their stance: Their arms begin coming up, which brings the club with them, which results in thin shots, whiffs and other mishits.

“They’re coming up before they’re hitting the golf ball,” Trevino says. “The ball is going low, it’s going left, and you’re catching the ball thin.”

It’s why Trevino tells golfers to play the ball more back in their stance than they think. It’ll help them make a compressed strike on the golf ball and send the ball straighter.

You can watch Trevino in his own words below.