Lee Trevino Warns of 3 ‘Bad Habits’ Players Commit to Running Back

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

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

Indeed. However, there is a larger point here. A while ago, the legendary ball strikerthe all-time talker and six-time major winner had enjoyed a trio of “bad habits” players commit on their return.

And Trevino talked about how to get it “just right.”

The insight came through one last post on the Golf Teachers App Instagram page and you can watch the full video below. Below, we’ll break it down.

According to Lee Trevino, 3 ‘bad habits’ players commit in comebacks

1. Wrists ‘break too quickly’

“One of the bad habits you have is you get off the ball too quickly,” Trevino said. In the video, to demonstrate the point, he flexed his wrists before any further backswing.

2. The club goes ‘too far abroad’

“The other,” Trevino said, “is that you take the club and you take it too far.” In the video, with the camera facing him, Trevino raised the club and it pointed at an angle around 7 o’clock.

3. The elbow breaks

“The third,” said Trevino, “is for you to break the right elbow and pull the stick back in.” In the video, Trevino pulled his right arm back with his right hand.

So what was Trevino’s take on the “correct” comeback?

He advised connecting the righty’s left shoulder with the club head and being aware of the movement of the hips.

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

“Now, if you want to drive the club in, you have to lock the hips because the club is just going to follow the extension of the hips, so it’s going to go in. If you want to go straight down the line, you adjust your stance and go straight back. If you want to go a little bit off the line on the way back, you open up your stance and go a little bit out.”

From there, Trevino hit his ball and laughed.

Let’s continue the conversation with Trevino’s advice. In 2021, GOLF.com wrote an article titled “Why Your Ball Position Is Hurting Your Golf Swing, According to Lee Trevino,” and you can read that story by clicking here or scrolling down. (Notably, the tips provided are some of this author’s favorites.)

***

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

“What is some advice for players who struggle to hit the ball hard?”

For a moment, I worried that the question was too broad, but The Merry Mex, speaking at the 2021 Berenberg Invitational, was no exception.

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

The analogy is useful because it describes something that many professionals think about: the ‘radius’ of their golf swing. Your arms will straighten as you swing, Trevino says, which means you need to monitor the actual space between yourself and the golf ball you’re trying to hit.

And in this regard, there is nothing more important than your ball position.

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

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

That’s why Trevino tells golfers to play the ball into their stance more than they think. It will help them hit the golf ball harder and send the ball straighter.

You can watch Trevino in his own words below.