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THE FEET
The Role of the Ankle Roll
One of the first to emphasize the importance of the ankles in the golf swing was Alex Morrison. A pupil of his, Jack Grout, passed the information to a fairly decent player, one Jack Nicklaus, whose swing for many years, served as a clinic for demonstrating perfect ankle action.
The ankle is a hinge joint, whose range of motion includes allowing the leg to move inward toward the center of the body while the foot remains essentially in place. This rolling motion while possible is rarely used. Much more common is lifting the heel and the knee together, a habit ingrained from walking. This is why so many golfers simply lift their left heel and knee straight up during the backswing thus ruining their weight shift. During the downswing they make the same mistake with the back heel leaving most of their weight on the trail side.
If you’re hitting a lot of fat shots and thin shots and the best thing you can say about your overall pattern of shots is that it’s erratic, check to see if you’re performing the ankle roll.
How to Roll Your Ankles
Done correctly the ankle roll allows you to keep your body level while you rotate around your hip joints as you swing. On the backswing, your left ankle [ right for left-handers] folds inward toward the center line of your body in response to the pull of your front knee as it moves behind the ball. The amount it rolls depends on your flexibility - the outside of your front foot may leave the ground as your weight shifts into your back hip joint, especially with the longer clubs like the driver. But even though your front heel leaves the ground, your front knee and ankle should not move vertically upward. During your downswing your trailing angle rolls inward, following the lead of your back knee and hip as they fire targetward.
A good check point is to examine the top of your golf shoes as the start of both your backswing and downswing. Either use video with a zoom, or ask a friend to watch for the appearance of wrinkles across the top of your shoes where your toes meet your foot. Wrinkles indicate that you’re lifting your heel up rather than rolling your ankle in.
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