What is Weight Transfer in Golf?

Weight transfer is the most-cued and most-misunderstood concept in golf. The phrase suggests an active shift, but on a force plate the actual movement of the center of mass is small — what changes dramatically is the pressure under each foot. At the top of the backswing roughly 70% of pressure sits on the trail foot. By impact, roughly 80% has moved to the lead foot. By the finish, almost all of it.

The mistake amateurs make is trying to slide the body laterally to 'transfer weight.' That's not weight transfer; that's a sway in one direction and a slide in the other. Real weight transfer happens because the trail leg pushes off the ground (the same way it does in any throwing or hitting motion) and the lead leg posts up to receive the rotation. The hips clear, the lead leg straightens, and the pressure naturally rolls onto the lead foot.

If you finish a swing in balance with your belt buckle facing the target and almost all your weight on the lead foot, you transferred weight correctly. If you fall backward off the lead side at the finish, you didn't.