Davis Riley earned his 2nd PGA Tour title this last week at the 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge, holding off players like Scottie Scheffler and Keegan Bradley and turning around a pretty average season into a great one. David is widely known for having one of the purest swings on the PGA Tour, so PGA Professional Jack Backhouse brings you a Davis Riley golf swing analysis to see what you can learn from this silky swinger.
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Set-Up
Davis Riley addresses the ball in a near-perfect position. His shoulders and hips are stacked centred over his feet, his spine tilts slightly away from the target, and he has a very neutral grip.
Davis has slightly more hip hinge than other players when standing to the ball, but he does seem to have quite long arms, which might lead to this.
Backswing
Into the backswing, Davis Riley takes the club away with a perfectly square club face, which matches his spine angle and extremely wide arms. I love how he can maintain width all the way to the top position.
Davis has perfect wrist angles at the top with the club face square to his flat left wrist and a decent amount of trail wrist extension to load the club.
Interestingly, Davis Riley doesn’t have any shift into his right leg in the backswing; he has a very centred hip turn, which means he actually appears to move to his left side in the backswing. This isn’t a reverse pivot; this is just a very centred turn.
Downswing
From that massive backswing turn position, Davis shifts his hips towards the target and begins to unwind.
He does an amazing job of shallowing the club onto the perfect plane, he does this by straightening his right arm from the top and doesnt narrow his downswing at all. This is a brilliant way to keep control of the club face and low point of the swing.
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As Riley moves the club down into the ball, he posts with his left leg, which slingshots the club through, creating more club head speed.
Into The Finish
Davis Riley has a fairly unorthodox follow-through where he over-turns his chest through the ball, maybe to feel like his hands never release past his body and avoid a left shot.
He ends up in a wonderfully balanced position, barely stepping a foot wrong throughout the whole swing.
What can we learn?
Davis Riley’s golf swing is one of the best in the game right now so there are plenty of things to try copy:
- Create a massive turn in the backswing using your hips
- Create a huge swing arc by keeping width in the trail arm.
- For more clubhead speed, straighten the lead leg into impact to slingshot the club through
If you enjoyed this Davis Riley golf swing analysis, keep an eye out for more tour winners’ swing analysis in the future.
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