Golf Beginner - Keep Your Head Down

The most common reason I see golfers not able to keep their “head down” (i.e. stable spine angle), is that their body motion is often almost non-existent, the motion being “all arms”, the cause usually being “dead legs” , i.e. “flat footed” or “locked up” knees.

If a (relatively) forceful swing of the arms is made through the ball, and the body and legs do not turn out of the way, then *some part* of the body has to absorb the momentum built up.

There are two schools of thought regarding arm / body motion, 1) that the body follows the motion of the arms or 2) that the motion of the body causes the arms to swing. Which one you believe doesn’t matter but the fact is that the body does have to turn while the arms swing.

When I see a golfer who has an obvious lack of body motion, I find it’s easier for them to learn by having them use the “body leads the arms” method. You can progress through a few stages to learn this.

(For a R.H. golfer) 1) Stand straight up, hold your arms out in front of you comfortably at chest level, then while keeping right foot stationary (allowing the left heel to rise if necessary), turn the chest and shoulders to the right and observe that (quite naturally) the arms follow and are still in front of the chest as you face to the “right”. Then reverse the turn, so that your chest and hips end up facing “left”, allow the right heel to come off the round.

Then just bend from the hips into a “golf stance”, still with the arms in front of you, and do the “turn-turn” drill again, and because of the tilt of the body, the arms will now be moving on a tilted “plane”.

Finally take a golf club and repeat the motion, to feel how the body turn carries the arms and club back and forth.

When you get the feel of the body rotating, you can then adjust your personal motion where it feels like the arms and shoulders/ chest are turning back together, or your arms mainly motivating the movement, or you might stay with the chest/torso feeling of initiating the motion. The end result should all look the same.

With the torso and legs now rotating throughout the swing, you should find it easy to keep the upper spine (and head) in place throughout the backswing and early stages of the followthrough.

The “modern” swing has the spine and head “releasing” the angle in the followthrough, so that you’ll end up standing straight up, balanced on the forward foot. When that occurs in the followthrough varies depending on a player’s flexibility.

Article Source: http://www.greenposse.com/

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