Staying In A Good Posture And Spine Angle (Video) - by Pete Styles
Staying In A Good Posture And Spine Angle (Video) - by Pete Styles

Once a golfer has achieved a good posture and a good setup position, they’ve then got to make sure they try and stay in that good posture, in that good position right the way throughout that swing. And there's three sort of killer moves that a lot of golfers are guilty of during that swing that would cause them problems. Very, very inconsistent shot, potentially a loss of power, lack of accuracy mainly associated with the poor control of the spine angle. So once I’ve got myself set up to the golf ball here, let's look at the first one of those three things that can become a problem.

The first thing is swaying away from the golf ball. So as we swing back away from the ball, we want to try and alleviate any swaying away. You can see my spine angle move too far off the target here. Now it's going to be a big problem. The elite players, the PGA Tour players generally move their head less than one inch during their entire swing. So keeping yourself set up nicely, keeping the head very still, you would like to make a good turn back, but the head doesn't move a long way away from the golf ball at all. We would certainly avoid any swaying back onto this right-hand side. The next problem kind of associates with that really, and this is actually reversing the pivot the opposite direction. So what we class is a reverse pivot where the body weight actually goes to the left side, and the head goes to the left side during the back swing. This is often caused because people want to not sway. They've been told that that's swaying, so they actually go the opposite direction and reverse pivot this way, too much body weight on to the left side. Now that shouldn’t be mistaken with a stack & tilt. The stack & tilt is a reasonable movement for some golfers to make, but a reverse pivot is actually a bit different. Reverse pivot, we generally see the legs go one way; the head go the other way. There's no power in this position. The only way out of it is to then reverse out of it. So we want to avoid the head going one way. We want to avoid the head going the other way. Ideally we keep the head relatively steady during the backswing, loading the pressure on to the right leg but not swaying. And the last one of those three killer moves is flattening the shoulders out. Now flattening the shoulder tilt can be a big problem as well. Your accuracy, your consistency, and particularly your strike is compromised if your shoulders flatten out. What I mean by that is if I make a good setup and a good turn back, my shoulders have an inclination for that tilted forwards this way. So I can put a club over my shoulders and turn and it kind of points down in the vicinity of the golf ball. A lot of golfers, they swing back due to lack of flexibility for a lot of players. They lean back and they stand up and the shoulders now point across the room. Now as I do that and I swing back this way, the natural arc of the golf swing would then be there like a baseball swing. And that's going to be no good to hit the golf ball. So I would find myself lifting up and then lowering and a real big sort of chopping action during the swing. So as we swing back to maintain that correct spine angle, the left shoulder should come down pointing at the golf ball. The right shoulder would rise up slightly. I can then swing back down on exactly the same plane I took up, and I should get a more consistent strike. So if you're struggling with consistency, accuracy, loss of power, loss of spine angle could be a key to this. So let's fix the sway, the reverse pivot, and the flat shoulder plane and see whether that helps you improve as a golfer. 2015-07-15

Once a golfer has achieved a good posture and a good setup position, they’ve then got to make sure they try and stay in that good posture, in that good position right the way throughout that swing. And there's three sort of killer moves that a lot of golfers are guilty of during that swing that would cause them problems. Very, very inconsistent shot, potentially a loss of power, lack of accuracy mainly associated with the poor control of the spine angle. So once I’ve got myself set up to the golf ball here, let's look at the first one of those three things that can become a problem.

The first thing is swaying away from the golf ball. So as we swing back away from the ball, we want to try and alleviate any swaying away. You can see my spine angle move too far off the target here. Now it's going to be a big problem. The elite players, the PGA Tour players generally move their head less than one inch during their entire swing. So keeping yourself set up nicely, keeping the head very still, you would like to make a good turn back, but the head doesn't move a long way away from the golf ball at all.

We would certainly avoid any swaying back onto this right-hand side. The next problem kind of associates with that really, and this is actually reversing the pivot the opposite direction. So what we class is a reverse pivot where the body weight actually goes to the left side, and the head goes to the left side during the back swing. This is often caused because people want to not sway. They've been told that that's swaying, so they actually go the opposite direction and reverse pivot this way, too much body weight on to the left side. Now that shouldn’t be mistaken with a stack & tilt.

The stack & tilt is a reasonable movement for some golfers to make, but a reverse pivot is actually a bit different. Reverse pivot, we generally see the legs go one way; the head go the other way. There's no power in this position. The only way out of it is to then reverse out of it. So we want to avoid the head going one way. We want to avoid the head going the other way. Ideally we keep the head relatively steady during the backswing, loading the pressure on to the right leg but not swaying. And the last one of those three killer moves is flattening the shoulders out.

Now flattening the shoulder tilt can be a big problem as well. Your accuracy, your consistency, and particularly your strike is compromised if your shoulders flatten out. What I mean by that is if I make a good setup and a good turn back, my shoulders have an inclination for that tilted forwards this way. So I can put a club over my shoulders and turn and it kind of points down in the vicinity of the golf ball. A lot of golfers, they swing back due to lack of flexibility for a lot of players. They lean back and they stand up and the shoulders now point across the room.

Now as I do that and I swing back this way, the natural arc of the golf swing would then be there like a baseball swing. And that's going to be no good to hit the golf ball. So I would find myself lifting up and then lowering and a real big sort of chopping action during the swing. So as we swing back to maintain that correct spine angle, the left shoulder should come down pointing at the golf ball. The right shoulder would rise up slightly. I can then swing back down on exactly the same plane I took up, and I should get a more consistent strike.

So if you're struggling with consistency, accuracy, loss of power, loss of spine angle could be a key to this. So let's fix the sway, the reverse pivot, and the flat shoulder plane and see whether that helps you improve as a golfer.