Great Golf Posture To A Great Consistent Swing, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles
Great Golf Posture To A Great Consistent Swing, Tour Alignment Sticks Drill (Video) - by Pete Styles

Think probably one of the most commonly heard piece of advice for most beginners when they start to play the game is that you got to keep your head down and oh you've hit a bad shot because you've lifted your head. But very rarely is lifting the head on its own actually the reason for the bad shot. And even if the head does lift, it's not the golfer’s intention to lift their head and another part of their body is often making them lift their head. So if you've been told by your playing partners you lifted your head that’s why you hit the top of the golf ball this might be a great exercise for you to understand what's actually happening to make your head lift up. So if I go ahead and take a good address position here I'm going to set myself up nicely and just have this cane that I've stuck in the ground or in the basket here.

That’s just going to touch against the back of my body and against my hips. I then take a nice address position and I can feel that I've got a lot of body weight tilted forwards my hips are pushed back just resting against the cane, and that keeps my body still. And if I make a good back swing, I turn to the top I can keep it just pushing against the back of my hips here and I stay balanced and now most importantly as I swing back down I can still feel the stick touching against my back here it's not pulling away. Now, if I was to make the mistake a lot of golfers make swing up to the top nicely and then the hips come in.

Now, if the hips come in I move away from the cane but it also makes my upper body stand up. So my whole body is straightened up from what was once a good address position I've now stood up far too much. So I'm pushing back against the cane to start with, I swing back and I've stood up I'm now higher than when I started my spine angle has changed shape I swing down and hit over the top of the golf ball. But at no point did I ever deliberately lift my head up or look up to see where the ball went. What actually happened my hips simply came forwards and that threw my body and my chest up. For a lot of golfers this happens actually because they have quite tight hamstrings, physically they find it awkward to have that big tilt forwards, it gets quite tight in the back of the hamstrings so they over flex their knees or during the swing they relax and stand up because that’s what the body wants to take the pressure off the hamstrings but actually doing that causes your head to rise up, you hit the top of the golf ball.

So this is a great way and a great exercise just practicing at home if you need to you don’t need to hi golf balls with this. Practice pushing the hips back against the cane swinging back, turning through, keeping the feeling of being down on the ball with the chest and the hips back. As soon as the hips come in the head stands up and that’s what's causing you to lift your head up and hit the top of the golf ball.

 2013-06-27

Think probably one of the most commonly heard piece of advice for most beginners when they start to play the game is that you got to keep your head down and oh you've hit a bad shot because you've lifted your head. But very rarely is lifting the head on its own actually the reason for the bad shot. And even if the head does lift, it's not the golfer’s intention to lift their head and another part of their body is often making them lift their head. So if you've been told by your playing partners you lifted your head that’s why you hit the top of the golf ball this might be a great exercise for you to understand what's actually happening to make your head lift up. So if I go ahead and take a good address position here I'm going to set myself up nicely and just have this cane that I've stuck in the ground or in the basket here.

That’s just going to touch against the back of my body and against my hips. I then take a nice address position and I can feel that I've got a lot of body weight tilted forwards my hips are pushed back just resting against the cane, and that keeps my body still. And if I make a good back swing, I turn to the top I can keep it just pushing against the back of my hips here and I stay balanced and now most importantly as I swing back down I can still feel the stick touching against my back here it's not pulling away. Now, if I was to make the mistake a lot of golfers make swing up to the top nicely and then the hips come in.

Now, if the hips come in I move away from the cane but it also makes my upper body stand up. So my whole body is straightened up from what was once a good address position I've now stood up far too much. So I'm pushing back against the cane to start with, I swing back and I've stood up I'm now higher than when I started my spine angle has changed shape I swing down and hit over the top of the golf ball. But at no point did I ever deliberately lift my head up or look up to see where the ball went. What actually happened my hips simply came forwards and that threw my body and my chest up. For a lot of golfers this happens actually because they have quite tight hamstrings, physically they find it awkward to have that big tilt forwards, it gets quite tight in the back of the hamstrings so they over flex their knees or during the swing they relax and stand up because that’s what the body wants to take the pressure off the hamstrings but actually doing that causes your head to rise up, you hit the top of the golf ball.

So this is a great way and a great exercise just practicing at home if you need to you don’t need to hi golf balls with this. Practice pushing the hips back against the cane swinging back, turning through, keeping the feeling of being down on the ball with the chest and the hips back. As soon as the hips come in the head stands up and that’s what's causing you to lift your head up and hit the top of the golf ball.