How Much Should Your Knees Bend in Setup, Swing? Golf Swing Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles
How Much Should Your Knees Bend in Setup, Swing? Golf Swing Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think for a lot of people they actually overly worry about their knees, and they worry too much about whether they should have straight knees or flex knees or what the knees should be doing. So here's a simple way of just making sure that you have some clarity about how your knees are going to work from setup throughout the golf swing. When you would address the golf ball, firstly just make sure that your knees are flexed so that's not bent, but not straight either.

So the easiest ways to flex your knees is to look them out first. Feel out the body weight is back and the legs are that straight and then just flex them. Now, as you flex them you'll just feel them bend forward slightly. You'll feel the body weight move forwards as well. Now, that for me is a flex knee position and that's really enough knee flex. A lot of people they feel too far from the golf ball too tall so they start to bend the knees to get nearer to the golf ball. The problem there is not utilizing your back correctly so if you lock your knees, flex your knees, and then tilt it’s the tilt that should take you down to the golf ball and not the bending of the knees. So the knees starts off flexed. And once it's flexed to the start position, we want to really try and maintain that flex during your stroke. So from a different angle now I start off, I flex my knees nicely. Now, during the back swing, I'd like the right side to actually maintain its flex. It certainly doesn’t bend more, but I would resist it from locking out completely. If it locks out, it might put the body weight to the outside of the foot and it might feel difficult to push off that lob leg. So would I turn into my back swing? I want to create a feeling if turning into that right knee creating some resistance that I can then push away from, so I don’t really want it to lock out and I definitely don’t want it to actually bend more during the back swing. And once I have kept that right knee in relatively similar positions where I started, I can push off that side, turn through, and actually at the finish of my stroke, both knees will be relatively straight. If I'm strong enough, my left leg would even locked out and my right leg would be nice and straight here turning to a nice big finish. So the important thing is get your knees flexed to start with, then maintain the correct knee flex that you started with throughout the whole swing. Knees are going up and down too much like suspension springs will often cause problems with the height of your strike, so if you're guilty of topping the ball and fatting the golf ball consider that your knees might be doing too much like suspension springs during your swing. 2013-09-16

I think for a lot of people they actually overly worry about their knees, and they worry too much about whether they should have straight knees or flex knees or what the knees should be doing. So here's a simple way of just making sure that you have some clarity about how your knees are going to work from setup throughout the golf swing. When you would address the golf ball, firstly just make sure that your knees are flexed so that's not bent, but not straight either.

So the easiest ways to flex your knees is to look them out first. Feel out the body weight is back and the legs are that straight and then just flex them. Now, as you flex them you'll just feel them bend forward slightly. You'll feel the body weight move forwards as well. Now, that for me is a flex knee position and that's really enough knee flex. A lot of people they feel too far from the golf ball too tall so they start to bend the knees to get nearer to the golf ball. The problem there is not utilizing your back correctly so if you lock your knees, flex your knees, and then tilt it’s the tilt that should take you down to the golf ball and not the bending of the knees.

So the knees starts off flexed. And once it's flexed to the start position, we want to really try and maintain that flex during your stroke. So from a different angle now I start off, I flex my knees nicely. Now, during the back swing, I'd like the right side to actually maintain its flex. It certainly doesn’t bend more, but I would resist it from locking out completely. If it locks out, it might put the body weight to the outside of the foot and it might feel difficult to push off that lob leg. So would I turn into my back swing? I want to create a feeling if turning into that right knee creating some resistance that I can then push away from, so I don’t really want it to lock out and I definitely don’t want it to actually bend more during the back swing.

And once I have kept that right knee in relatively similar positions where I started, I can push off that side, turn through, and actually at the finish of my stroke, both knees will be relatively straight. If I'm strong enough, my left leg would even locked out and my right leg would be nice and straight here turning to a nice big finish. So the important thing is get your knees flexed to start with, then maintain the correct knee flex that you started with throughout the whole swing. Knees are going up and down too much like suspension springs will often cause problems with the height of your strike, so if you're guilty of topping the ball and fatting the golf ball consider that your knees might be doing too much like suspension springs during your swing.