Annika Sorenstam Golf Swing, Early Head Movement (Video) - by Pete Styles
Annika Sorenstam Golf Swing, Early Head Movement (Video) - by Pete Styles

So, keeping your eyes on the golf ball, and keeping your head down, are 2 of the most common used pieces of advice, sometimes in the right fashion, sometimes actually, its bad advice. It’s probably ill-informed advice as well. But in an ideal world, and you’ll see this with most club golfers, most good professional golfers as well. They are aware that they’re trying to keep their eyes on the golf ball for as long as possible, until at least the ball has been hit, then the right shoulder would come around, and lift the head up to a finish position, and nicely, up to a nice finish position at the end.

But Annika Sorenstam has a different movement to this in her golf swing. She has a tendency to come down towards the golf ball, and around about here, she drops her hands down towards her right thigh and hip. The head will actually start to move in front of the golf ball, the nose and the chin start looking through the golf ball, to an area of the ground in front of her. So as she comes through to impact, she’s not looking at the golf ball for the last couple of feet, strikes the golf ball with the head over in this position, and then would naturally follow through to a big finish. And it’s obviously worked clearly well for Annika, also works quite well for David Duval back in the day. He won a lot of successful golf tournaments by turning through the with a very, very early head release. However, it’s not something I would encourage you to copy. I don’t think it’s a good movement for you to work on. I think it’s much better if you can keep your head down through impact, make a good strike on the golf ball, and then allow the right side to lift you up to a finish.

So the basic advice is, don’t let your chin move until your right shoulder gets very close to it, and your right shoulder actually encourages you to move, and don’t let your head turn off the golf ball too early. It’s a very difficult thing to get right, and for a lot of club golfers it would actually encourage them to lift out of the shot too early, resulting in a lot of top shots and thin shots. So try and work on keeping the eyes down on the golf ball until the ball’s gone. Let the right shoulder lift you up, and then stand up to a good finish position, and I hope that works well for you.

 2012-05-24

So, keeping your eyes on the golf ball, and keeping your head down, are 2 of the most common used pieces of advice, sometimes in the right fashion, sometimes actually, its bad advice. It’s probably ill-informed advice as well. But in an ideal world, and you’ll see this with most club golfers, most good professional golfers as well. They are aware that they’re trying to keep their eyes on the golf ball for as long as possible, until at least the ball has been hit, then the right shoulder would come around, and lift the head up to a finish position, and nicely, up to a nice finish position at the end.

But Annika Sorenstam has a different movement to this in her golf swing. She has a tendency to come down towards the golf ball, and around about here, she drops her hands down towards her right thigh and hip. The head will actually start to move in front of the golf ball, the nose and the chin start looking through the golf ball, to an area of the ground in front of her. So as she comes through to impact, she’s not looking at the golf ball for the last couple of feet, strikes the golf ball with the head over in this position, and then would naturally follow through to a big finish. And it’s obviously worked clearly well for Annika, also works quite well for David Duval back in the day. He won a lot of successful golf tournaments by turning through the with a very, very early head release. However, it’s not something I would encourage you to copy. I don’t think it’s a good movement for you to work on. I think it’s much better if you can keep your head down through impact, make a good strike on the golf ball, and then allow the right side to lift you up to a finish.

So the basic advice is, don’t let your chin move until your right shoulder gets very close to it, and your right shoulder actually encourages you to move, and don’t let your head turn off the golf ball too early. It’s a very difficult thing to get right, and for a lot of club golfers it would actually encourage them to lift out of the shot too early, resulting in a lot of top shots and thin shots. So try and work on keeping the eyes down on the golf ball until the ball’s gone. Let the right shoulder lift you up, and then stand up to a good finish position, and I hope that works well for you.