How To Add An Upper Body Tilt To Your Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
How To Add An Upper Body Tilt To Your Golf Swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

When we are making any golf swing changes, we tend to go back to our trusty old friend the pitching wedge and out often you like to see a golfer also tee the ball up. So, you go to the driving range, take your pitching wedge, tee the ball up slightly, it makes it feel like you're not actually playing real proper golf, but you're just working on your technique. And then when you're on the range in that position you can make some good changes to your technique without the feeling of, well that didn’t go perfectly and that was one of my best tee shots I've ever hit because we’re just pitching the ball away with the wedge on a tee peg we can work on the swing.

Now the particular change we’re trying to make this Colin Montgomerie spine angle tilt, it's also going to be beneficial if you've got some way of looking yourself from the front turn. So, be it a mirror, a video camera will be perfect or even just your shadow. If you've got the sun to your back and a shadow on the ground and then as you're making your swing you can see where your body position is going to. Mirror or video camera will be better, but if you're only blessed with a bit of sunshine then that’s just what you have to use. As we’re setting up I'm going to looking at the camera from front turn. I'm feeling where my spine angle is now. It's going to be quite vertical, just a slight drop of the right shoulder for the right handed golfer makes my spine angle lean slightly back; but then the Monte swing we don’t want to get stuck back over here. We want to be a little bit more back in the center. So, the feeling here is letting the right shoulder go up as the left shoulder comes down and as the right shoulder goes up it kind of goes up behind you rather than over here, so we’re not swaying with the right shoulder, but the right shoulder will go up behind you this way and that will start to angle the upper part in my spine towards my left side. Now making sure that my body weight doesn’t go too far to my left leg, so I'm not getting stuck over this way with a backward sway that would be the reverse pivot, so I'm tilting back this way, you can actually see just to make sure I'm not reverse pivoting, like Monte I've put my left heel in the air, my spine angle tilt this way that encourages me to get down through the ball quickly. I can actually plant my left heel to start my down swing. Plant the left heel and shift back across then I got a really good natural tempo, natural movement of the balance and body weight from my right side to my left side; but the slight angle tilt to my upper body encourages the longer backswing and the longer follow through. So, prepare for your golf swing to feel longer on both sides and that’s why it's particularly relevant for a golfer to have a short swing on both sides tilting the body towards the left on tee will be good to get you through the ball with nice rhythm, with nice tempo. Be careful and watch out for that reverse pivot though. 2016-08-17

When we are making any golf swing changes, we tend to go back to our trusty old friend the pitching wedge and out often you like to see a golfer also tee the ball up. So, you go to the driving range, take your pitching wedge, tee the ball up slightly, it makes it feel like you're not actually playing real proper golf, but you're just working on your technique. And then when you're on the range in that position you can make some good changes to your technique without the feeling of, well that didn’t go perfectly and that was one of my best tee shots I've ever hit because we’re just pitching the ball away with the wedge on a tee peg we can work on the swing.

Now the particular change we’re trying to make this Colin Montgomerie spine angle tilt, it's also going to be beneficial if you've got some way of looking yourself from the front turn. So, be it a mirror, a video camera will be perfect or even just your shadow. If you've got the sun to your back and a shadow on the ground and then as you're making your swing you can see where your body position is going to. Mirror or video camera will be better, but if you're only blessed with a bit of sunshine then that’s just what you have to use.

As we’re setting up I'm going to looking at the camera from front turn. I'm feeling where my spine angle is now. It's going to be quite vertical, just a slight drop of the right shoulder for the right handed golfer makes my spine angle lean slightly back; but then the Monte swing we don’t want to get stuck back over here. We want to be a little bit more back in the center. So, the feeling here is letting the right shoulder go up as the left shoulder comes down and as the right shoulder goes up it kind of goes up behind you rather than over here, so we’re not swaying with the right shoulder, but the right shoulder will go up behind you this way and that will start to angle the upper part in my spine towards my left side.

Now making sure that my body weight doesn’t go too far to my left leg, so I'm not getting stuck over this way with a backward sway that would be the reverse pivot, so I'm tilting back this way, you can actually see just to make sure I'm not reverse pivoting, like Monte I've put my left heel in the air, my spine angle tilt this way that encourages me to get down through the ball quickly. I can actually plant my left heel to start my down swing. Plant the left heel and shift back across then I got a really good natural tempo, natural movement of the balance and body weight from my right side to my left side; but the slight angle tilt to my upper body encourages the longer backswing and the longer follow through.

So, prepare for your golf swing to feel longer on both sides and that’s why it's particularly relevant for a golfer to have a short swing on both sides tilting the body towards the left on tee will be good to get you through the ball with nice rhythm, with nice tempo. Be careful and watch out for that reverse pivot though.