Golf Swing Staying Behind The Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Swing Staying Behind The Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now when you are looking at a golfer from the front on, you’ll often see that they don’t stay perfectly still during their swing, there is quite a lot of lateral movement within a golf swing, and so there should be, but with a couple of caveats and a bit of control. So looking at a golfer from the front on here we’ll see that they’ll wind their body up to their right side, they’ll drive into their left side for impact. Now, a lot of golfers watch that on TV and think, “Right, I’ve got this.” So I sway as far back as I can here and then I throw myself into it and sway and follow through. And they feel that actually their consistency, their ball striking, their distance even decreases, they get worse as golfers because they are moving too much laterally. So, if we are looking at a standard golf swing from the front on we should see the head is just slightly behind the golf ball, almost like the left eye is looking down at the golf ball for a mid-iron. Then during the backswing the head will move a couple of inches away to the right side as the body weight loads, quite important to be in step of the right leg, not the out step, I don’t like to see anybody get behind this right foot, I like to see people get on the in step of the right foot, then during the downswing there is quite an aggressive movement into the left side, the body really turns away to the left.

We are about 80% onto the left side at impact, but notice where my head has stayed, my head has stayed largely back behind the golf ball or certainly into its original position. Now don’t think many golfers would benefit from deliberately trying to throw their head back and leaning back, you don’t have the flexibility or most golfers don’t have the flexibility to achieve that, I certainly don’t, so we would like to see their heads stay kind of level with its original position which is just slightly behind the golf ball. If we had a driver, the ball would be more forwards, the head would be more back, and if we had a wedge the ball would be more centered, the head would be more level, so head back with the wedge might feel a bit more awkward because the ball position is back, but with a driver, ball forwards, body weight forwards, head back, should be something you can really get used to the feeling of. So think about the body weight movement moving, but think about the head staying quite centered, and that should encourage a better impact position and a better strike with more consistent results by keeping your head back through the impact phase. 2015-10-19

Now when you are looking at a golfer from the front on, you’ll often see that they don’t stay perfectly still during their swing, there is quite a lot of lateral movement within a golf swing, and so there should be, but with a couple of caveats and a bit of control. So looking at a golfer from the front on here we’ll see that they’ll wind their body up to their right side, they’ll drive into their left side for impact. Now, a lot of golfers watch that on TV and think, “Right, I’ve got this.” So I sway as far back as I can here and then I throw myself into it and sway and follow through. And they feel that actually their consistency, their ball striking, their distance even decreases, they get worse as golfers because they are moving too much laterally. So, if we are looking at a standard golf swing from the front on we should see the head is just slightly behind the golf ball, almost like the left eye is looking down at the golf ball for a mid-iron. Then during the backswing the head will move a couple of inches away to the right side as the body weight loads, quite important to be in step of the right leg, not the out step, I don’t like to see anybody get behind this right foot, I like to see people get on the in step of the right foot, then during the downswing there is quite an aggressive movement into the left side, the body really turns away to the left.

We are about 80% onto the left side at impact, but notice where my head has stayed, my head has stayed largely back behind the golf ball or certainly into its original position. Now don’t think many golfers would benefit from deliberately trying to throw their head back and leaning back, you don’t have the flexibility or most golfers don’t have the flexibility to achieve that, I certainly don’t, so we would like to see their heads stay kind of level with its original position which is just slightly behind the golf ball. If we had a driver, the ball would be more forwards, the head would be more back, and if we had a wedge the ball would be more centered, the head would be more level, so head back with the wedge might feel a bit more awkward because the ball position is back, but with a driver, ball forwards, body weight forwards, head back, should be something you can really get used to the feeling of. So think about the body weight movement moving, but think about the head staying quite centered, and that should encourage a better impact position and a better strike with more consistent results by keeping your head back through the impact phase.