Setting Up Correctly To Stay Behind The Golf Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles
Setting Up Correctly To Stay Behind The Golf Ball (Video) - by Pete Styles

As with lots of other different issues within a golf swing the idea of staying behind the ball or sliding your head in front of the ball can actually come from a good proper setup position. And certainly if you make mistakes in your setup position there could be mistakes that are going to affect you throughout the whole rest of your swing and stop you from getting your head behind the ball impact. So when we address the ball correctly we've really got to make sure that we do focus on a good address position that gets the head in the right place. So we’re going to start with a nice wide stance at least as wide as the hips and potentially as wide as the shoulders with the feet relatively facing straight forwards and not penguin toed pointing out sideways too much. Then you should find that as your right hand goes on to the club as a right handed golfer your right hand becomes your rear hand and also your lower hand.

As the right hand goes on here we're going to feel like that rear shoulder drops a bit, pushes the hips forwards a little bit and immediately I've already got a spine angle tilt that tilts away from my target. I'm not vertical and I am definitely not leaning into my target. Particularly not from my mid to long irons and down into my woods. Maybe for the wedges, you might lean a bit more to the left side but that's a slightly different issue. Here we've got a nice broad stance, right shoulder right hand are quite low at the setup position. The spine angle tilts away. Now it’s important we don't let the hands pull back this way. We actually want to push the hands forwards a little bit and again dropping the right shoulder even more. From this position as I make my turn, my body weight would instinctively move to my right side and then stand on my right side for impact. Whereas you can see if I had my hands back my shoulder is level and my body weight more forwards. As I swing back from here I'm going to rotate on to the wrong side. I'm going to get my head too far in front of the golf ball which if I was then to get my head back behind the ball that would end up looking like a reverse pivot which generally isn't any good to anybody. So the good setup there, nice and balanced, right shoulder drops a little bit, hands a little bit forwards and then go ahead and turn and set your head behind the ball. That’s all for right hand golfer. Obviously the left handers just flip that around. And hopefully that setup position is really going to help encourage you to keep your head behind the ball at impact. 2016-08-17

As with lots of other different issues within a golf swing the idea of staying behind the ball or sliding your head in front of the ball can actually come from a good proper setup position. And certainly if you make mistakes in your setup position there could be mistakes that are going to affect you throughout the whole rest of your swing and stop you from getting your head behind the ball impact. So when we address the ball correctly we've really got to make sure that we do focus on a good address position that gets the head in the right place. So we’re going to start with a nice wide stance at least as wide as the hips and potentially as wide as the shoulders with the feet relatively facing straight forwards and not penguin toed pointing out sideways too much. Then you should find that as your right hand goes on to the club as a right handed golfer your right hand becomes your rear hand and also your lower hand.

As the right hand goes on here we're going to feel like that rear shoulder drops a bit, pushes the hips forwards a little bit and immediately I've already got a spine angle tilt that tilts away from my target. I'm not vertical and I am definitely not leaning into my target. Particularly not from my mid to long irons and down into my woods. Maybe for the wedges, you might lean a bit more to the left side but that's a slightly different issue. Here we've got a nice broad stance, right shoulder right hand are quite low at the setup position. The spine angle tilts away. Now it’s important we don't let the hands pull back this way. We actually want to push the hands forwards a little bit and again dropping the right shoulder even more. From this position as I make my turn, my body weight would instinctively move to my right side and then stand on my right side for impact.

Whereas you can see if I had my hands back my shoulder is level and my body weight more forwards. As I swing back from here I'm going to rotate on to the wrong side. I'm going to get my head too far in front of the golf ball which if I was then to get my head back behind the ball that would end up looking like a reverse pivot which generally isn't any good to anybody. So the good setup there, nice and balanced, right shoulder drops a little bit, hands a little bit forwards and then go ahead and turn and set your head behind the ball. That’s all for right hand golfer. Obviously the left handers just flip that around. And hopefully that setup position is really going to help encourage you to keep your head behind the ball at impact.