Why your follow through should bring your head up, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Why your follow through should bring your head up, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

I think one of the most common pieces of advice that golfers are often told when they're first starting the game is that they're lifting their head and everyone feels that every bad shot they've ever hit on the golf course is because they lifted their head and that's because that's what your mates will tell you, "Oh, you lifted your head, hence, you had a bad shot."

It's very rarely the case that lifting your head is actually the concern and the problem and for a lot of people, they work so hard on not lifting their head that that can be detrimental to their swing. And add to a fact if you watch a good player, there is a certain amount of head lift particularly in the follow-through, so if I set up to this T peg here and I don't lift my head at all, I end up with a very restricted follow-through. I can't lift my right leg, I can't lift my right shoulder up, so I end up just kind of -- I'm trying to keep my head down, I'm trying to keep my head down and I can't actually follow-through correctly.

Watching a proper follow-through, there's quite a lot of head up movement and that happens because your right shoulder has to have some leeway to turn under your chin and then stands you open into a proper follow-through. So, when you start your swing, your posture is tilted forwards, you turn back tilted forwards, you come through to impact and you're still tilted forwards but then your right shoulder hits your chin and you end up standing up vertically.

So, it's nearly impossible to have a full and proper follow through without the standing up, so don't worry about keeping your head down through in the follow through position. Keeping your head steady is okay, maintaining spine angle is the important thing, not lifting your head but maintaining spine angle then in the follow through, the right shoulder comes under, the head will come up and you should be standing as tall as you possibly can as you watch the ball finish. That's the way to hit better shots.

 2013-01-17

I think one of the most common pieces of advice that golfers are often told when they're first starting the game is that they're lifting their head and everyone feels that every bad shot they've ever hit on the golf course is because they lifted their head and that's because that's what your mates will tell you, “Oh, you lifted your head, hence, you had a bad shot.”

It's very rarely the case that lifting your head is actually the concern and the problem and for a lot of people, they work so hard on not lifting their head that that can be detrimental to their swing. And add to a fact if you watch a good player, there is a certain amount of head lift particularly in the follow-through, so if I set up to this T peg here and I don't lift my head at all, I end up with a very restricted follow-through. I can't lift my right leg, I can't lift my right shoulder up, so I end up just kind of — I'm trying to keep my head down, I'm trying to keep my head down and I can't actually follow-through correctly.

Watching a proper follow-through, there's quite a lot of head up movement and that happens because your right shoulder has to have some leeway to turn under your chin and then stands you open into a proper follow-through. So, when you start your swing, your posture is tilted forwards, you turn back tilted forwards, you come through to impact and you're still tilted forwards but then your right shoulder hits your chin and you end up standing up vertically.

So, it's nearly impossible to have a full and proper follow through without the standing up, so don't worry about keeping your head down through in the follow through position. Keeping your head steady is okay, maintaining spine angle is the important thing, not lifting your head but maintaining spine angle then in the follow through, the right shoulder comes under, the head will come up and you should be standing as tall as you possibly can as you watch the ball finish. That's the way to hit better shots.