Posture - The Start of a Great Swing
A great many of the golfers I work with for the first time need to understand and get into a great address position. Let’s look into this. The golf swing takes approximately 1.5 to 2 seconds. That isn’t a lot of time to try to do many things, what’s more from the top of your backswing to impact happens in 1/10 of a second. So as you can see it is very important to control the things that happen early in the swing because they can make or break it.
A great address position consists of 2 things
- Having the correct body position
- Having the club in the correct position
To get your body into a correct position try this drill. Stand at attention. Place a club on your back where the club head is touching your head and the grip is touching your rear end. The lower part of your back should be arched in and not touching the club shaft. Without letting the club head come away from your head and without the grip coming away from your rear end, bend from your hips slightly forward. This is the key move. Most golfers bend from there back and waist. In order to allow your body to move correctly in a golf swing you need to bend from your hips. After you have bent forward about 20 to 30 degrees from you attention position you now flex your knees slightly and come to a neutral spine. Your weight should be even on both feet and towards the balls of each foot. Now let your arms hang down below your shoulders. To most golfers who haven’t been in this position it seems very strange and uncomfortable, but if you do it in front of a mirror you will see that it looks correct. The uncomfortable feeling will go away as your body gets use to it.
The club position is important at address. Many golfers believe the club shaft and your lead arm should form a straight line. This leads to many problems in the takeaway. It mainly causes the club to move to low and inside the proper swing plane. If you face a mirror in your good posture your hand should be in the middle of your body, straight from your belly button. When you grip the club you will see that lines drawn up your arms and from shoulder to shoulder forms a triangle. A line drawn up your club shaft would bisect that triangle and go through your lead eye or ear. Looking down at the club face it may appear that your hands are behind it. If you look at the mirror you will see that is not the case.
Work on these two ingredients to help you get your swing and your game off to a great start.
Brad Redding
Director of Instruction
The Resort Club at Grande Dunes
