Debunking the Myths - Keep Your Head Down

How many times have you been told to keep your head down after you have just topped a ball and watched it roll down the fairway? Too many I am sure. Not only does hearing such advice straight after topping the shot upset you further, it is not even a good piece of advice. Keeping your head down is one of the great myths of golf.

Topping the ball is a common fault amongst golfers that can have a variety of causes. You may have too much tension in your hands and arms, causing the arms to be bent at impact thus the club head cannot reach the ball. Your weight may shift to your heels during the downswing, moving your swing center too far from the ball. You may be swinging up through the ball in an attempt to lift the ball into the air and thus presenting the leading edge of the club to the ball rather than the clubface.

Possibly the most common fault though is a loss of spine angle during the swing and it’s this which is often misinterpreted as lifting your head. A loss of spine angle refers to you raising your upper body so that the angle that you create between upper body and hips at address is changed during the swing. This results in the swing center, center of your chest, rising up and thus away from the ball, making it difficult to get the club back to the ball consistently.

Too often we see players who have taken keeping their heads down to amazing levels. So much so that the ball has flown a good 50 yards and they are still staring at the divot they have made on the ground. This places excessive pressure on the back, does not allow the body to turn freely through the shot and decreases the transfer of energy to the ball. There are some players on the Professional Tours who never see the club head hit the ball and are still extremely successful players. Annika Sorenstam, David Duval and Robert Allenby are all in this category with their head rotated down the target line when the club strikes the ball.

If you want to stop topping the ball, check that you are maintaining your spine angle throughout the swing. A great drill to help with this is to hit balls while resting against a chair. Take your address position with a 7 iron. Then place the back of a chair up against your rear, being sure not to rest your weight on the chair. It is important that your weight stays on the balls of your feet. Take some practice swings and be sure to keep you rear turning along the chair throughout the swing only allowing you to leave the chair to complete your finish position.

As you do this drill you may feel that your chest is staying more over the balls of your feet than you are used to feeling. But this is the move you need if you want to keep your swing as simple and thus consistent as possible. After doing this drill several times, place a ball on a tee and hit a few half shots, ensuring that you maintain your spine angle as you did during the practice swings.

3D Swing Analysis at the Academy on FOXCT

Last night Jim Altman did a piece on our 3D swing analysis system. Check it out at the link below.

3D Swing Analysis on FOXCT 10:00 pm News

Debunking the Myths - Keep the lead arm straight

One of the more common myths with the golf swing is that to have an effective swing that produces distance and consistency you need to keep your left arm straight (for a right hand golfer). This is simply not true. There are great players on the world Tours, Lee Westwood being one, who have a very consistent swing but allow their left arm to bend during the swing. There is no one way to swing the golf club, but there are parameters that we should all try to work within to give ourselves the best opportunity for success.


Width in the golf swing refers to the distance your hands are from your swing center, the middle of your chest, during the golf swing. It is accepted that if you are able to keep your hands away from the body, thus having good width in the swing, then you will be more consistent and hit the ball farther. This has often been misinterpreted to mean that the left arm must stay straight in the back swing, as this will give maximum width.

In reality what we are trying to do is to simply take the distance between the hands and the center of the chest at address and maintain that distance for as long as possible throughout the swing. The less this distance changes during the back swing, the less you will need to make the equal and opposite change in the down swing to get the club back to the ball.

At address the left arm is bent slightly and the goal should be to maintain that same slight flex to the top of the backswing. This will keep the arms and hands relaxed and allow them to react correctly to the body’s change of direction at the start of the downswing. If you try to keep the left arm locked straight, tension levels increase and the added tension will slow the club head down as you swing back to the ball.

Keeping that same slight flex will also guarantee good width that will promote consistency back to the impact position and club head speed as you will have more room to move the club. It is important though that the left arm does not bend excessively. Too much bending, or collapsing of the left arm can cause tendonitis in the elbow due to it straightening and then meeting resistance in the form of the ground at the completion of the extension. It will also produce inconsistency as the bending going back and straightening coming down are two additional moves that you now need to coordinate correctly.

So what is the correct width in the backswing and how can you practice it correctly? A great drill for this is done using a piece of string. Take one end of the string and tie it to one of the buttons on your shirt. Take the other end and tie it to your right thumb, so that in your address position the string is taught. Now go to the top of your backswing and try to keep the piece of string the same stretch throughout the backswing.

Your ability to maintain the tautness of the string will depend on your levels of flexibility, but your goal should be to keep it as it was at address. Take several practice swing with the string before trying to hit a few shots with the ball on a low tee.

Debunking the Myths Golf Lesson– Keep Your Head Still

If you play golf then at some stage in your golfing career someone has probably told you to keep your head still. In many other sports that we play we are asked to hit a moving ball, and it is far easier to hit a moving ball when you keep your head and thus eyes as still or level as possible. With the object you are trying to hit in motion, having your head also moving around makes focusing on the ball that much more difficult and thus it is harder to hit the ball cleanly.

In golf however the ball is stationary. It is important for you to keep your head on the same level during the swing as up and down movement of the head is a reflection of your body movement and thus swing centre moving up and down. If your upper body lifts up in the back swing then it must move down an equal amount in the downswing in order for you to make contact with the ball. It is far simpler for you to keep your body at the same angles as at address and thus keep your head level during the swing. Level but not still.

In your address position your weight is evenly distributed between the left and right feet. As you make your back swing, as in any other sport where you are trying to propel an object forward, there is a weight transfer to the rear leg. In golf we make this shift by rotating the upper body over a stable lower body.

Keeping your head still while trying to make a back swing will result in a couple of moves that are detrimental to good ball striking. The hips will slide and your weight will either move to the outside of the rear foot, or fall back onto the front foot, depending on your levels of flexibility. In doing this you have placed a great deal of pressure on your lower back and hips which over time can become painful. You have also not loaded your body correctly behind the ball, effectively losing balance and your ability to use your whole body to hit the shot, resulting is a loss of distance.

In an athletic back swing, the player will maintain the upper body flex from the hips created at address and allow the upper body to pivot around the right hip. In doing so the head will move well behind the ball, the weight will move to the inside of the right foot and there will be a definite loading around the right thigh. Studies have shown that the best players in the world move their heads anywhere from 1.5 to 5 inches away from the heads’ address position during the back swing.


A great drill for you to learn the correct head movement during the swing is to use your shadow. In your address position be sure the sun is at your back so that your shadow falls on the ground in front of you. Note on the ground where your shadow falls and then turn into your backswing by turning the upper body until the left shoulder is above the inside of the right knee. The left shoulder should turn slightly lower than the right. You will notice that the weight has shifted to the inside of the right foot and that your head has moved to the right during the backswing, as it should.

So the next time a well-meaning friend mentions that you are moving your head and you should keep it still, don’t change anything and take it as a compliment. The head should be moving laterally during the swing, but it should not be moving up and down.

Hank Haney's Formula for Success

I spent last week at the Hank Haney Teach the Teacher seminar at Hank's world headquarters in Dallas, TX. For three days Hank talked about his teaching philosophy and his process for working helping players including Tiger, to become the best they can be.

The improvement process is simple but critical, and having a teacher who understands this process is vital.

Step One : Diagnose the problem - You and your coach can use a variety of ways to assess your current game. 3D swing analysis, video swing analysis, skills testing and on course playing analysis.

Step Two : Formulate a Plan - Taking the information you have collected from the diagnosis process, you and your coach will then form a plan for improvement. This plan will include some key performance indicators that may involve tracking your score, handicap index or results in skills tests. It will also include the time commitment you are willing to make to the process as well as a timeline for reaching your goals.

Step Three : Implement the Plan - Now you will work the plan with your coach by getting together on a regular basis so that you can be given drills and a practice program designed around the goals for your individual program. These sessions will be conducted in accordance with the time commitment you have agreed upon and will involve homework for you to do on your own.

Step Four : Measure Progress - You and your coach will check your progress by referring back to your performance indicators. Is your handicap index getting lower? Is your score improving? Have your skills test scores improved?

This process is simple in it's outline but powerful if executed correctly, and is the same outline Hank uses with all his players. If it works for Hank and his players, I guarantee it will work for you too. 

Troon Golf's Black Diamond

I recently had the good fortune to play at our Troon Golf sister property, Black Diamond in Florida with a good friend and Lake of Isles member Paul Slosberg.  Black Diamond is a spectacular facility consisting of 45 holes of golf set inside a private gated community in central Florida.  One of the nines is built around an old quarry and provides some spectacular views as well as demanding some precise shot making.

This was the first time I had played the course and thus I wasn't always certain of the shot to hit and more importantly the yardage i had to my target.  I have always stepped out yardages for every shot using the markings on sprinkler heads, used a yardage book for green depth and pin placement and then chosen the club from there.  But on too many occasions when I compared what I had paced with the distance my playing partners had shot using a laser I was out by a full club.

This raises two very important points to consider when you are playing a course for the first time:

1. Get an accurate yardage for every shot you are going to play.  GPS systems and lasers are ideal for getting the most accurate yardages for every shot.  If you don't have access to either of those, consider using the courses yardage book if they offer one, and be sure to factor in where the flag is located on the green which can be sometimes mean adding or subtracting a full club.

2. Once you have an accurate yardage, trust it.  Make a definite decision that you are going to commit to the club that will hit the ball the distance you have measured, and then go ahead and swing positively with faith in the fact you have chosen the correct club.

I hope you will have to opportunity to travel and play some golf this winter.  If you do, remember to get accurate yardages for your shots, choose the club carefully, and the commit to the shot.

S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting

It is almost impossible to achieve anything worthwhile without first setting a goal for what is you want to accomplish.  On rare occasions, the stars may align, luck goes your way and you achieve a good result in something, but these are not circumstances that can be relied upon to give you consistent results.

Goal setting is a skill that is used by successful people the world over in areas of business, sport, and personal life to help them achieve great things.  It has been well documented how Tiger Woods has set himself the goal of beating jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major titles, and that he is so familiar with what Jack accomplished that he as many of his records committed to memory.  Tiger's goal setting in this example has been so complete that he is current on track to realize his goal and it seems the only thing that may stop him is injury.

Do you have goals for your golf game?  Let's look at how to go about setting S.M.A.R.T. goals that will help you play better golf.

 Specific - The goal must be an exact and detailed description of what you want to accomplish.
  
Motivational - The goal must have the emotional power to excite you enough to invest the time and energy that it will take to accomplish your desired outcome.
  
Attainable - Given your talent, dedication, physical ability and time commitment the goal must stay within the realms of possibility.
  
Relevant - The goal must be in line with your overall goal of becoming a better player.  For example, it is of no use having a goal to hit the ball longer if you already hit the ball over 300 yard but still can't break 90.
  
Trackable - It must be possible to objectively measure your progress.

The power of goal setting should not be taken lightly.  Every athlete who has ever accomplished anything in his or her chosen sport has done so because they had a dream of achieving greatness.  They then turned that dream into a series of goals that when attained resulted in them living their dream.

What is your dream for your golf game?  Is it to play average golf for the rest of your life or is it a dream of something more.  Maybe it's one of low scores, or trophies or playing professionally.  Whatever it is, start today by setting goals as stepping stones on the road to realizing your golfing dreams.