Posture: Alive and Kicking

Bring your swing to life; get out of your own way and your golf will be “Alive and Kicking”.

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Golf is an explosive, target orientated sport and should be treated as such, whatever your standard and however you see your dreams and goals. beforeyou kick a ball do you relax? Before you return a serve in tennis do you feel loose and free of tension? No! You are ready for action. Your body is ready to get kick started and to react appropriately so that you can perform at your best. So why should golf be any different?

Please relax and push your backside out as far as you can just like a peacock does during his mating ritual. Now your spine angle should be as straight and stiff as a snooker cue. Does this feel natural to you? So why are you preparing your body in this way? This can only lead to problems down the road, not only for your golf but also for your body!

Golf is a sport that thrives on controlled, explosive power. If you want to play golf at your best your body should be ready, not relaxed. If you want to rise to the challenge you need to change the way you prepare your body for your performance. 

You need to put a spring in your step and be light on your feet as if playing tennis or football, dynamically prepared with muscles ready to perform. If you want to hit the ball long and straight to reach your full potential then it is imperative that your body is positioned to allow you to do so. 

The correct starting position before you swing the club is more natural than is often perceived.

Stand up and imagine you are waiting for a ball to be thrown in your direction. Amazingly you automatically flex your knees and lean forward with your shoulders, preparing your body for the catch.

Now look at your hips. They are naturally pushed back due to the combination of the downward movement as you flex your knees and at the same time from leaning forward from your shoulders.

Dynamic, ready for action position; waiting to catch a ball

Your body automatically gets itself into position to allow you to perform at your best. The combination of flex in the knees and leaning forward with the shoulders not only naturally pushes your hips back; it also ensures that you remain perfectly balanced and ready for action. You don’t have to think too much about it, especially when the ball is in motion with your body prepared to react.

The underlying reason for this is that our brains function better and more naturally when we are reacting to a ball, leading to a throw, catch, pass or shot rather than when we have to set off the chain of events in a dead ball sport such as snooker, golf or a penalty kick in football. You will learn more about this difference and how to maximise the benefits of reacting to your target later in the swing, if you sign up for my free premium online golf lessons in the box on the left of this page.

Let’s take the bending and flexing of the knees one step further and have a closer look at this natural yet often over analysed occurrence which takes place as we prepare our body for action.

The drop, as I like to call it, naturally places your body’s centre of gravity, which is located at the bottom of your spine, in perfect harmonic balance with the centre of gravity of your swing, which is positioned at the base of your neck. The base of your neck is the axis and the point of rotation and balance for your upper body. As you begin to build your swing you will learn the important role this plays by obeying some simple yet highly effective laws of physics.

The drop is you flicking the switch into sports mode. When playing football, tennis or waiting to catch a ball, you naturally lean forward with your upper body as you bend/flex your knees, which in turn pushes your hips and your body’s point of centre of gravity (the bottom of your spine) backwards. Your upper body naturally leans forward to compensate for the backward shift of this point. Your body and the fantastic piece of kit lodged between your ears does all of this for you. Automatically the drop positions the bottom of your spine perfectly in relation to the base of your neck so that your balance is optimised. Your spine angle is straight, as it should be, before your back is thrown into any physically demanding task.

This is where many an expert will begin to shout from the tree tops that a stiff and straight spine angle is the back bone of a great golf swing. Yes it plays a major role but manufacturing this position or movement without the understanding that it is a natural occurrence as part of the drop often results in a pain in the neck and back for the guy holding the sharp end of the stick.

The key ingredient of a solid posture and the creation of a naturally straight spine angle as you address a golf ball is the correct relationship between your body’s point of centre of gravity (the bottom of your spine) and your swing’s point of centre of gravity (the base of your neck). You will be pleased to know that the bending of your knees as you lean forward with your shoulders does all of this for you, so drop the useless dribble with a spine angle as stiff as a snooker cue.

If you lean too far forward or backward with your upper or lower body this changes the relationship between these two points, resulting in a loss of balance and something which is even more devastating, a change in your spine angle at address and throughout your swing. This type of imbalance requires many complicated and inconsistent swing compensations resulting in a substantial loss of distance and control.

If either the point at the bottom of your spine or the point at the base of your neck don’t work in harmony your back and therefore spine angle will arch or be forced out of line with the natural dynamics of your body. Fighting with or ignoring these simple laws of physics will guarantee a dramatic weakness in both body and golf swing. So, it’s about time you threw away the straight jacket and dropped into your optimum position, the way that Mother Nature herself intended.

Drop into position and allow your hands and arms to hang freely from your body. Now do the same thing with a golf club in your hands. You are not only dynamic my friend but athletically ready to fire up your swing.

  At address the hands and arms naturally hang
  down freely from the body

Another often over complicated and over analysed factor which has a direct influence on the position of your spine angle is the length of the golf club that you have in your hands. A driver has a long shaft which naturally produces a marginally upright posture at address in comparison to your posture at address with a seven iron. The shaft length of your seven iron is significantly shorter than that of your driver so therefore automatically your posture appears naturally more leaned over. This has absolutely nothing to do with the way that you address the ball but simply the angle and length of the golf club shaft running from the ground up to your hands.

         Posture at address
         with a Driver

In simple terms the longer the shaft the flatter the angle and the shorter the shaft the steeper the angle therefore, when you play a shot with a driver, your posture will appear slightly more upright than when you are using your seven iron.

Don’t think about it, just do it! You are man not a machine, if you begin to play golf by numbers as many try to, the downward spiral of devastation will tear through your game leaving one beat up owner of a golf swing you will never trust in a month of Sundays. You will know yourself what feels balanced and ready for action.

To have a look at where it all starts to go wrong, read the extended version of this lesson here

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