You are picking up!  You are lifting!  Stay Down! I hear well-intentioned friends telling fellow golfers this all the time.  It is a terrible waste of breath and mental focus.  Please understand, when a player’s head goes up during the golf swing it is not because they choose to or because their neck grew suddenly longer, it is because the angle of their spine became closer to vertical than they set it at address.

 

This will happen in the back swing for a few reasons:

1. The have poor posture at address.  Very often I will see players determined to “stay down,” really hunch down at address.  This only assures the player will stand up into the back swing.
2. The player does not have the mobility to complete the back swing while maintaining posture.
3. The golf swing is either too upright or too flat, either of which will cause the upper back to move towards vertical and for the shoulders to move towards horizontal.

The above image is one that I see all too often.  Look at the player’s shoulders.  Anytime a player’s shoulders are that flat, I assure you, the club is off plane and the spine has straightened.  You see, the shoulders can only turn on a plane that is perpendicular to the thoracic spine.  So your key is not to think of keeping your head down, but rather, keeping your shoulders on plane.  If you do so, your spine will remain in the same angle as it was at address.

 

Now you may find that in so doing you are very restricted. This goes to mobility.  You must have a level of flexibility to move to the top of the swing while maintaining posture.  Do you have it?  If not, do not panic.  There are some simple stretching routines that you can do in order to regain this mobility.  Check out www.mytpi.com for stretching exercises or professionals certified to help you.

Above we see a player that has maintained good posture as he moved to the top of the swing.  Because the upper spine stayed in the same angle, his shoulders are on plane and his head did not rise during the first part of the swing.

 

Next time I will discuss maintaining posture in the forward swing.

George Connor is the Director of Instruction at The Academy of Golf at Gillette Ridge in Bloomfield, CT. 860- 724-1430 or george@connorgolf.com