How to improve your posture in your swing (and get more power!)

Has anyone ever told you that you “stand up” or “lift up” as you swing? You may have also heard that you’re losing your posture or spine angle, which means that you’ve changed your body angle from setup to the backswing or finish. This can cause lots of misses and lead to high variability in your ball striking. Not great. 

There are many factors that go into creating great posture (think strength, flexibility and mobility), but for this drill, let’s check something easy: your shoulder plane. Place a club across your shoulders, like you see me doing in the photos below. 

As you rehearse a swing, rotate so that the club turns to the point where the grip points at the target line or just outside of it (1 and 2). Through impact, look at the club and be sure it’s again aiming along the target line.

If your club points toward the horizon in your backswing or through impact, it likely means you “stood up” or lost your posture (3). Give yourself a chance to figure out whether that happened because you pulled up in your upper torso, shoulder area or from the hips. Either way, use this drill to establish a better feel for maintaining your posture and creating pure, powerful contact. 

Trillium Rose is a GOLF Top 100 Teacher and is the director of instruction at Woodmont CC in Rockville, Md.