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The post Most amateurs forget this key swing element. Here’s how to avoid that mistake appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Shaving Strokes, a GOLF.com series in which we’re sharing improvements, learnings and takeaways from amateur golfers just like you — including some of the speed bumps and challenges they faced along the way.

As a mid-handicapper, I think of a lot as I stand over my golf ball before a shot.

Did I go through my pre-shot routine? Check. Is my ball position in the right spot based on the shot I’m hitting? Check. Is my golf grip OK? Where the hell am I aiming? Check and triple-checked.

But while all of these things are good, there’s one swing element that often gets overlooked — the proper golf posture.

Instruction

Use these 3 checkpoints to dial in your golf posture, says top teacher

By: Nick Dimengo

According to GOLF Top 100 Teacher Shawn Callahan, too many amateurs go through all the steps I listed above (and then some!), but don’t have the right posture to rotate properly and make ball-first contact.

“Posture is one of the biggest keys to good ball-striking,” Callahan tells me. “But it’s also one of the most overlooked.”

But with the help of Callahan’s tip below, you can improve your golf posture and start to experience better shots because of it. Take a look to see what he says.

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How to get the proper golf posture

“When I have a student come for a swing lesson, I always check their basic swing principles — like their grip, stance, setup and posture,” Callahan says.

One of the most important parts of the entire golf swing is your golf posture, which Callahan says helps separate consistent ball-strikers from the mid-to-high handicappers.

“Look at any of the pro players we watch on TV and you’ll notice how good they look at setup,” he adds. “Spine tilt, legs slightly flexed, body aligned parallel to the target line. They don’t get this way by accident, they’ve worked at it, honed it, and have made it part of their pre-shot routine.”

So what does the perfect golf posture look like? Callahan breaks it down below — which will lead to better shots as a result.

Use a mirror to dial in your golf posture

“Good posture means you’ll get the club on plane much easier, and it’ll also help engage your core muscles to work together, creating both power and speed in the golf swing,” Callahan says.

So the first thing he suggests doing is finding a mirror or sliding glass door to check your golf posture — which every person has in their house. Really, anything with a reflection should work.

Next, take your setup with the mirror facing down the line — looking as if a golf teacher were to stand behind you. Callahan then provides a checklist to go through to make sure you’re in the right posture.

“Are your knees bent too much, making it look like you’re squatting to get to the ball? Is your back too rounded? Are you bending at your stomach instead of hinging your hips? All of these characteristics will create compensations in your swing that will be inefficient,” he says. “But when your posture is good, your takeaway will be much better — without having to manipulate it to get it in the right place.”

Callahan then shares the best way to get into the proper golf posture.

“First off, start by standing tall. From there, bend over at the hips by pushing your butt back — which creates tilt at the hip, which is important, then let your arms hang straight down. This is a natural way to find your optimal posture at setup,” he says. “You don’t want to bend at the stomach or from the waist, which rounds your back and takes all the muscles in the lower back out of the swing.”

Your posture creates 2 angles

“Your posture creates two angles,” Callahan says. “One is created by your legs, which are roughly 90 degrees, and the other is created by your spine tilting towards the ball, which is generally 45 degrees.”

By creating these two angles in the golf swing, Callahan says you’ll have the ability to swing around your spine angle — which is easier and a more natural way to get the club on the right plane.

“Most inconsistent ball-strikers swing around their legs, which makes the swing plane too flat and forces the body to work too hard to get to the ball and hit it at your target,” he says. “But when your golf posture is correct, you can take the club back with your arms and body turn, allowing the club to be on a great plane.”

So remember to make sure you’re in good posture before taking your golf swing. It’s a huge key to hitting better shots, and it’s not another swing thought — it’s just one of the final steps before starting your takeaway.

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The post Most amateurs forget this key swing element. Here’s how to avoid that mistake appeared first on Golf.

The post Use these 3 checkpoints to dial in your golf posture, says top teacher appeared first on Golf.

The post Use these 3 checkpoints to dial in your golf posture, says top teacher appeared first on Golf.

Whether you’re a beginner golfer or someone who’s played the game for decades, one of the most important things to dial in is your golf posture.

If you don’t have the right posture, so many bad things can happen. From shanks to hooks to slices (and more!), understanding how your body should be prior to even swinging the club will help cure all those inconsistent shots.

Good posture helps keep both you and your club on plane, allowing everything to work in unison as you swing. So to help you learn what great posture looks like in the golf swing, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jon Tattersall shares three checkpoints in the video below.

What your golf posture should look like

Most people often use a mirror to check their golf posture, which is a great way to get a visual for what your body looks like at address. Whether you look at your reflection for guidance, review video or pictures, or just give yourself a sensation to duplicate while standing over the ball, Tattersall says there should be three simple checkpoints before taking your swing.

“First of all, make sure you have a hip hinge,” Tattersall says. “So you should feel like you tilt from the hip joint forward.”

By hinging correctly from your hips, this allows your arms to hang beneath your shoulders, preventing too much reach from happening.

Next, Tattersall says it’s important to check your knee flex.

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How to apply athleticism from *other* sports into your golf swing

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“A good way to feel the knee flex is to straighten your legs, pop them backwards, and then pop them out [toward the golf ball] so that they’re just forward,” he adds. “You should kind of feel like the weight is balanced between the ball of the foot and the heel of the foot on both feet.”

Lastly, Tattersall says to use the big muscles in your legs to help support you, while making sure you aren’t too erect or too slouched.

“When I’m standing here, I’m feeling my backside supporting me, my quads are supporting me and my arms don’t feel slouched and I don’t feel too rounded, and I’m not standing up too straight,” he says. “I’m letting my arms hang underneath me and I feel like I can move athletically, which means moving from right to left pretty easily.

“Can I feel like I can twist on my feet pretty easily? If I feel like I’m very top heavy, look and make sure you’re bent from the hips first.”

So if you’re struggling to make good contact, using these three checkpoints can help dial in your golf posture and allow your body to become more free and athletic. By doing so, you’ll be able to maximize your swing for improved shots.

The post Use these 3 checkpoints to dial in your golf posture, says top teacher appeared first on Golf.

The post The foolproof way to ensure you have perfect posture every time, according to a Top 100 Teacher appeared first on Golf.

The post The foolproof way to ensure you have perfect posture every time, according to a Top 100 Teacher appeared first on Golf.

Having good posture is one of the golf swing’s most important fundamentals.

Like your grip, stance and ball position, your posture sets the tone for your swing before you make your first move, and ensuring your body is in the proper position is the first step to executing a good golf shot. But how do you know if your posture is sound?

At GOLF’s recent Top 100 Teacher Summit at Talking Stick in Scottsdale, Ariz., I asked instructor Trillium Rose if there is a way for players to perform a self-check on their own posture, and she had a quick answer ready.

“If you stand up straight, there’s a little arch above your lower back. When you take your posture over the ball, squeeze the glutes and hinge from the hips,” she said. “Then, just check to make sure that little arch is still there.”

Instruction

Why this Top 100 teacher's childhood swing advice still resonates today

By: Jessica Marksbury, Trillium Rose, Top 100 Teacher

Sounds simple enough, right? It is. Essentially, Rose says, you’re looking to maintain the same spine angle that you have standing up as you do when you bend forward in your posture.

“The hinge point is right in your hip joint,” she said.

Rose suggested thinking about how it feels to do a deep squat or lift something off the ground to get the sensation you should feel in posture.

“You want to feel your butt go back over your heels,” she said. “Engaging the glutes is key. Vaguely bending forward isn’t the answer — you want to be really intentional about where that bend is coming from.”

Another way to practice the sensation is to imagine putting your hands in your pockets and feeling your pelvic bone.

“You should feel that bone tilt, so your belt buckle is now facing the grass, as opposed to your belt buckle at the horizon line,” Rose said.

Give Rose’s posture advice a try, and enjoy your newly-solid strikes.

For more tips from Trillium Rose, click here.

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The post The foolproof way to ensure you have perfect posture every time, according to a Top 100 Teacher appeared first on Golf.

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The post Golf Posture Instruction Video appeared first on Golf.

Golf Top 100 Teacher Todd Sones helps you spring clean your game gets you back to basics in this Home Practice series.

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The post Your posture could be ruining your golf swing — but it’s not too late to fix it appeared first on Golf.

The post Your posture could be ruining your golf swing — but it’s not too late to fix it appeared first on Golf.

Welcome to Play Smart, a game-improvement column from Director of Game Improvement content Luke Kerr-Dineen to help you play smarter, better golf. It usually drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but Luke was super busy yesterday so is releasing a special TUESDAY edition instead.

Over the course of my day-to-day job, I end up talking a lot to two very different kinds of golfers: Avid recreational golfers, and elite professional players.

Those conversations, as you might expect, are vastly different, which is why I keep an ongoing list for my own interest about the various things professional golfers talk about a lot that amateurs don’t. I’ll share that full list at some point — so stay tuned! — but chief among them is posture.

Pros talk about, think about, and work on their posture all the time. Poor posture causes a range of negative knock-on issues in the golf swing and be a major power leak because of the way it limits your ability to turn.

“Rotation in the spine is going to occur better when it’s straighter,” Rick Sessinghaus, Collin Morikawa’s longtime coach, says. “If your spine is rounded, you’ll have more difficulty turning.”

The ramifications of poor posture don’t start and end with your golf swing, either. It can have far more severe consequences for your overall health, as Dr. Stephen Liu, an orthopedic surgeon, explains.

Liu is the the founder and chairman of Formewear, a science-driven apparel company which produces clothing with a corrective inner fabric designed to realign your spine as a way of improving people’s overall health. But good posture isn’t just professional to Dr. Liu, it’s also personal: He developed the company while trying to help his mother, who at the time was battling late-stage cancer, breath better.

Now, he’s on mission to reshape the way golfers think about posture.

“Bad posture is a chronic problem. It’s one of the single biggest changes people can make to improve their overall health,” Dr. Liu says. “It’s why professional athletes spend so much time on their posture.”

Why good posture matters

Poor posture — where your shoulders are rounded and your abdominal muscles protrude outwards — doesn’t just put excess strain on your neck and back. It also effects the very way you draw breath.

Slumping your shoulders forward forces the diaphragm, the muscle which expands and contracts your lungs as you breath — upwards into your chest. That limits your lung’s ability to inhale at their full capacity, which has the effect of shortening your breath.

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Get the "S" out of your posture for a rock-solid setup

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“Pinching your shoulder blades back drops your diaphragm down and opens up your chest cavity about 30 percent,” Dr. Liu says. “All the bronchial in the lungs open up, which improves your blood oxygenation.”

When more oxygen enters your blood, your brain and body begins functioning better. Your stamina improves, your focus enhances, and your heart rate lowers, which lowers your stress level and helps you stay calm.

The biggest issue is that poor posture can be a difficult cycle to break. If the muscles in your shoulders and core are weak, your shoulders will slump forward. When that happens, those muscles aren’t being activated and will grow increasingly weaker over time, which will lead to more slumping. It’s not a physically demanding task to re-train those muscles, Dr. Liu says, but it does require an adjustment that will be worth it in the long run.

“We’re not consciously training those muscles,” he says. “But it’s never too late.”

The post Your posture could be ruining your golf swing — but it’s not too late to fix it appeared first on Golf.