This is a topic that I have covered before, but last week I was giving a lesson to a complete beginner and I was questioned as to why what I was teaching went against everything her husband and best friend had told her.
I was telling her to move her head before contact was even made with the ball but she was adament that the most important thing to do in golf was to keep the head down looking where the ball was.
I tried to convince her that in reality it is a myth that consumes golfers across the world, and although I was trying to get her to move her head dramatically before striking the ball, we were having little success. She had been brainwashed into thinking that the head had to remain completely still until the ball had been struck and was heading towards its intended target.
We kept at the drill for at least half an hour, before we noticed even a slight movement of the head before impact, but it was the breakthrough we needed to achieve so that the lesson wasn´t a complete failure.
She noted, and this is the reason why I do not tell my students to keep their head down and stationary through impact, “my swing felt freer, easier and it didn´t hurt my back”, and it what this that proved to be the key to a successful and repetitive golf swing; freedom to make the swing.
Imagine this; I ask you to sit on a kitchen chair, with your back facing the front door, when a person enters, you are to turn and fase them, without your head moving, just like you are being told to do in your golf swing.
Try it……Your response will be, “wow, that was tough. I am not flexible enough to do that”.
A rotation of the upper torso, will result in a rotation of the head, however hard we try to keep it still. Our efforts result in weak, rigid golf swings that rarely produce the results that we are looking for.
Obviously, less head movement should increase the chances of hitting good shots, we always need to keep our eyes on the ball, and that is the key phrase that I want my clients to be thinking about when they are working on head position through the swing.
Watch the ball, so as soon as the ball has left the club-face our eyes should be following it, the further it travels the more we will need to have moved our head in order to keep watching the ball. It is the same in all sports, we watch the ball at all times, golf should be treated the same way.
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