Keeping Height

I have trouble with lifting up on my backswing, then dipping a lot on my downswing. Does anybody know any good practise drills to stop me from doing this?

Try to maintain a quiet lower body. I was able to acheive this by playing for a while with my feet together so my lowerbody had to be soundly correct to produce a good shot

This is a good question. Keeping the lower body "quiet" at the same time all this hip rotation is supposed to be going on is hard to master. I think it's the reason why hacks like myself top the ball so much, and why we tend to resort to swinging mainly with our arms--precisely to keep the lower body quiet.

I have found that trying to keep an almost laserlike focus on the ball during the backswing, and where the ball *was*, when I've hit it, helps somewhat, but it's very demanding, and I find it crowds out every other swing thought.

But I suppose this is the most basic principle of the golf swing. If we can't keep a steady height, only luck determines whether we strike the ball well.

I find that if I keep my spine angle constant during the backswing and then right through the downswing I will have a good chance of avoiding hitting the ball thin or even fat. I cannot see how keeping the lower body "quiet" is possible at all since many of the posts in here recommend that power, consistency etc come from the use of the lower body, not from the excessive use of the upper body. I'm still learning this game and would also love to hear from the better players.

Hi niumaiat,

I am not sure if there are two schools of thoughts here. My coach wants us to keep our body as still as possible, and he has hit the ball like 170yds with a 7 iron with so little motion, it always leaves me amazed. I am skeptical whether I am able to do something like that too without really turning my waist and shoulders etc, but I guess I just have to take it one thing at a time. But he has shown me, speed is definitely important, so before I go that far, I would want to get my swing consistent, then speed it up, and get it consistent with that higher speed... I will see what follows from there, but I am still far away from that right now :P

The so-called "natural golf" swing seems to take the "still lower body" idea most seriously, but it hasn't caught on much. The NG swing uses a wider stance to reduce hip movement, and says to "face the ball at impact" which also implies reduced lower body movement. I nvt mastered the NG swing but I know that the core idea is to minimize the number of "moving parts" in the swing.

The normal golf swing, however, seems to me to involve a *lot* of lower body motion. The hips rotate a lot, the shoulders even more, the left leg flexes on the backswing, the right leg flexes on the downswing--that's a lot of involvement of the whole body!

Trying to have no lower body movement is very wrong... on the backswing you want to coil with your upper body and have a passive lower body, but on the downswing you want the exact opposite; a passive upper body and active lower body. If you don't shift your weight forward to start the downswing (using your lower body), then you will never hit consistent golf shots. You also won't have any power unless you fire your hips through the ball after your weight shift.

Hi, I find that if I concentrate on fixing my left leg in position and swinging around it helps.