Posture

I'm told my stance is too erect (stand tall ?). I'm likely favoring it due
to previous back surgery which now is leading to inconsistent hits; pulls, fades etc. despite grip and line-up changes.
Is there a general rule, benchmark or consensus on correct back posture-how far forward does one bend?

Thanks.......Wil

Grab a club and take your grip, lower the arm until they just barely touch the chest and the club is parallel to the ground, now bend over from the hip joint until the club is just off the ground and then crack your knee until the club touches the ground. Now you have correct posturer. Believe it or not, this will produce LESS strain on your back then standing tall and being hunched over. Improper posture makes your back absorb a lot of unnecessary twisting and torquing from being curve as opposed to straight.

I would add a regime of back and shoulder stretching since you are coming off surgery, and a little extra time warming up at the range prior to playing.

One more query:

Current golf instruction tells us our body position at impact is different than body position at setup. (and the swing plane on the backswing is different than the swing plane of the downswing.) Sooooooo.....

How does one line up the clubface to the ball so as to exactly hit the ball on the sweet spot of the club face at impact? THE BODY IS IN A DIFFERENT POSITION.
If practically all of your weight has transferred back to your left foot just before impact, should you not set up with your weight on your left side?
Your body position at impact has changed in relation to the ball position at the setup. Remember that current instruction tells us to set up with your weight equally balanced between both feet, and indeed, with a very wide stance for driving.

It just doesn't make sense!

Best regards to all.......Wil

something else that will help strain your back less is flex your abs thoughout the swing, it is impossible to bend your back if your abs are flexed. it is when you hunch over that the vertibral edged rub against each other and that is bad.

be carfull about bending the kness too much. you dont want locked knees but you don't want bent too much or the knees will collapse the spine the spine too. you want a strait leg so the ground takes all of the force not the bottom of your spine.

the only injury that should occur in golf is elbow and wrist due to the hard snapping at release if you go all out like long drivers and possibly the knee if you use that like tiger to snap a bit more energy. but really golf shouldn't have any injuries if you swing correctly.

Hello Wil,

We have all seen different styles and instruction and of course, this being golf, there's a lot of contradiction. Consequently there's a lot of mixing and matching that has to go on in order to find what works for our way of swinging.

I do have a preference, though.

Golf clubs are designed so that when sole of the cub is flat on the ground, the shaft is angled so that the grip would fit into our hands comfortably. This marvelous piece of information leads me to the fact that (if you've had your clubs measured for your height - very important) a player should not be needing to bend over too far from the waist.

I subcribe to the Hogan school of posture. This sees a more upright stance where you may feel like you're sitting on a shooting stick/spectator perch/propped on a garden wall (or something similar!). You see, the golf club is such designed so that we don't have to bend over that much to make it work for us. We should be able to stand in balance as comfortably as we were chatting to someone in a bar. Leaning too far forward moves the head (18 lbs worth of mass) too far forward and causes balance issues that, in my opinion, cause a lot of the major faults seen in golf swings today.

Regarding coming back to the ball exactly on the sweetspot; I think the address position is less static and exacting than you think. Good and natural ball strikers are shifting around all the time to feel active and prepared to hit. Placing the clubface behind the ball is just giving the brain reference as to where the ball and ground is. Once you know whee it is, waggle away, shift around, do teh hokey kokey and swing!

Coming through the ball in the actual swinging action is athletic, so the dynamism of action and momentum has to be captured by the body and legs (shifting weight and turning) in order to compress the ball with the club at speed. So coming back to address through impact is a complete red herring. Freeze frame any good ball striker at address then impact, and the difference is dynamic motion. Which is why good ball strikers try to feel free and easy at address; to mimic the athletic action needed.

__________________
Luke: I don't believe it!
Yoda: That is why you fail.

you only need to bend down as far as you can to have the (left hand on the club) the butt of the club touching your right thumb if your right hand pinky is touching your waist and your hand is spread wide open (think that is about 8 inches)

the whole purpose of bending over is to give your arm room to swing freely. the reason you don't want to bend too far is that you will make your arc smaller therefor having less swing speed. if you are too upright then you arm can't move freely.

you always want strait legs. you should be able to have a 200lb man on your back as you swing the club. if you bend your knee then you are now going to have a realy hard time trynig to hold that guy up and he wil collapse you both. that 200lb man is the force in your DS, you want to direct that force into the ground with strait legs not bent.

try giving a man a piggy back ride with the teachings of having legs bent at all times. good luck with that one, that should cause some nice back problems too.

giving a man a piggy back ride.....

when walking, your legs will bend and straiten and your weight will shift from left to right leg. golf is the same thing, one leg will be bent, and the other leg will be strait and have all of the weight on it.

http://mysite.verizon.net/gregjwillis/LESSON2.htm