HEAD POSITION – PGA Professional Robin Symes shows how simply improving the position of your head and neck at address can help improve your ability to rotate during your swing.
Transcript
Hi, Robin here with a quick summary of one of my recent lessons. It’s a simple one. And sometimes the simple ones can have the most effect. I think this, yeah, I hope there’s some players out there can get some benefit from this.
Now, on the left, the swing is playing, this player’s original swing. And let me explain what we did. You can see that his spine angle and his head position don’t quite match up. His head is tilted slightly towards the target. Not that much at set up here but, yes, his head’s tilted slightly towards the target.
But then in the move away, this tilt increases. He tilts his head towards the target as he’s starting the swing and then the words I used to him, he stretches the right side of his neck. So if he maintains this position all the way to the top it restricts his ability to rotate, to transfer pressure to his right foot. And as a result, you can see as he’s finishing the swing he’s having to lift his arms. That’s why his left shoulder hits his chin. Having to lift his arms to complete the swing rather than the rotation taking it this way. Distance can be affected. Direction can be affected.
So, very simple. What I asked this player to do was to feel like he was stretching the left side of his neck at setup. And then simply he was trying to maintain, keep that stretch. He has a feeling of stretching at rest and he’s got to keep that stretch as he’s making his backswing. That allows his head to rotate a little bit. You can really see his shoulders are able to rotate more freely. Yeah, without getting too complicated, I’m sure you’d agree it looks a little bit more of a powerful position. He’s going to create some more speed from there.
So a very simple lesson but with good effect. In my experience, head position is quite important. I see a lot of good players with a very neutral head position at set up, in line with their spine. I also see some good players with their head tilted slightly away from the target at set up. Now, can’t say never but very rarely do I see elite golfers with their head tilted towards the target at set up and then staying tilted towards the target on the backswing.
Like I say, there’s always exceptions but it’s a very small percentage of good players would have that head position. There’s a lot more elite golfers who would be neutral or tilted slightly away from the target. Now, if you’re somebody who’s struggling rotating your shoulders, struggling creating club head speed. Maybe it pools and slices and take big divots, I really think you could benefit from giving this a try. Trying to feeling like you’re stretching your left side of your neck at set up, and maintaining that in your backswing. You’ll find it a lot easier to rotate. You’ll find it a lot easier to get your arms working around you on the right plane. And hopefully, as a result you can hit a golf shot a little bit straighter and a little bit further.
So, simple lesson. Hope you enjoyed that and I hope there’s some people watching this which will help you when you get out on the range tomorrow and give it a try.
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