Advice/drills needed to stop my head from dropping on backswing

[IanPozz]

Hi, I've been playing golf for 18 months and have made steady progress but I've hit a wall which is causing me endless amounts of frustration. No matter what I do, try or change, my head drops massively on my backswing which leads to incosistent ball striking and it's impeding my progress so I thought I'd seek the advice on here.

I've attached a photo showing me at the top of the backswing with a red line indicating where my head was at the start of the swing.

Any advice would be gratefully received.

Many thanks

Ian

 

[Foxholer]

Seems to me that that's about where you should be! Perhaps slightly too low, but not a lot.

So It's more likely that you set up position is wrong.

To really check, it's better to show your impact position and as long as that's 'right' then that's pretty much the place to use for reference. It's quite likely that you mimic your address position more though.

Have a look at some of the Pro swings - Donald or any of the South Africans. They generally do things a very 'classic' way (Donald's hand twitch excepted).

If you really are dropping your upper body, it's quite possibly as a balance to taking the club back too flat and/or inside. Hard to tell in a single snap - a video would show better.

 

[IanPozz]

Hi Foxholer, many thanks for your reply. I've attached a video of my swing.

[video]youtube.com/watch?v=M6e5DbN93SM[/video]

 

[Doh]

Looks to me like your head/upper body should be staying down a little longer. You seem like coming out of the shot to quick. This just my opinion and I am not an expert.

 

[the_coach]

Thing to consider is that the things that happen within a golf swing motion are all correlative as it's a chain reaction, a relay of motions within a timed sequence within a certain space, each part of the motion passing through the sequence & passing on energy down through to impact.

So how you set up from the hold on the club & address at the get go will totally influence where in that space you move the club & your body in an effort to get the ball to target, the more slightly out the things going back are, the bunch more compensations you have to make to get back to the ball.

The best angle to view what's really happening here would be from face on. Also because the whole length of images is only 1' it's far better if it's possible to just set it recording & just let it record a number of swings all at once. If you can get a slow-mo app that's the best way of recording your swing for you to check what's happening when you're practicing.

All that said, so difficult to get absolute clarity, my take, I would guess that the grips a bit funky, given the angles between arms/hands & shaft & also the hand action right from the get go. (ideally here the hands/wrists would be still, in that their relationship in terms of angles wouldn't/shouldn't change until they are level or just past the right thigh.)

My guess would be that the right hand is a ways 'under' the handle so a little more in the palm & strong (crease between the thumb & forefinger pointing up past the right shoulder completely, rather than pointing midway-ish between the neck & right shoulder. Left hand you'd need to check too.

This grip then has a direct relation to the early hand/wrist movement, this movement has a direct relation to the arm swing coming back a ways inside, so flattish, which means the arms are working up 'below' the shoulder plane, as they go back on this flat plane so they get blocked by the chest so the backswing over short. (which is also a little why your upper body & head lean towards target some in an effort to make the backswing a tad longer)

Also throughout the club moving back you look like you leave a good deal of weight on the left side (so never really gets to inside the right foot where weight should be at top) so the shoulder tilts a ways rather than turns properly, the other thing leaving the weight on the left leg then does is move your head & upper body a ways towards target & all this makes you left side sink down in height some.

If you can pause your swing at top (particularly if you can have a face on view) you'll see how your upper body & head both lower in height some & also lean in towards target so your head level with, to slightly in front of the ball, instead of staying behind the ball.

At top you'd want your upper body/shoulders to have turned away from target, so feeling the upper body turn 'into' the right hip socket some, with the weight being held very much along the inside of the right foot & into the right heel some with the right knee still having some flex in it. You head then would remain more level in height & stay behind the ball some. Importantly your spine would be tilted back away from target not lean towards target.

It's the position you get into & the top of the swing that gives you what happens moving down & into impact, the part you want to change.
But as said at the top, the swing's a chain reaction so to stop it, it's not really about your head dropping a ways so much but about these other things that are really causing the issues you currently have in your swing motion.

So to change you'll have to work on what happens before, from the grip, make sure address alignments are good, posture, ball position etc., & from the get go quiet hands, so the arms & shoulders turning that's taking the club straighter back, so the backswing is a little ways steeper in plane, so allowing you to get the shaft at top over the tip of your right shoulder, spine tilted away from target, head behind the ball (don't try & keep it stock still that will hurt the swing motion) but the little lateral movement of head there will be will just be as a result of a turn away (not lateral sway) from target.

I'll post up a couple of vids to look at from how to get a good neutral grip, to how the hands arms & body move from the get go but stay connected, & how the top of the backswing looks from face on, with that tilted away from target spine angle.
If you do the drill in slow-motion (perfect swing drill) with the club on the ground (in exactly the same place) should help you get the motion & where you should be at top to then swing down & through impact in a good ways better shape.

Might seem a lot, but it isn't really if you just take time to work through.

 

[the_coach]

Left hand, neutral grip.

[video=youtube_share;wMLpg38gEJE]http://youtu.be/wMLpg38gEJE[/video]

 

[the_coach]

Right hand neutral grip.

[video=youtube_share;4kG19zHrdiY]http://youtu.be/4kG19zHrdiY[/video]

 

[the_coach]

How there's a slight difference to how the left hand/wrist sets to the right Hand/wrist hinge, how this & the connection with the arms & body get the club moving back on a ways better little steeper back swing plane, so the right hand doesn't whip the club back inside & flat.

[video=youtube_share;STA6p8J1WiE]http://youtu.be/STA6p8J1WiE[/video]

 

[the_coach]

Great drills to discover just where the swing motion works to going back, (check the guys spine tilt away from target at top of backswing, that's the angel you need to be working towards)

Check the position of the handle of the club in the hands going back in the takeaway in relation to the handle on the ground, & see how the relationship of the handle position changes from the takeaway, when the swing in coming back down into impact.

If you can get this down good, by rehearsing these in slow-motion drills, then step up to do the same thing when you swing through a ball but do it at around 50% to 70% swing effort through the ball, that ways you can better feel what's going on & so it 'sticks' a ways better.

See how he starts his downswing from the ground up.

[video=youtube_share;xvMiZQo70-E]http://youtu.be/xvMiZQo70-E[/video]

 

[the_coach]

Just a vid, to the point above about not trying to work through changes in a swing motion at your normal swing speed, doing it that way the golfer doesn't give themselves any time to be able to feel or assimilate the 'new' movements into the swing motion, so that ways sort of still flat out motion, changes never stick.

[video=youtube_share;ogiq_UHKg74]http://youtu.be/ogiq_UHKg74[/video]

 

[dsanders9944]

Looks to me like your swing is too far around the body which is why you lose height in the backswing from DTL, it also looks like you tilt to the left but hard to tell without seeing it from face on. This is why you lose height with your posture, to help you get the club down to the ball. Although these days most players are trying to flatten their planes out, I believe yours is maybe a bit too flat. You could try two things...1) Stick with this swing plane - tilt over more at address and perhaps a bit further away (as it looks like you would be prone to shanking if you stood to close and upright). Swing thought - stay down during impact 2) Stick with this posture, steepen the backswing plane so that your arms and shoulders are at the same angle at the top of the backswing, hold your height. I will attached a video for a good drill to hold the height, but if you don't steepen the swing you will probably top a lot of shots, good luck [video=youtube_share;TRx4gYfEaQY]http://youtu.be/TRx4gYfEaQY[/video]

 

[Foxholer]

Following those vids that the_coach has provided should definitely help.

The vid seems to show that the forward lean is a balancing reaction/compensation. Try simulating the swing in very slow motion. That way, your legs and core will do the balancing involved and that should carry through to the 'normal' swing, or at least make you very aware that you are tilting forward - it's not your head dropping btw, it's your whole upper body tilting.