Steady Head During Golf Swing

Kalipari · October 9, 2010

I am curious how much effort / thought you guys have to put into keeping your head steady during your golf swing. Do you have to stay concious of this or did you get to a point where it is so engrained that it just occurs naturally? I don't take a consistant divot and I believe it is because my head height doesn't stay constant throughout my swing.

**nuck81** · October 9, 2010

When I started to implement S&T; my head movement became really disruptive, but it was because I was doing the wrong things in my lower body in regards to the swing.

As your swing strengthens and the CORRECT mechaning become more ingrained, your read should become more stationary....

**Easy** · October 9, 2010

Some people have heaps of head movement and are still able to have consistent contact (Phil Mickelson has crazy head movement). I'm S&T; so I try to keep my head still and had to work on it, I do spring my head up on the follow through but during the backswing I try to make sure it doesn't move right.

There could be a lot reasons why you don't have consistent divots. Things that helped me were getting my weight more forward, making sure the elbows don't pull apart and keeping the head still.

**keiko** · October 9, 2010

Head movement back and forth while keeping eyes on the ball is ok, head movement bobbing up and down changes your spine angle and is not ok, ie. blading, s**nking and chunking

The head has to move somewhat to allow the pivot around your spine and depends on your flexibility. Allowing the head to move indiscriminatly is not good but no amount of effort should be put into keeping it still because you then get tension and ball fixation which will not allow your natural talent to take over.

I am curious how much effort / thought you guys have to put into keeping your head steady during your golf swing. Do you have to stay concious of this or did you get to a point where it is so engrained that it just occurs naturally? I don't take a consistant divot and I believe it is because my head height doesn't stay constant throughout my swing.

**JML22** · October 9, 2010

Moving your head off the ball to rotate is fine aslong as your not dipping more than a certain point

**Phil McGleno** · October 9, 2010

Head movement back and forth while keeping eyes on the ball is ok, head movement bobbing up and down changes your spine angle and is not ok, ie. blading, s**nking and chunking

Changing the location of the spine changes the low point and leads to chunking, blading, etc.

Tiger's working on not moving his head off the ball, but will likely never work much on how his head drops. It's a power move that a lot of players have on the downswing, and one that's perfectly fine. The opposite of what you said is closer to the truth than what you said.

The head has to move somewhat to allow the pivot around your spine and depends on your flexibility.

A little rotation is fine, but that's not movement. If you rotate your head around your neck (spine) then your head will "move" a little laterally if you measure your nose or something, but that's not what I call "movement" in my teaching.

Allowing the head to move indiscriminatly is not good but no amount of effort should be put into keeping it still because you then get tension and ball fixation which will not allow your natural talent to take over.

I don't buy it. No sense made here. Everyone's "natural talent" has them not breaking 150 - we have to learn movements and it's bull that there's automatically "tension" when you do something.

**O.B. Right** · October 9, 2010

Although I have a head movement issue I really don't think about trying to keep my head still. It's kind of hard to explain but my good shots kind of have a "certain feeling" through the downswing which is not about any specific thing. It's the weight moving forward, the body sort of "locking" into an angle (feeling of turn vs sway), the club dropping into plane . .it feels "strong" vs "weak".

When I make a bad swing, any of about 5-6 things could happen (head movement, body sway, over the top path, stuck on back foot, "hitting" not "swinging"). I don't get the good swings by thinking about any of those bad things . . it happens when I clear my mind and focus on this "strong", natural movement.

I'm a pretty bad golfer but improving so my mindset might not be right for you . .but I don't think about head position (or any of my flaws) . . I think about trying to make a smooth, strong, fast swing around my body and that's about it.

**Brakkus** · October 9, 2010

To be frank not moving the head during your swing is like putting the cart before the horse.I never have worked on this.In Fact a fantastic piece of advice from "The Inner Game of Golf" drew a comparison with how martial artists get their stability and power from their centre.If your abdomen moves the wrong way then your head must follow.Try a drill where you focus your attention on your centre of gravity during the swing.Don't try and change your balance but simply feel where it is during your swing.

You may be suprised at how still you will then become but it requires concentration to make this work.So don't give up keep doing it and your head will only move minimally due to increased balance.

***iacas*** · October 9, 2010

To be frank not moving the head during your swing is like putting the cart before the horse.I never have worked on this.In Fact a fantastic piece of advice from "The Inner Game of Golf" drew a comparison with how martial artists get their stability and power from their centre.If your abdomen moves the wrong way then your head must follow.Try a drill where you focus your attention on your centre of gravity during the swing.Don't try and change your balance but simply feel where it is during your swing.

Wouldn't you agree that your center of gravity changes its location, particularly throughout the downswing?

Head movement is a big problem for a lot of students. A head weighs a lot, so it moving around messes with a lot of other things in the swing, and getting the head to where it should be at impact is difficult the more it moves.

**boogielicious** · October 9, 2010

For me, if I focus on keeping my swing smooth, my head moves very little.

**Brakkus** · October 10, 2010

Yes it does because the golf swing is a fluid motion.I know this only too well from my tennis days where you are in a constant state of movement,but internally your brain will make the calculations to keep you balanced despite the movement.It's why we we walk we don't feel 13st 5 pounds of weight in my case, because our body instinctively knows where our bodies equillibrium is.

Same thing in the swinging of a club if we pay attention to our balance and sense where it is then the body will surely select the appropiate feel even though it is moving.I mean golf is a choice you can put all your trust consciously in trying to create a structured swing or you can decide to allow your swing to develop more naturally by being less mechanical about it.Both require lots of practice and I love hitting balls BTW,but it's an attitude of trusting myself.

My advice originally was meant in that way to concentrate effort on the entire engine of the swing where it would be most beneficial to put the effort.You say the head weighs a lot but you only feel the weight if you leave your centre.Keep your balance and the head isn't such an issue.

**CrazyXGolfer** · October 10, 2010

Back when I was using S&T; I had bad head movment :( But since I changed back to the regular swing it's changed. But when i swing the golf club I keep my mind as blank as possible, think about nothing! Thats when im in tournys or playing a round. If im practising it's different.

**srjorion** · October 10, 2010

Bottom line, if you have a lot of natural talent and you can move your head around during your swing and still make solid contact, go for it. If not, practice keeping a steady head on the range and ingrain that feeling into your swing so it is more natural on the course.

One thing I do is to not focus so much on keeping my head still but instead I focus on keeping my sight picture of the ball the exact same through the backswing until after impact. I don't want to see the ball move left or right in my field of view, and I don't want it to get closer or further away. I try to see my divot being formed, then I stop worrying about keeping the view the same. It does the same exact thing as keeping your head still, but it helps me more than just trying to not move my head.

SRJ

***iacas*** · October 10, 2010

You say the head weighs a lot but you only feel the weight if you leave your centre.Keep your balance and the head isn't such an issue.

100% disagree. I can remain balanced but move my head well to the right on the backswing. Guess what? The head weighs a lot and it's going to take a lot of energy over a short period of time to move all that weight back to where it should be.

Wasted energy. You might only "feel" the head being heavy if you're unbalanced, but that's not the entire point I was making - head movement changes low point and the head needs to be at a certain spot at impact, so moving it and then trying to get it there is a waste of time. It's heavy and it's somewhat of an extremity.

**Jay-Bird** · October 10, 2010

I imagine my CHIN (just the chin - not the whole head) as the center point of my swing. I keep my chin still.

**Shooter McGreenkeeper** · October 10, 2010

I imagine my CHIN (just the chin - not the whole head) as the center point of my swing. I keep my chin still.

agree. a very good female golfer told me when i was 8 years old to imagine my chin almost glued to my upper chest, but still allow shoulder turn..

**keiko** · October 10, 2010

Nonsense

p.s. Even tiger is not a +3.

Changing the location of the spine changes the low point and leads to chunking, blading, etc.

***iacas*** · October 10, 2010

Nonsense

I don't think so. And since you've failed completely to elaborate, I suppose there's nothing to say in response.

p.s. Even tiger is not a +3.

Uh, Tiger's a +8 or so.

So you're right in that he's not a +3, but clearly you're taking a dig at Phil... who is a +3 by all accounts. ---------- Posts like yours add no value to the discussion and are simply rude. Phil responded to your post by giving examples and adding value to the discussion.

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Steady Head During Golf Swing

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