How do you learn to keep a steady head?

[RayG]

I personally think the "keep your head still" mantra is a bit over the top. You CAN'T keep your head absolutely still and expect to have a fluid motion in your swing. Keeping it "relatively" still AND behind the ball through the swing is a better tip to try and teach. Even at that you can still see someone top, shank and clank their way around because they are trying to see where the ball is going before they hit it. I got a tip a few years ago to keep my head behind the ball and try and watch the club hit the bottom of the ball. That requires a bit of that "Tiger drop", though. But nothing quite as extreme as his move since I'm not firing at 140mph clubhead speed or whatever.

[whatwoodtigerdo]

Benderstick...

Put your head against a wall at home, take a stance, put each hand on the other shoulder and turn ... and turn ... and turn...

Look at 5 Simple Key Vids ... extend as you turn going back (stretch the right side for a righty)

This is decent advice.

I focus more on my body relationship to the ground than my head to do this key. If your body doesn't move up and down and back and forth and just rotates your head won't move unless you got something weird going on with your neck. I think this and the weight forward are the easiest things to get right if you are willing to work on it. To me the problem is these things are best worked on in front of a mirror with no ball and no club and most people don't seem to want to do it.

[arturo28mx]

For me, keeping my head still means DO NOT SWAY ON THE BACKSWING!!!

It really helps if I slightly push my right knee inward so the weight is on the INSIDE of the right leg as I swing back. There's an easy drill about putting a golf ball under your right foot to ingrain this feeling.

[mailman]

This is decent advice.  I focus more on my body relationship to the ground than my head to do this key. If your body doesn't move up and down and back and forth and just rotates your head won't move unless you got something weird going on with your neck. I think this and the weight forward are the easiest things to get right if you are willing to work on it. To me the problem is these things are best worked on in front of a mirror with no ball and no club and most people don't seem to want to do it.

This has helped me immensely with keeping my head still through the swing. What I found was the head and upper body swaying was a result of my club path. As I was swinging the club around my body the sway would come with the path. Stopping swinging around my body meant changing the path of my club on the backswing and a simple excecise to help was to take my normal backswing with my backside against a wall. If I didn't hit the wall then I wasn't swinging around my body. The difference in head movement was noticeable immeduately. So it's quite possible the fix could be found in rectifying your swing path, which to be honest wasn't the first thing I looked at when working on my swing with my coach. Regards. Mailman

[flopster]

You could always use your shadow on the ground to watch any movement, also a mirror with taped quadrants can help. I also heard someone tell me and I'll first say I didn't try this so don't hold me to it, they took a pair of sunglasses and put electrical tape over them except for a small square in each side, I guess if you don't stay steady the ball will get blocked by where the tape is.

[golflovin]

I've tried a lot of different training tools and have found the one less putt practice ball to be the most efficient way to reduce head movement. I can practice anywhere, the ball is on such a hair trigger i only need 3-7 feet of space.

[nevets88]

[QUOTE name="erwintrace08" url="/forum/post/417100"] Originally Posted by erwintrace08 [URL=/forum/post/417100] [/URL] Best advice I ever got was from a guy I met at the range. He said that it was a tip he heard from George Bush Sr. to keep his head still. e [/QUOTE] I think this tip will only work for republicans.

And during a Republican administration. Joking :-) Whatever works for you, keep doing it.

[tomvk77]

Just take a pencil and hold it between your tooth. point the tip at your ball and than make the stroke and try to keep the tip pointing down to the ground

[leonberkowitz]

From the book Lesson Tee by Jack Nicklaus is his fundamental law that one has to keep a steady head in the golfswing. That means guarding sway or lifting of the head. The head is the cog of the wheel so any movement will alter the arch and lead to a number of ball flight faults. A drill that he used as a young golfer was swinging flat footed with a five iron letting his left ankle roll inwards towards his right foot on the backswing and then letting his right ankle roll in towards his left foot on the through swing...But NOT letting his feet come off the ground at all! Another drill failing this when practicing ONLY is to try to complete the swing without lifting your head or letting your eyes move off the balls location, this will force you into an abbreviated finish but the resulting feel of a steady head will ultimately carry over into your normal swing. I have practiced this for years and every now and then when I am not hitting the ball as solid as I would like go back to these drills. I remember the immediate benefits of keeping a steady head being dropping from a mid handicapper to shooting in the early to mid seventies on a regular basis:)