Help! Dropping left shoulder during backswing.

[rebby]

Help! I'm having a problem. At the top of my backswing I'm dropping my left shoulder (tilting rather than rotating?). My head drops down and forward a few inches and my weight shifts to my left, hard (nearly fully). Thus my downswing is coming in steep and with that much weight forward, I'm losing my balance. Obviously consistency is a major problem and I'm getting "stuck" on the way down which leads to an over the top action. Other obvious side affects are there as well; loss of distance, major increase in spin, divots pointing left of the target, and of course, major frustration.

The "why" in this case is simple, I had a number of neck surgeries recently and the subsequent pain led to compensations, compensations led to bad habits. Fortunately these habits haven't been around long so they should be easy to break, especially since the pain is gone. Lesson learned here, take adequate time off, too late for that now though.

So, how can I fix this? Does anybody have any good drills that help this? I understand that this is a fairly common swing fault. I'd work with a local instructor but things are just getting thawed out and that's not an option (not yet anyway). Unless I get things turned around myself, it's going to be a long spring.

Thanks in advance for any help... Oh, and I'll work on getting some videos posted. Hopefully the weather will cooperate.

[david_wedzik]

Help! I'm having a problem. At the top of my backswing I'm dropping my left shoulder (tilting rather than rotating?). My head drops down and forward a few inches and my weight shifts to my left, hard (nearly fully). Thus my downswing is coming in steep and with that much weight forward, I'm losing my balance.

The weight forward really has nothing to do with this - and the best way to fix a problem like is usually to do the opposite (as it takes the extreme feeling the other way to get the "middle). Make some swings where you simply turn your shoulders and STAND UP...yes...stand up...to complete the backswing. If you really are tilting too much sideways in the second half of the backswing this will take care of the problem. The end result should be a good combination of turning, tilting and extending to reach the top. Hope this makes sense!

Dave

[rebby]

The weight forward really has nothing to do with this - and the best way to fix a problem like is usually to do the opposite (as it takes the extreme feeling the other way to get the "middle). Make some swings where you simply turn your shoulders and STAND UP...yes...stand up...to complete the backswing. If you really are tilting too much sideways in the second half of the backswing this will take care of the problem. The end result should be a good combination of turning, tilting and extending to reach the top. Hope this makes sense!

Not only does this make sense but I've been doing slow motion practice swings in the house standing almost straight up and down. As you elude to, it forces you to turn when you're in this position. You can't tilt even if you wanted to. Sounds like I'm on the right track anyway... I'll keep this up and try your suggestion of standing up during the swing as a transition back to swinging normally, thanks!

[The Recreational Golfer]

To change the habit, you might try swinging the golf club in a horizontal arc, like a baseball bat. It should be easy to keep your left shoulder from dropping. Then gradually start tilting the plane of your swing while the shoulder movement stays the same.

[rebby]

Things are improving already, I even caught a few shots thin tonight. I think that I hit the opposite extreme and kept my shoulder high, too high, through impact as well. I think that if I'm able to work on this for a few more days I'll have the issue licked. Thanks for your help thus far.

[mvmac]

To just add to what Dave said, make sure the left shoulder gets under the chin as you turn the shoulders in a perfect circle. The inward movement will help prevent the head from dipping.

[tterrag]

Wow! This is what I just worked on with Tim Weinhart(#1 teaching pro in GA). The key he told me was that in the begging of the backswing, I turned my shoulders and my hips at the same time, therefore I dipped my left shoulder on the backswing. What I do to fix this is I feel like my hips are restricted on the backswing, they will move slightly, but your left shoulder will not go down.

Hope this helped,
Garrett

[iacas]

Wow! This is what I just worked on with Tim Weinhart(#1 teaching pro in GA). The key he told me was that in the begging of the backswing, I turned my shoulders and my hips at the same time, therefore I dipped my left shoulder on the backswing. What I do to fix this is I feel like my hips are restricted on the backswing, they will move slightly, but your left shoulder will not go down.

The left shoulder

should go down (and rotate back - I'm not saying it should go down and forward) and the hips should rotate open with the rear hip (right for righties) moving back and up. Your left shoulder has to go down. The only way to move your shoulders in a circle and have your left shoulder not go down would be to stand up perfectly straight or to swing at a golf ball at shoulder level. And I'm only saying this because I think rebby got his fix already, but someone else may wander in here and try to not rotate the hips or try to keep the left shoulder really high or something else disastrous.

[rebby]

I think that I did this this straightened out, for the most part anyway. Another range session or two should clear things up, hopefully it will get above 34' sometime again shortly!

Anyway, as iacas said, your left shoulder does need to rotate down at least some. Trying to keep it high throughout the entire swing would be disastrous. What I was doing was reaching a point of rotation, then stopping rotation and tilting. This caused me to drop my head and shift 80% of my weight left. After tterrag made his reply, I also realized that this move was resulting in an over-rotation of my hips as well. I hadn't noticed that before. A great deal of practice swings, both conventional and horizontal (baseball), with a mirror seems to be doing the trick.

[PingGKEN]

Make some swings where you simply turn your shoulders and STAND UP...yes...stand up...to complete the backswing.

I would like to second this. I had the same exact problem with the shoulder dipping down on the backswing. During my range sessions as I worked to correct this, it actually felt as though I WAS standing up when in fact I was simply NOT dipping the shoulder.

[gregsandiego]

This thread is old but current for me. I didn't know I had the issue until my new golf instructor caught it, According to him the biggest issue is it robs power from the swing. I'm working on slow motion drills inside also. The hardest things to fix are these kind of habits  - the one our bodies want to do on their own. Hope I can break it.

[iacas]

This thread is old but current for me. I didn't know I had the issue until my new golf instructor caught it, According to him the biggest issue is it robs power from the swing. I'm working on slow motion drills inside also. The hardest things to fix are these kind of habits  - the one our bodies want to do on their own. Hope I can break it.

Your left shoulder (lead shoulder) does go down in the backswing. Can you clarify?

[gregsandiego]

Your left shoulder (lead shoulder) does go down in the backswing. Can you clarify?

Verbiage to describe the 3 dimensional swing is always difficult but you're saying it right. Instead of a pure rotation about the spine, imagine the left shoulder dipping a bit toward the ground.

[Ernest Jones]

[QUOTE name="iacas" url="/t/33450/help-dropping-left-shoulder-during-backswing#post_1120709"]   Your left shoulder (lead shoulder) does go down in the backswing. Can you clarify? [/QUOTE] Verbiage to describe the 3 dimensional swing is always difficult but you're saying it right. Instead of a pure rotation about the spine, imagine the left shoulder dipping a bit toward the ground.

Assuming that have some degree of inclination to the ground, pure rotation around the spine would be rotation on an incline, in which case your lead shoulder will definitely dip downwards. If it didn't dip downwards it would mean your rotation is horizontal and therefore NOT rotating around your inclined spine angle. A picture is worth a thousands words and in golf, a video is worth two thousand, mostly misunderstood, words. Post some video.

[gregsandiego]

Assuming that have some degree of inclination to the ground, pure rotation around the spine would be rotation on an incline, in which case your lead shoulder will definitely dip downwards. If it didn't dip downwards it would mean your rotation is horizontal and therefore NOT rotating around your inclined spine angle.

A picture is worth a thousands words and in golf, a video is worth two thousand, mostly misunderstood, words.

Post some video.

Agreed and that's why it's so hard to feel the difference between right and wrong. I'll see if i can get a vid.