how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

[michael feeney]

From looking at video of my swing i have noticed 1 serious flaw from the start of my swing until about half through the downswing i maintain pretty much the same spine angle that i started with at address but from here to impact my body just rises up and i have a complete loss of spine angle at impact it looks so bad i wonder how i can play to an 8 handicap with this swing flaw i tried the chair drill but i have had no luck with it can any 1 suggest a way to maintain spine angle in this most important part of the swing.........

[GoNavy]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

This goes to heart of most high handicappers problem, in a word "Balance", you have to have balance, lose it and your body begins to make adjustment, you can't stop it. Bend over and lean into your toes, once you start to fall, you will automatically straighten up, it is reflex, you have spent a lifetime learning not to fall down. So straightening up in a golf swing usually means your balance is off towards the toes, can be several things, bad address, started out bent over too far, or you thrust your right side out towards the ball on the downswing, again weight goes to the toes, maybe you threw the right shoulder out and over, this also puts the weight out on the toes, the idea here is without seeing your swing it is a tough call, you will have to find out which part of the swing is causing it, but losing spine angle is ALWAYS balance related, if the weight was on the heels you have the opposite problem, you bend over more.

[michael feeney]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

looking at my swing on video i am definately throwing my right side towards the ball on the downswing how should the right side move in the downswing ? any drills to promote proper right side action in downswing cause as i say i can maintain my spine angle from adress until the mid point of the downswing then i can clearly see the right side moving out towards the ball you have hit on my problem now i need some ideas to fix my prob thanks a million mate

[GoNavy]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

Let me start by saying self diagnoses is usually wrong..lol...what people think they do and what they are doing is usually two different thing, but since you say you saw it on video, we can go on the assumption you are throwing the right hip out, this is usually caused by rushing the downswing before you got your weight shifted onto the left side, the downswing needs a little bump of the left hip towards the target, this gets the weight over to the left side before you start down, which allows the rotation to be left as opposed to having to go around the center of the body with the right side. A good drill is to take an old golf shaft and poke it into the ground next to the left foot at address straight up, at address this will be a few inches from the hip, as you take your swing, don't start down until you can bump that shaft with the left hip as you rotate. Good luck.

[michael feeney]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

thanks mate will try that drill

[shootin4par]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

I find it hard to believe that you maintain spine angle on the way back, halfway down, and come up out of it at impact due to a swing flaw. You are maintaining the spine angle through the hard parts, most people loose it on the way back, but you loose it at the easy parts, at the stage where you are basically along for the ride. So, lets assume you maintained the spine angle that you are loosing. Well if your club is already getting down to the ball, if you maintained your spine angle at impact you would essentially be lower to the ground, right? Well if that was the case then after impact you would probably dig that club pretty deep, maybe as much as 3 or more inches. So, with the info that you have given, the first thing I would ASSUME is that you lift up so you dont dig deep trenches that hurt your wrists and possibly break your clubs, your body will naturally do things to protect itself. That is the primary reason for balance, so you dont fall down and hurt yourself. So IMHO, the things I would check first. Are you bent over too much, is the ball too far back, is there too big of an angle between left arm and clubshaft, does that angle need to be closer to a straight line. Always check the set up first, it is the easiet thing to change
my 02, good luck

[GoNavy]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

After reading your other post on swinging flat, I think I am leaning more toward what Shooting said, probably in your address, which is why I said, without video, it is very difficult to tell what you are doing. but I suspect the only reason you maintain your spine angle on the backswing is because you suck the club to far inside to maintain your balance from a faulty address position, that causes a flat swing.

At address there should be a vertical line from the balls (point between heels and toes) of the feet, up through the knee caps, then through the arm pits, all in a vertical line this is a balance position, from here you can swing without sucking the club inside to stay in balance, you will not feel the need to straighten up in either direction of the swing.

A check point for the backswing is to lay a club along the ball/target line off the right toe, when you begin the backswing halfway back when the club is parallel to the ground it should also be parallel to the club on the ground (directly above it) with the toe of the clubface pointing straight up. At this position you could stop turn your body 90 degree to the target line (back to target) without moving the club and simply drop it to the ground and be in the same relative position you were at address, square clubface and all. I suspect with your compensanting move to stay in balance rolling the club and pulling it in, if you tried this your clubface would be wide open and pointing to the right when you did the 90 degree turn to check. How ever far it off from what it should be at this point, you have have to make up for somewhere in the swing, difficult at best to do with any kind of consistancy.

[michael feeney]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

shootin for par thanks for yur post. the reason that i know about my spine angle is that i have a swing analysis program that i use with my video camra and computer i can draws lines ect and analyse my swing i draw a line along my back at address to represent my spine angle and i can maintain that angle all the way till about half way in to my down swing then i can clearly see my body rising above the line its so obvious im right out of the shot at impact as i said i dont know how i can play to an 8 handicap with that impact position

[michael feeney]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

thanks navy i will try those things iwas working on a drill tonight to get the feel of maintaing spine angle i stand beside a wall without a club in my set up position and place my head against the wall i then make a swing and keep my head against the wall this stops my spine angle from changing i think its a good drill

[michael feeney]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

GoNavy i tried that check point i placed the club as you said and took my backswing and stopped when the club was parallel to the 1 on the ground i turned around 90 degrees and placed the club on the ground without altering it and the face was perfectly square like it was at address so i can rule that out as a problem i had a good idea from video that i wasnt rolling my wrists or taking the club inside, the flat position could be a result of poor wrist cock i dont know what else do you think

[Timothy Slaught]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

Hello Feeny:

The spine has this tendency to follow the head so you may want to check your head position through impact which is where you describe yourself losing the spine angle. If you look at the pros, you will see their heads angled in concert with their spines at impact. One thought is to image your head resting on a pillow at impact to invision the proper angle. This does relate to balance as we are used to viewing things from a perspective of our eyes being parallel to the ground. In our desire to watch the ball flight we tend to stand straight up a little early which can bring the spine angle out of the shot early. The pros are aware of keeping thier eyes/ head on the correct plane throughout the shot from set-up into follow through. They also make sure they keep the neck supple enough to allow the head to float with the action of the shoulders.

[jambalaya]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

Hello Feeny:

The spine has this tendency to follow the head so you may want to check your head position through impact which is where you describe yourself losing the spine angle. If you look at the pros, you will see their heads angled in concert with their spines at impact. One thought is to image your head resting on a pillow at impact to invision the proper angle. This does relate to balance as we are used to viewing things from a perspective of our eyes being parallel to the ground. In our desire to watch the ball flight we tend to stand straight up a little early which can bring the spine angle out of the shot early. The pros are aware of keeping thier eyes/ head on the correct plane throughout the shot from set-up into follow through. They also make sure they keep the neck supple enough to allow the head to float with the action of the shoulders.

Head resting on a pillow at impact? So at impact my chin should be pointing towards the back rather than looking straight down at the ground where the ball is located?

[GoNavy]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

GoNavy i tried that check point i placed the club as you said and took my backswing and stopped when the club was parallel to the 1 on the ground i turned around 90 degrees and placed the club on the ground without altering it and the face was perfectly square like it was at address so i can rule that out as a problem i had a good idea from video that i wasnt rolling my wrists or taking the club inside, the flat position could be a result of poor wrist cock i dont know what else do you think

OK here is one other school of thought about spine angle, alot of people don't realize you maintain spine angle with the stomach muscles not the back, kinda like your doing stomach crunches, if you maintain that taughtness throughout the swing, you have less tendency to straighten up. This also goes along with what cmays is saying in Helens core muscle training. Careful not to overdo this to the point your all hunched over.

[jambalaya]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

Here is the head resting on the pillow. I had no idea what anyone was talking about until I saw this illustration:

http://www.golfonline.com/golfonline...469146,00.html

Now this makes sense when considering whether you are maintaining spine angle. Most of us begin to stand or lift up at impact. I don't think I ever do this right.

[jambalaya]

Re: how to maintain proper spine angle to impact

That one picture says a lot to me. For me, golf instruction, discussions, tips etc. can be maddening. Someone tells me something over and over but in slightly different ways but I never truly understand it until something like this picture comes along. The I have a duh moment.

It is now easy for me to understand what problems bending up and bending back down cause. Does bending up in the backswing promote an open club face? Or maybe it promotes the over-the-top move because somehow one has to get club back down to the ball in the through swing by reaching or bending back down.