Yesterday I discussed that the best way to get into proper posture and be the correct distance from the ball was that when you step into the ball and get into your routine and bend from the waist, your arms must drop down straight from the shoulders, so that your hands, if you draw a line from the top thumb knuckle of your top hand, will come up from somewhere under your face, between your chin and your nose.

That’s a good check point to make sure that your arms are hanging. Now, as I said, the thing that prompted that article was when a student told me that he’s been told you can never stand too close to the ball and asked me if that was correct. As I said yesterday, and I’ll reiterate it again today, you CAN stand too close, just as we can stand too far from the ball, over extending or over reaching. In the many years that I’ve been teaching, the predominance of students that I see on the lesson tee, if they’re doing anything wrong with their posture, as far as their distance from the ball, is that they’re reaching or over extending.

I can actually talk to that subject even more accurately than most because that was my major problem, which was compounded by the fact that I’m 5′ 9″ tall and have a 35″ sleeve. DJ, who is 6′ 3″, has the same arm length. A 35″ sleeve is an arm length normally you’re going to find on someone at least 6 feet tall. So I have extremely long arms for my height. Therefore, if I start extending or over reaching, my upper torso, the center of gravity of my swing, the base of my neck,  is really being pulled too far forward. That gives me a number of problems, in terms of my swing and ball contact, posture wise because of the reach being too far out, I’m going to have trouble lifting the club as vertical as I want to be and stand the club up as it should be done in the backswing.

The tendency is the more your body’s out, extended too far, you have to pull your arms back underneath the center of gravity of the swing, which is the top of your sternum, to get it in balance so that you can maintain balance and control of your arms and the club. So as you pull it in, the tendency is to get a little deep and not be able to stand the club up as much. I suffer from both of those situations.

Now it’s not as obvious as most because I still do a pretty good job of standing up, but it’s not as optimum as it could be if I were in good posture.

From there, the tendency as I start my forward upswing is that, because I’m a little deep, the upper body may slide a little forward. I slide a little forward and there’s a high probability my hands are going to get to the ball too soon, because my sternum has moved a little forward and I’m going to have a slight open face at impact and I’m going to hit blocks and maybe even a block with a slight cut. It’s not enough to get me into a lot of trouble, but I can miss the fairway and get into the rough. That’s not a very good hit. Every now and then, I’ll get a little ahead, flip it a little fast and get a soft pull. We call that army golf, right, left, left, right, or as I like to refer to it as baseball park golf. My baseball diamond is starting to get wider and wider. Rather than playing in a baseball field, I like to play in a bowling alley.

So that’s one of the concepts I really have to work hard on, getting into my correct posture. The other bad thing about posture, if you’re reaching too much, it tends to suck your hips under you more, again to counterbalance the fact that your arms and golf club are so far away from you, so when you start lifting you need that center of gravity under you more to be able to balance your lift up on the backswing. So, you’re out of posture. Compound all those things together and we have the issue of your arms tending to feel like they’re pulling away from you too much and it’s made worse if I slide a little bit forward.

So, how do I correct it? The key is when I bend over from the waist I have to make sure the arms drop straight down and that my hips are pushed outward. When I hit into the ball properly, bang, there’s my weight, right evenly in the arches, not drifting towards the balls of the feet.

Now I have that good, dynamically balanced setup with my hands straight under me. I can take it straight back and up, which means I feel like I’m taking the club back and my hands are moving and staying under my neck, all the way up, stand up vertical.

The big issue here is that if I do that properly, and I get up to the top, when I swing down, I feel my hands are staying under my neck into approaching the ball and releasing to impact. Under my neck, rather than being pulled out, so to speak, towards my mouth and my nose. We know that centrifugal force is trying to pull my hands out, so the more I reach, the more they’re going to be pulled out. Guess what happens. They  are more forward and ahead of the ball and, guess what, because I’m moving that far forward, I’m also getting closer to the ball and I have a greater tendency and make contact on the ball closer to the hosel, and even hit the occasional “hosel rocket.”

Again, the beauty is, I stand with my arms hanging much straighter down, it’s difficult for me to do because I feel like I’m crowing the ball. But when I do it, with the hands coming straight under my neck, the contact is so much more solid and straight, I’ve got a tighter trajectory when I hit it, meaning that I start on a tighter line, my launch trajectory is better and higher, which I like, and I’m back to playing in a bowling alley.

Last but not least, the ultimate, final, super thing that comes out of this is for the last year or so, I felt like I’d been losing distance, as much as 5 to 7 yards. That’s getting close to one complete club, especially with my short clubs, 7 iron down. And low and behold, I started a couple days ago working on this and in the last two days, my distance has come back! My 8 iron is back to 150 yards with no problem. And I’ve got my little straight to almost a draw shot. The distance is better. My divots are even shallower, and it’s easier to swing through and stand up.

Again, check your hand position. Draw the line from the top thumb knuckle, see that your hands are hanging below your face between you chin and you nose. You’re going to be able to swing more vertical, come down staying more vertical, you’re going to find your contacts more solid, your divots shallower, you have a better trajectory and flight pattern, and, if you been hitting the ball a little bit shorter than normal, you’ll probably get your distance back and your ball striking will improve, just like my has in the last couple of days.

(Golf School Note for IC members: We have room this coming week at Port St. Lucie, FL. Click here for details. And look for details soon on our California PPGS schools at Talega Golf Club in beautiful San Clemente, May 17 – 19 and 20 – 22. It’s going to be one heck of an experience. Call: 1-888-84SWING(79464) or 1-864-525-7336.)

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