When I ask you if your head is in the game, I'm not talking about the mental side of golf.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm about to go all "Zen and the Art of Putting" on you. But I'm not talking about your doubts and fears and the random thoughts that pop into your mind to distract you from playing well. I'm talking about your actual head. Skull, brain, eyeballs, teeth, and hair.
This spring, I want to really harp on three vital things that will greatly improve your game.
If you can just focus on these three things you won't have to worry about a whole lot more. Breaking any of these three rules will hurt the way you play. And the more of them you break, the more your game will suffer.
Here they are:
1. Keep your head down.
2. Keep your eye on the ball.
3. Rotate cleanly around the spine.
The great news is that if you're vigilant about keeping your head down, you'll probably end up keeping your eye on the ball. Even better is that if you keep your head down and your eye on the ball, you have a much better chance of being able to maintain your golf posture and cleanly rotate around the spine. And that brings us back to your head.
The average human head weighs around eight pounds.
If you're trying to maintain spine angle and posture through your swing, one of the things that you have to be able to do is control the movement of your head. If your head moves up, down, or to either side during your swing, it's going to take your shoulders and spine with it -- and now, you're out of plane. To play the game at an optimal level, you have to be able to control that eight-pound squash of yours.
What happens when you're not in control of your head?
Think about your drive. If you're like a lot of players, you start to look for your ball on the fairway before you've even made contact. It's natural. You want to see as much of that perfect 300-yard bomb you just hit as you can. The problem is that once you bring your head up to see that Golf Central-worthy shot, you've pulled yourself out of posture. By standing even a couple of inches more upright than you should, you've altered your swing plane. This changes where your club face will be at impact. You've pulled that impact point up and in. You're hitting it thin and you're slicing it.
Keeping your head in place will greatly reduce the number of moving parts in your golf swing.
You'll be able to see the ball through impact and be in alignment from the top of your spine to your tailbone, which will allow you to rotate cleanly around your spine. This one simple correction has taken care of the three most important things I can tell anyone who's looking to better their game.
Most people don't think about their head when they think about their golf swing, but the Golf Body is more than just your legs, hips, back, shoulders, and arms. The Golf Body has a head. Keep yours in the game.
© 2014 joeydgolf.com
