A Golf Love Affair: One Day You're HOT and One Day You're NOT
I am pumped up today! I am writing this on the first day of the U.S. Open, June 17th of 2021. With that being said, I will be coming at you with some golf content today.
I was in the Bogey Free Back and Body Facebook Group that we run and asked a question about what people were needing the most help with this summer to improve their golf game from the scope that we can help them. The number one thing that people were talking about was consistency. They wanted to know how they could get more consistent.
Through my lens of working with biomechanics, golfers, and golf performance, the consistency aspect is always challenging because there are so many things that go into that. There is equipment, hand-eye coordination, club path, club face, set up posture, and the list goes on.
WHERE TO START IN TERMS OF CONSISTENCY AND REPEATABILITY IN THE GOLF SWING?
Typically, what I try and do, is start with the low-hanging fruit for the golfers that we work with. A lot times what we do in order to assess a golfer and see where we can help with consistency and repeatability of their swing, is to look at the body.
The body is one of the things, believe it or not, that takes some work. It is a little bit of a challenge, it takes some time and patience, but it is one of the things that we can control. It is one of the things we can quite drastically improve. There are others things that are maybe a little bit more genetic or predetermined such as hand-eye coordination, body type and the length of levers we have. We cannot control these elements as much. We can certainly try to improve them, but the thing that we can really REALLY control is our body in terms of strength, mobility, and some motor control aspects of posture.
THE ROLE OF GOLF POSTURE IN SWING CONSISTENCY AND REPEATABILITY
Where we can help ourselves the most in terms of consistency and repeatability in our swing always comes back to our golf posture. There are a couple things to think about in terms of golf posture.
GOLF SET UP: It is the one aspect of the swing where we are not moving. Typically if I feel that somebody is setting up in a way that would not be ideal given what they are trying to accomplish, we will start with golf set-up. We do this because it is a low-hanging fruit. You can get somebody more comfortable in that set-up posture and hopefully set them up for success.
MAINTENANCE OF POSTURE THROUGHOUT THE GOLF SWING: The second, but the more challenging aspect and the most common thing we will see our golfers struggle with in terms of consistency and repeatability is the maintenance of that posture throughout the swing. If you look at in terms of you have your set-up posture/pre-swing/pre-movement posture, and then you have your in-swing posture. We refer to our in-swing posture is the maintenance of our pre-swing/pre-movement/set-up posture through movement. Ideally what we want to try and do is maintain those original angles and posture lines that we set up with through takeaway, transition, and back down to impact. If I am setting up in a good and efficient posture, I want to do my best to maintain those angles as I take the club back, transition at the top, and back down through impact. What we find is that the number one thing that a lot of our amateur golfers and junior golfers struggle with is maintenance of posture through the swing. Now when we look at repeatability and consistency of the PGA players, one of the things that they do not do 99% of the time is come out of posture. They do not early extend, they maintain that posture through impact. We want to do our best to help individuals figure out how to do that.
WHAT CHALLENGES TO WE FACE WITH CONSISTENCY AND REPEATABILITY IN THE GOLF SWING?
When we are talking about coming out of posture through impact, one of the challenges that we have is mobility. Is the golfer mobile enough in all the right areas? If you are not mobile enough, specifically the mid-back/hips/shoulder especially at takeaway, you are going to have to potentially come out of those original posture lines to maintain what you want to do with the club. If you are trying to get a turn or generate speed, but don’t have mobility in the right areas, you’re probably going to have to come out of that posture a little bit to accomplish that.
The second area, and most underrated but most popular area, is strength. In order to maintain that original posture, which is what we would call hinge posture, you have to be able to load up your hips and back, have great core strength, and have excellent ankle mobility. The strength component is really what is lacking with a lot of people. When you don’t have the ability to load these areas of their body through the swing or in the swing, they kind of have to stand up. This is because the muscles are not going to do the job efficiently so they are going to try and rely on their body to do that. Getting strength back to try and be able to maintain that posture throughout the golf swing is going to be one of the most beneficial things for you.
Third is just is motor control. This is a matter of once we have these first elements of mobility, range of motion, and strength, then you have to practice it. You have to get your reps in to maintain your strength, range of motion, and mobility to ultimately have good motor control. Even practicing it as much as you want, you are not going to be able to cue yourself into some of these things that we are trying to accomplish.
WHY SHOULD WE STAY IN POSTURE TO HAVE A MORE CONSISTENT AND REPEATABLE SWING?
That’s the kind of the “what” and the “how to,” the “why to” is, well, the golf swing is incredibly challenging and dynamic as is, and when we come out of posture, we take on the movement that comes with it. When we come out of posture, what's really happening is we are adding moving parts. Talking to the “why to” and why this is so important, if you are trying to get consistent repeatability with your swing, and every single time you take a club back or you come back down to the ball your body is adding moving parts due to the loss of posture. Now you have the club path, the face, and all these other moving parts that you have to try to sequence together with exquisite timing and hand-eye coordination. Usually, if you are seeing golfers that are coming out of posture, maybe there their swing is a little bit wonky, but really really repeatable and consistent, they probably have really really good hands and timing. Unfortunately, that is not super common for a lot of us.
The “why to” with all of this is making sure that you can maintain the posture through the swing so that you do not have extra moving parts and all you truly have to focus on is your path and your face to help with consistent and repeatable contact. If you have the loss of posture through the swing, which is the most common thing we see with the amateur and junior golfers we work with, then you are going to have a hard time maintaining consistency and repeatability, unless your timing is perfect.
After reading this blog you are interested in how Motus Rx Physical Therapy can help your improve your golf repeatability and golf consistency, click HERE to learn more.
If you are interested in more content like so, check out some of our other FREE resources for your to improve your golf game:
FREE Tips Report: 7 Golf Tips to Ease Pain and Swing Easier!
FREE Blog post: Should I Be Concerned With Gaining Muscle Mass For Golf?
FREE Podcast: U.S. Open: Keys to Consistency