Frame the Body for a More Efficient Golf Swing
Max Alexander writes in a construction magazine, “A frame is the skeleton of a house. If the frame is strong, it provides the necessary support for everything that follows. But if it’s weak, no amount of expensive finishes will hide the flaws.” This is also a great description of the role posture plays at address and throughout the swing in golf. When trying to conquer a skill with as many moving parts as a golf swing, one of the best ways to achieve better, more consistent results is to get the body well “framed up” at address and then only let the posture change as much as needed to produce solid, powerful, and accurate shots.
The first part of this process is to develop a strong, athletic posture at address. Generally a beginner will set up with the spine too vertical and with knees that vary between too stiff, or too bent and squatty. Standing up with an almost vertical spine not only looks un-athletic compared to advanced players, but it usually gets the hands too close to the body (when the knees are squatty) or too far from the body at address (when both the knees and arms are rigid). Poor spine angles at setup not only get the hands out of position, but they set the stage for swing planes that are likely to lead to an array of unsavory golf shots (possibly followed by some unsavory language).
There’s a reason that the martial arts place so much importance on stances and body positions, and most golfers would do well to give more attention to these fundamentals. The setup prepares the body’s center of gravity to deal with the forces of the swing and posture is the first step in determining whether a golfer ends up looking more like a Jedi or Jar Jar Binks when he goes into motion.
For those who do not deal with prohibitive physical issues (like really tight hamstrings or a lower back that objects more than the attorneys on “Law & Order”), a solid address posture generally includes a forward flex of the spine from the hips to the point where the sternum is slightly farther forward than the knees. This gets the weight slightly forward of center, toward the balls of the feet, and allows the arms to hang down so that the hands have some room (maybe a fist-width or a little more) from the legs. The straighter the spine remains when it flexes forward (as opposed to slumping or bending), the better the body is prepared to make a full, powerful shoulder turn.
I also like to see a “secondary angle” of the spine for most golfers – this means a slight tilt of the spine away from the target at address, and it makes sense since the lead hand is higher on the grip making it natural for the lead shoulder to rise a little higher than the trailing shoulder. Also, when the lead leg straightens during the downswing, it tends to make the spine tilt away from the target, a change that can alter the swing path and clubface unless the golfer has already “framed” the body with a slight tilt from the beginning.
There’s not much talk about this tip, but many golfers benefit from this secondary angle applying to the hips and
pelvis too – keeping the front knee and hip slightly taller at address than the trailing knee and hip. This keeps the spine in harmony with the lower body, and really can be helpful to the many golfers who tend to fight a reverse tilt, which is when they lean the spine toward the target at the top of the swing. I have one client who found this postural tip so helpful, he started signing his emails to me as “Secondary Angle”.
Once a golfer has achieved an athletic posture at address, the key is to keep the body as “framed up” as possible during the swing. Granted, houses are designed to prevent movement whereas the address position for golf is designed to prepare for movement, but the trick is to have as few movements as possible while generating powerful and accurate golf shots. A 2,000-piece puzzle is hard to put together, and hard to keep together.
One way to stay more framed up in the backswing is to relax. A lot of golfers over-activate the muscles of the upper arms and upper back while taking the club away, as if the club were made of lead. These muscles work against the frame, often making the spine drop, lean toward the ball, or start tilting toward the target. Sometimes I’ll remind clients that we want the tree to swing its limbs, not the opposite; and if they largely allow the turn of the body to swing the arms and club away, they do a better job of maintaining their posture during the backswing.
A lot of golfers benefit from learning to avoid the “lawn mower move” which is when they pull the club away with the (usually dominant) trail arm like pulling the cord on an old lawn mower. The tension in the arms and shoulder blades puts pressure on the spine and makes the frame suffer. Relaxed arms tend to swing more quickly too.
Another way golfers commonly lose their frame during the backswing is by drastically dropping the front knee and hip. People with more lower-body movement than Elvis generally benefit from the secondary angle I mentioned above – if they raise the lead hip higher at address and learn to keep it pretty well pinned in that “tall” position during the backswing, they will be more stable throughout the swing. It’s fine for the hip to rotate back as needed, and fine for the lead knee to move toward the trail knee, but minimizing any “sag” of the lead side of the body toward the ground makes it a lot easier to return the club on a good path make a solid strike.
Many of the other posture changes golfers make during the transition and downswing are instinctive adjustments they implement as corrections for poor balance and troublesome swing planes. For instance, a player who gets too much on his toes, or too steep with his swing will likely “come up” out of posture just before impact as a last-ditch effort to avoid digging a ditch. On the other hand, a player who gets too flat with his planes might drop his trail shoulder and bend his spine on the way through impact in an effort to generate better contact than his planes otherwise would.
It’s too much to cover in depth in this article, but a player who learns effective weight movement and swing planes will also find it easier to keep his body framed up throughout the swing. And the opposite is also true. When the frame of the swing moves, so must the planes, and when the planes shift, so must the frame, or else contact and ball-flight will suffer. But solid planes and a solid frame pair up like a good wine and cheese, as can be seen in the fluid, seemingly effortless, and clearly efficient swings of most great players.
There are definitely some movements that are either desirable and/or unavoidable when making an athletic and powerful swing (it would take a real Jedi to smash the ball simply by taking a good stance). Obviously we have rotation as a primary power source during the swing; we also have the arms and club moving at a rate of speed that creates counter-forces on the body that are hard to resist. Most advanced players will show some head-drop during the swing, and will have a lateral shift of the body toward the target before impact. Even the feet, our connection to the earth, will likely move some. The trick is to balance athleticism with efficiency.
I know a golfer who used to mark a mirror with a bar of soap, making a line that represents his spine and then he would practice making swings while minimizing his spine movement as seen in the mirror. This kind of practice gave him some great feedback about what it felt like to make a stable turn during the swing.
Each golfer’s level of strength and flexibility has a lot to do with determining his ability to stay framed up too. A golfer with large arms but weak legs and core will have a much harder time maintaining stability throughout the swing than someone with smaller arms and a powerful leg/core combo. Likewise, a player with a lot of mobility/flexibility issues (a stubborn neck, shoulders, wrists, hips, etc.) will struggle to generate length and speed in the swing without first losing stability. This is why proper fitness training is practically mandatory if a golfer wants to play at an elite level these days.
In a perfect world any player who is serious about improving would invest significant time on the fitness side of their game as well as the mechanical side; but for those of us who spend more time thinking about working out than actually working out, if we can at least get on the range and learn to frame up the body with an athletic address posture and then minimize the excess spine and body movements during the swing, the effort will bear fruit. So, good luck getting framed up and playing better golf!
Earn the Release
By setting the stage for a great impact position
Golf comes with a strange language, starting with its name. Unlike sports with simple names like football, basketball, and baseball, our pastime sounds more like a dog spitting up a fur ball. I guess obvious names like “stickball” and “torture” were already taken when those bored and masochistic Scottish shepherds started chasing rocks across the links. And right behind its name, comes a train of quirky golf terms which are occasionally evocative, but often downright murky: we use things like wedges and hybrids and mallets, to make birdies and bogeys and divots, chips, lags, and duck-hooks (after a good waggle); sometimes we stray into the dark world of shanks and yips; but thank goodness our clubs have bounce, bulge, roll, offset, as well as various flexes, kick points, and torque or we’d never convince that wayward little ball to find its home.
Also in the messy melting pot of golf vocabulary we find the term “release”. This sounds like it ought to be a good thing, and it is. Release is what happens for elite players in the hitting area, just before impact and through the ball, and it is one of the biggest differences between tour players and the average Joe. But it’s not enough for average golfers to learn and mimic those magic positions—the truth is that most golfers would not strike the ball very well even if they released the arms, wrists, and club beautifully; their positions might look like Freddy Couples, but the contact is more likely to bring Freddy Krueger to mind. Great players “earn” a great release by setting the stage at address, in the backswing, and in the transition to the downswing.
What is “release”?
Before we talk about earning a great release, we better try to figure out what this term means. In one sense, release is about un-doing what we did in the backswing. Most people include the following in their backswing (not counting, but assuming shoulder turn, which lets the other parts work): weight transfer, arm-swing, forearm rotation, and wrist cocking. Golfers tend to add so many other shimmies, sways, and sashays to the swing that it starts to look like a cross between zumba and a one-man melee, but generally all we need for an effective backswing are the four things listed above. Reversing these things in the hitting area provides a release: the weight moving toward the target (at least temporarily), the arms re-centering to the body, the forearms rotating in the reverse direction, and the wrists uncocking.
During the downswing, the swing arc has narrowed because the wrists are cocked and the right elbow is bent. The narrow arc stores energy that we release at impact. Keeping the wrists cocked until they enter the hitting area (below the waist) is called “holding the angle” for a “late release”.
These things create magic in the hitting area by releasing energy through the ball. The arc of the backswing is wide (the clubhead is relatively far from the body) because the arms are extended and the wrists have not yet cocked; on the way down, the arc narrows while the right arm is bent and the wrists are cocked—the club is much closer to the body during the downswing, similar to the way a figure-skater pulls her arms into her body to spin faster. The narrow arc stores energy which we unleash on the ball when the arc widens again at impact. Trying to hit a ball without narrowing the arc would be like jumping without first bending at the knees—it can be done, but it’s not likely to look very athletic, or produce a very impressive result (though you will still jump higher than most teaching professionals).
Timing is crucial when it comes to unleashing this energy—a “delayed” or “late” release refers to this good stuff happening in the hitting area (roughly the area below the waist), and not before. In fact a good, full release is most easily seen just after impact—both arms have gone to full extension; the clubhead is low; the shaft points right up the middle of the triangle formed by the arms and shoulders; the right arm and shoulder are lower than the left (for right-handed golfers); and the player’s weight has moved to the left foot, and probably toward the heel.
On the other hand, the term “casting” refers to releasing too early in the downswing by extending the arms and uncocking the wrists before entering the impact zone—the only benefit of this action is that you might dig up a few earthworms useful in sports where casting is a good thing. A powerful golf swing avoids casting, or early release, by going from wide, to narrow, and back to wide again at the right times.
I’ll leave it to somebody with a degree in physics to explain better, but it seems to me there’s a “synergistic” effect among the components of the release. It’s kind of like Kurt Cobain’s singing and Nirvana’s music; they are not much by themselves, but together they go platinum. Weight moving to the left, the arms accelerating to re-center with the body, the wrists and forearms uncocking and rotating the clubface into a fairly square position for impact—there’s something about these elements happening in unison that seems to produce a more exciting result than the sum of the individual parts normally would.
A blended, well-timed release allows us to unleash great force on the unsuspecting ball without feeling or looking like we made much of an effort—and I think this is a big part of the allure of the game for many people, seeing a ball occasionally and mysteriously fly higher and farther than expected. Delivering a full release is what makes elite players look so effortless while pounding the golf ball—even tour guys who look like they’d be found under “atrophy” rather than “athlete” in the dictionary. Charles Howell and Sean O’Hair for example; these guys could fit in their staff bags–and weigh less–but they really move the golf ball by tapping into the power of the release.
By impact the weight has moved to the left, the arms have swung back to the center of the body, the forearms have rotated the clubface to a fairly square position, and the wrists have uncocked. The hands are further left (ahead of the clubhead) than they were at address–this is a sign of the “late release” and this position usually accompanies a powerful strike on the ball.
So a good release stores and unleashes energy; its timing is crucial; the different pieces of the downswing have synergy when they come together in the impact zone; and this release has the potential to generate impressive force, even for those of us who look like our most athletic endeavor is internet surfing.
One more important thing to understand about the release of the golf swing: it happens very quickly and ideally without conscious effort. While a golfer can attempt to hit practice shots trying to feel a “late release” of the wrists, and the full extension just past the ball, I think it’s important to realize that a strong, natural release is more of a RESULT than an EFFORT. If we do certain things during the swing, and don’t do certain other things, the physics of the motion are in our favor for a good release of the arms, wrists, and club—the arc “wants” to widen as we rotate through the shot, it’s just a matter of letting it widen, and letting it widen at the right time. That’s why I say we “earn” the release rather than “create” or “force” the release.
So what’s the secret of elite players? How do they tap into this deep well of power while the rest of us feel bottled up? Or in my language, how do we “earn” such a release?
Some things make it tough to earn a good release.
Let’s start with a few common release-killers, things that make it difficult to earn the release, or nearly impossible to strike the ball well even if we do release the club well.
Poor planes: golfers who swing their arms or club in very steep angles will likely hit chunky shots and pulls if they make a good, low release of the hands and wrists; so they learn to come out of posture and lift the clubhead in the hitting area (which helps them avoid chunks and pulls, but also leads to weaker “picked” shots and often misses to the right).
The same thing would be true for someone whose first move in the transition is to turn the shoulders or swing the arms outward, toward the ball. Similar to this “over the top” move is starting the backswing with an outside or quick upward move of the left arm—a good release after this often leads to dreaded shanks.
On the other hand, very flat or inside-out planes (as in wrapping the club around the body during the backswing) tend to “discourage” the wrists from un-cocking and the forearms from rotating properly in the hitting area; as a result, golfers with these planes will hit a lot of thin shots and blocks unless they use a big muscular effort to re-route the club, or maybe “flip” the wrists laterally. Trying to force a release with muscular effort can be done, but rarely provides the same great shots as a free, natural, and fairly relaxed release.
Poor balance, or instability, is another big release-killer for many golfers. Every movement of the spine tends to change the shaft and clubface angles, usually in ways that make the release tough to achieve or pointless (again, because a good release with poor balance will produce poor shots). A lot of golfers lean toward the ball during the backswing or downswing (without realizing they do so)—then if they fully extend the arms and club at impact their best shots are chunky and pulled, while their worst shots peel off the neck in nauseating directions. Other golfers come out of posture early which usually means they have to release early, or cast the club, in order to “reach” the ball (and vice versa).
Poor tempo also makes it tough to store the energy of the backswing until we get back down to the ball. Sam Snead was known for his beautiful and powerful swing, and he claimed the swing was in Waltz-time or three-quarter time. A lot of good players swing like this—three parts backswing to one part downswing, and this tempo is important to the timing of the release. Imagine a fly fisherman: starting his rod down too abruptly results in a jumbled line, but the right cadence lets him throw his line an amazing distance across the river.
Essentially, when a golfer has planes or tempo that get too far off track, or a lot of excess body movement, he ends up with two main options: go ahead and fully release the club (if possible) and hit very poor golf shots; or avoid the power of a full release in favor of off-center, weaker, but more playable golf shots. It’s like having a gorgeous Lamborghini in the garage but you can’t handle a stick-shift—so you end up taking out the old rusty Taurus just to get along.
This second-best option is evident if you look at an average golfer just after impact: you’ll likely see some sort of flip, or bending of the wrists; the clubhead will be quickly passing the hands and ascending into the air; the left arm will be bent or chicken-winging; the right arm and shoulder will be rising quickly, possibly even going “over” the left arm and shoulder. All of these things suggest a weak or ill-timed release, and are the opposite of how elite players tend to look just after impact. But with a little practice, most people can learn how to drive a stick-shift and impress their buddies with the sleek power of the Lamborghini.
Some things help us to earn a full release.
Without trying to list all the variables that lead to a good release, I’ll mention a few things that generally help earn powerful positions at impact, starting with the setup.
At address, a bent, bouncy posture with the sternum slightly forward of the knees is helpful—a low and slightly forward center of gravity (knees flexed, weight in the balls of the feet) keeps the body more stable when the forces of the swing start acting. As a side-note, most players are able to hit great golf shots with the ball positioned well left of center in the stance as they get better at the timing and motions of a full release.
The address posture is also important because it gets the hands slightly away from the lap, making room for the left arm to move inside (away from the ball) during the takeaway, and the weight to load to the rear. As I mentioned above, the left arm and body moving toward the ball in the backswing makes a fully extended release perilous rather than pleasurable. Without wrapping the arms or club around the body in a flat plane, most golfers are able to make a much more aggressive move through the ball if they feel the left arm “pushing them back” as if pushing the sternum away from the ball early in the backswing.
A full release is most obvious just after impact: the arms are fully extended with the right side lower than the left, and the clubhead is low with the shaft pointing close to the target line. This is a common position for elite players and a rare position for high-handicappers. Notice the lack of “flipping”, “chicken-winging”, or coming out of posture.
Another area of focus: lateral movement to the right tends to be destructive of the release, whereas a little lateral movement to the left tends to help (again, this is for right-handed golfers). Swaying or “sliding” the body to the right in the backswing makes it tougher to “compress” or solidly “trap” the ball without compensations, whereas a brief lateral move onto the left leg and hip to start the downswing has several benefits: it reduces a tendency to turn the shoulders outward or over-the-top to start the downswing, it helps the wrists stay cocked longer (“holding the angle for a late release”), and it allows the club to swing along the target-line longer.
The release also gets a boost by “sequencing” the downswing, or allowing the body to unwind from the ground up—the feet creating sheer forces against the ground as the legs and hips get the rest of the body unwinding with power. Most amateur golfers either turn the shoulders first, or turn everything together on the downswing—which tends to widen the arc early, creates less speed, and ruins the balance we need for a great impact position. When we “clear” the left hip by opening it to the target, our weight stays off the toes (a release-killer), and the motion becomes a sequential whip that accelerates the arms into the hitting area.
Most golfers could use this simplified image to power their swing: make a shoulder turn and wrist-set in the backswing to “store energy”, and use the lower body to initiate a downswing that releases that energy through the ball. Good sequencing often gives golfers a sense of “waiting” for the club to swing through the hitting area only after the lower body has pulled, and the action truly becomes a “swing” instead of a “hit”. Sequencing, partnered with good tempo, gives us a better chance of developing a strong release.
Golfers who use video to analyze their swings can look for a few more signs that they’re getting closer to those magical impact positions: it’s a sign of a late/powerful release if the head lowers slightly in the downswing (not toward the ball, though), and the hands are ahead of the clubhead at impact. Also, rather than a common tendency for the right heel to rise too much and too early, it would be better to see the toes of the left foot starting to rise slightly—meaning the weight is clearing to the left heel rather than toward the toes. The belt buckle turning toward the target well ahead of the chest will promote athletic sequencing and weight transfer. Finally, as a golfer starts to earn the release at impact he’ll start to look like it’s a golf ball in front of him instead of a snake: instead of jumping away with arms and wrists flapping as if to take flight, he will fully extend his arms while maintaining posture and a low clubhead, even after the iron tears a nice divot from the earth.
There could be a longer list of things to do (and not do) to set the stage for the kind of release we see on tour, but I have listed some of the main issues for average golfers. Working through these things at the driving range should help those of us who have embarked on a life-long journey in search of the secrets to great golf shots and lower scores. The beauty of earning a full release is that it provides a free, athletic, and powerful swing, but it also produces contact so pure it’s almost spiritual, followed by a penetrating, accurate ball flight. What else do we seek, we pilgrims of the game with the silly name?
Are Your Golf Clubs Too Long?
Even if You Seek Distance it Might Be True
June 16, 2009
There is a good chance that your golf clubs are too long. Over the past twenty years, golf club manufacturers have been making clubs stronger (meaning they have less loft on the face), and longer so that they can sell hopeful golfers the newest “hot” weapon that will knock the ball unimaginable distances. But when golfers arrive at the driving range with long clubs, what I see is a lot of people with poor posture, inefficient shaft angles, awkward or mismatched swing planes, off-center contact with the ball, unhelpful trajectory, little accuracy, and none of the distance the long clubs were supposed to provide. Read more
Out of Posture
How to Avoid the Punch & Jump Combination
February 22, 2009
Many golfers suffer from the tendency to “peek”, “look up early”, “pick up the head”, or to “come out” of their shot, meaning their posture changes before they make contact with the ball. Most of the time this tendency results in a frustrating, “thin”, worm-burner of a golf shot when the club hits high on the ball—but confusingly, sometimes the shot is “fat” (hitting the ground before the ball) even though the body has practically gone airborne before impact. Read more
Talking Heads
Misconceptions About Keeping the Head Down
May 22, 2005
When it comes to the golf swing, one of the most talked about body parts is the head. The piece of advice that you hear repeatedly is, “Keep your head down.” This is golf’s equivalent of an apple a day to keep the doctor away. Unfortunately, a lot of the time this remedy is like taking cough syrup to treat a hangnail– it is nasty to take, and does not help the problem. Read more
Fix the Finish
Sometimes Function will Follow the Form
April 6, 2005
When working with a golfer to improve his swing, one of my favorite methods is to fix the finish. What that means is that we make the finish of the swing, the follow-through, look good. The golfer strikes a pose at the end of the swing, imagining, like I tell my junior golfers, that someone is taking a picture for Sports Illustrated. Read more
Going to Great Lengths
The Pursuit of Power in Perspective
July 3, 2005
Let’s face it, there are guys out there who would trade their first-born to hit the tee ball thirty yards farther. For some golfers, success is measured not by the number of strokes, but by the number of yards. It does not matter if the ball plugged in the greenside bunker, or if a double-bogey was the score, as long as I can tell my buddies later that I hit my driver 300 yards to get there. Read more
Relaxation Makes it a Swing
Develop Feel, Power, and Accuracy by Relaxing
May 7, 2006
It seems to be the instinct of most of us non-tour players to grip a club like we have gotten a hold of the neck of an IRS agent. It is like we are arm wrestling with the club—fingers, wrists, and forearms straining with our effort to hit that little ball higher, and straighter, and farther. But the tension in our swings is a big part of the reason we do not hit the ball more like tour players. Read more
Firing on All Cylinders
Shifting Smoothly from Long to Short Clubs
March 17, 2005
One of the most common complaints I hear from golfers about their games, along with the usual desire for more consistency, is that they cannot seem to get the different kinds of golf shots to work at the same time. If they are hitting the tee ball well, then the irons are off the mark. If they are hitting the irons well, then the putter gets a little bulky. As a result, golfers can only dream about the scores they would shoot if all the pieces came together. Read more
Absolutely Great Putting
The Search for the “Right” Stroke
March 19, 2006
Until Tiger came on the scene, Jack Nicklaus was widely considered to be the best putter of all time, at least in terms of making a putt when it is needed the most. Nicklaus’ unique crouching stance, open alignment, and the resulting stroke make one thing clear about putting—it is not just about having “textbook” mechanics. No doubt Nicklaus’ putting stroke managed to satisfy the laws of physics or he would not have dropped so many putts during his incredible career; but what set Jack apart was his ability to make a great stroke despite the gremlins of fear and all the other demons of distraction that whisper in our ears when we pick up the flat stick. Read more
Tale of the Tape
One Student’s Way to Better Golf
September 22, 2004
Robert Nanton made his appearance today. Mr. Nanton has been coming down from Fort Washington, Maryland to vacation at Massanutten Resort for years, and for years he has showed up at Lakeview for his annual golf lesson. He is one of the interesting people who make my job as a teaching professional so enjoyable. Read more
Going Au Natural
Thoughts on Natural Golf and Bad Backs
September 8, 2004
I received an email recently that brings up a couple of interesting issues having to do with learning and playing golf. Stephen, from Waynesboro, Virginia wrote:
I would like you to share your opinion of “Natural Golf”. It is touted for people who have back injuries that cause them difficulty in playing golf. Could you write a column regarding your professional opinion on natural golf, or any approach to golf that lessens the torque the body is put through?
I cannot claim to be an authority on the Natural Golf system, but I have studied the techniques, and I have taught a few golfers who were trying to use this method. I will start with a little background. Read more
Seeking Consistency
Beginning the search for the Holy Grail of golf
September 1, 2004
One of the things I hear repeatedly from golfers is that they want to be more consistent. They have hit those “tuning fork” shots when the ball comes off the clubface softly, like a warm marshmallow. Read more
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