The Only Way To Keep Your Head Still In The Golf Swing!

If you're frustrated about not being able to make a backswing or a follow-through without your head bobbing up and down or moving forward and back, then Steve and I have got just the solution for you in today's video. I'm here with my good friend Steve Siracchi, we're down in Florida. Steve, good to see you. You too. This is Florida, by the way, even though it maybe doesn't look like it. We're here teaching together for the next couple of days and one of the things that I think it's fair to say, Steve, that we see when we're teaching our students is an inability and a struggle to really keep a steady head throughout the swing and I think maybe some people don't know that there's a very specific amount of movement you need to do in order to achieve that. So should we go through that today? I'd also say to that, since everybody has cameras and phones now, they can take a picture and they see their head sway or move and they're mishitting the ball and know they want to fix it but they're not sure the steps to do that. Yeah. It's almost like, I mean, I would lose count of the number of times someone would say, I know my head moves but I don't know how to stop it. Well, if that's you, the solution is going to be in this video. So we're going to use both camera angles here, face on and down the line and the objective of the swing that we would like people to learn would be one that has a stable axis or a centered shoulder turn. Correct. What would that look like? Yeah. So from the front view, if you make your backstroke, like you said, the center of the shoulder turn stays stable or if you boxed your head, there really wouldn't be too much movement. Yeah. Steady head. I mean, that looks like an expert backswing from an expert player. And when done correctly, it really does look easy and I think sometimes that can be frustrating for people because they look at it and go, well, I just want to do that. Yeah. Like how can I turn my shoulders in a circle? Yeah. The tough part is, you know, you stand up and down, you can do it back and forth. It gets hard to do once we're bent over. So Steve's referring to the fact here that we all stand to the side of the ball and we have to bend forward when you play golf. Correct. But if Steve kept the same amount of forward bend that he has in his spine here and made a backswing, his head would move. This would be maybe a familiar picture to many of you watching. And a shorter backswing as well. No length to the swing. I mean, that starts to cause all sorts of problems as well. No doubt. So if you're not keeping that forward bend as you swing back, Steve, what are you doing when you swing back? Well, as I'm swinging back, I'm extending out of the forward bend. So I'm literally, literally we're standing up on our backswing. And as I'm standing up, I'm replacing that with a left tilt or the side bend. Right. So those are two very separate motions of Steve saying he's in one plane of motion is standing up, right? Correct. Straight up and down, which would look strange on a camera because a good backswing doesn't, the golfer doesn't raise up. Correct. So I'm not staying bent forward because if I did, we already know it would look like this. I say I'm standing up, but I'm not standing up. I'm not raising up because as I'm extending, I'm left tilting. I'm moving into this left tilt during my backswing. That would help me to keep a centered pivot. Correct. And just to add onto that from, do it one more time from the down the line view. When you do that from the down line view, your head would stay right against this wall. So you're doing, you're blending the extending and the side tilt. There's also turning there. We'll get to the turn part. But you're blending the extension and the side tilt to keep your head on the wall from this down the line view. And then from the front view would be stable. Stable axis and the head wouldn't go left to right or up and down. So very simply put, put a box or a circle around your head. It should stay in the circle from the front view and it would also stay in the circle on the box. Or head on the wall. Head on the wall. Yeah. That's a great drill, right? So what do we need to tell people that they need to do more of? Now they know that they need to tilt and they need to extend up. How do they know if they're doing the right amount? So I would say if you make a swing, we'll start from the front view first. If you make a swing from the front view and say your head went to the right and went down. I would say that's more of the common thing I see to the right and down. That means you're not doing the part to the right, so you're not doing enough of the left word tilt or left shoulder down, as we'd like to say. And the head going down is you staying in flexion, so there's not enough extension. And you see that by what your head's doing in the camera. So your head on that particular motion went down and to the right. Your head went down and to the right, so you stayed in flexion and moved to the right. That's where the golfer would need to have more extension and more side tilt to help keep the axis of the shoulder turned stable and also helps make the backswing longer. Yeah, that's a very good point. You hit the ball farther doing this, correct? Good. Okay, and that's the most common error that we would see is the head going away. It could go the other way. No doubt, we'll get to that too. I think the reason people do that, I don't know what you think, but my experience is it comes from them only trying to turn in the backswing. Yeah, correct. You've got the rotation and they just try to turn and don't realize there's these other two pieces, the extension and the tilt, which in many cases is never discussed. Correct. So it's not just turn, it's extend. Tilt and turn, blending all three motions together. And when you, I'll say it one more time, when you just did what you felt was just the turn, you lack the extension and the side tilt. And that's evidenced by the head going down and to the right. Okay. And do that one more time from the down the line view. If you just turn from the down the line view, see his head comes off the wall and how flat the shoulder turn is. Yeah. That's another way to see it from that down the line view. Yeah. So there's a real need to move the shoulders on a tilt. Correct. The left shoulder would be going downwards and you can see that from the down the line view. By the time you get to the top of the stroke, heads on the wall, the left shoulder is lower than the right. And you can see how the golfer is in a side tilt. Yeah. Which is why the cue of the left shoulder down or shoulder down is a really good one. Yeah. Shoulder down makes that motion easy. And typically... It's the leftward tilt. We would see golfers, once again, from the front view, the more common error would be for the head to move away from the target with the turn. And from a down the line view, the more common error would be the shoulders moving to level. And the head coming up. Up and off the wall. But you could... Just to keep it really clear, on both of those cases, that's where the golfer would need to be prescribed more left tilt or more shoulder down. Yes. To keep the head stable. So it's blending. Steve's used that word. That's a great way to say it. It's blending the right amounts of these. And once you realize you're blending these things together, there actually becomes a very specific amount that you need to do. It's not random. Correct. So the opposite issue, which can occur less often, but can occur, would be from the front view, the golfer's head actually going down or towards the target, let's say, first of all. Golfer's head going too far towards the target. That would be where the golfer is doing the left tilt... Too much. ...faster. Yeah. Too much or faster than the amount that they would be turning and extending when the head goes forward and down. And we never, ever would recommend this. Neither. No. Sometimes that's what people need to feel. Absolutely. Sometimes people do need to feel. I would say it's rare that we see this one. More common that it would go the other way. I would agree with you. And if that were the case, what would you tell the student? If they did too much left tilt, their head went forward and down, what would they need to feel? Well, I would certainly tell them that they need to... Their feel could very well be for the shoulder turn to be more level in that case. No doubt. Right? So they're not exaggerating the tilting piece too much. Correct. People who often I see do that have read the Stack and Tilt book or they've heard the word shoulder down. And they just overdo that piece. They took the whole bottle of medicine. Yeah, took it all in one go. Right. So all of this, again, is for the purposes of a stable head or steady head from the front view. And a stable inclination from down the line. Okay, good. So if someone's filming themselves from the front view, Steve. Yep. And they see their head go forward ahead of the ball. Yep. We have too much side bend relative to the other pieces. Correct. You're tilting faster than you would be turning and extending. So the feel for that golfer would feel like they're turning. Their left shoulder would actually move more level to the ground. And their head may feel like they go up and to the right. Yeah. On their takeaway. Yeah. I would say that's rare. We don't see that too often. But it's nice to know what the solution would be. And I think all of this could be boxed up quite nicely and wrapped up quite nicely by saying if you were watching yourself from the front view and your head was moving to the right six inches, the feel would be for it to move to the left six inches. Which is the left tilt. In the backswing. So when you put a box around your head and you see it go in a particular direction, a particular amount, try to reverse, do the opposite. No doubt. Yeah. And if you did that one more time from the down line view, if your head went to the right from the down the line view, it may also come off the wall where you would be standing up, which is also another reason for the left tilt or the left shoulder down. See how the shoulders are tilted from the down the line view and how that keeps the head stable from the front. Final piece, I suppose, in terms of helping people to learn to do this at home. How about if we isolated the three movements individually? Good. I was just gonna say that. So yeah, go ahead. So starting flexion or forward. Yeah, you're bent over in the setup. And so what should I do? You can see that from the down the line view, there's an angle. So I do the extension piece first. So stand up. That's part number one. Yep, the extension. Part number two would be the left tilt. Yep. So I tilt to the left. I'd lower my lead shoulder closer to the ground while standing upright. So it's shoulder down. And then turn. And you can see how all the three of those pieces blended in would keep the center shoulder turn. It's pretty easy. Well, I think it's easy to see when you blend all the parts together. Yeah. Extend, tilt, and turn. Blend them all together to keep the center of the shoulder turn stable. And you would know if you're doing one more than the other by what the head's doing. I think that sums it up nicely. Great. If you need to practice that, film yourself. Use your phone, switch it on, and just take a simple video. It's so easy to see this nowadays. Yeah. I think people skip that step far too quickly. I agree. It's not particularly troublesome. And if you really want to make progress with your swing, a couple of videos can really help. Absolutely. And a head on the wall drill would also be a nice one. It's a very good one. Rest your head against the wall at home. You don't even have to be at the driving range to do that. You don't even need a golf club. Yeah, you don't even need a golf club. Just rest your head on the wall and keep that touch point, and you should be beginning to blend those things nicely. Steve, thanks very much. I'm going to put Steve's details down into the description of the video. Steve teaches in Philadelphia at the Legacy Club. Yep, in Cherry Hill, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. If you want to check out Steve's stuff, he's got a great Instagram channel, and I'll put it all down in the description below. Perfect. Thank you. Cheers.