Spine angle and maintaining it

Maintaining my spine angle through impact is the main thing I have been working on this year and my ball striking has improved because of it. For me at age 50, hamstring and hip flexibility exercises are critical for me being able to maintain correct spine angle throughout the swing. This aging thing is a lot of work!!
Bingo and this is what my focus is on after the hip was replaced. I meet with my PT today and will be asking for exercises that get my hammies and hips strong. As well as my core, these three are key. Wash board abs are not, but a strong core is.
 
So glad to see this topic getting the attention it deserves, and I look forward to any follow-ups that may be posted. About a year and a half ago I posted about this very issue as I became aware that this was a flaw in my swing. And one that was probably the largest contributing factor in my not being able to return the club to the ball consistently. Very few pros allow their hips to move in towards the ball during the swing (which changes the spine angle... though Jimmy Walker does a bit). Phil straightens his lower spine but retains his hip's distances from the ball. Many actually go deeper (back) with their hips in the downswing as they squat down into the shot.

This is a great topic on an important swing issue that, for me anyway, may require not only physical adjustments, but also changing my thinking about how I'm generating the speed in my swing. But I really can't say I've even identified a root cause yet. For me, I think some of it is stems from being ball bound and feeling as though I HAVE TO RETURN THE CLUB TO THE BALL. Letting go of that and just swinging the club through impact may be as difficult as any physical adjustments required.

Below is a clip of me swinging an 8 iron over the weekend (the maple seeds are ridiculous this year btw), you can see I'm trying like mad (which may be part of the problem) to keep my chest over the ball and my hips from moving in, but they still do. But this is way better than it used to be. I have worked on stretching to improve this, but also have tried to start the downswing a bit easier. Either way, I think that correcting this is going to be a multi-year task.

Looking forward to following this thread. Good luck to those who are working on this, it is crucial to correct this while you are still young. :)

 
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I posted in the range & practice thread about this, but yesterday I made a point to only focus on maintaining my angle and not allowing myself to pull up early. My pro has me doing a drill where I hit punch shots and don't even watch where the ball is going, as the point isn't to have good flight, it's to maintain the angle and not start lifting up during the downswing.

Last week I hurt my back trying to fix a sink and really didn't do anything golf related until hitting a small bucket yesterday. I took slower swings, just wanting to keep my angle and feeling like I wanted to see the divot before my trail shoulder collected my head. You would not believe how far I was hitting the ball by doing this. At first I was thinning shots but once I got the tempo correct and just felt like I was maintaining my angle, I was flushing irons nice and straight. It's amazing how much better contact is when doing your best to hold that angle until after impact.
 
I posted in the range & practice thread about this, but yesterday I made a point to only focus on maintaining my angle and not allowing myself to pull up early. My pro has me doing a drill where I hit punch shots and don't even watch where the ball is going, as the point isn't to have good flight, it's to maintain the angle and not start lifting up during the downswing.

Last week I hurt my back trying to fix a sink and really didn't do anything golf related until hitting a small bucket yesterday. I took slower swings, just wanting to keep my angle and feeling like I wanted to see the divot before my trail shoulder collected my head. You would not believe how far I was hitting the ball by doing this. At first I was thinning shots but once I got the tempo correct and just felt like I was maintaining my angle, I was flushing irons nice and straight. It's amazing how much better contact is when doing your best to hold that angle until after impact.
I like what I'm hearing. Just keep pressing and don't get mechanical. The angle will not be maintained on every shot. The key is have more good angles then bad.

It sounds like your tempo in solid and your realizing the true loft of your irons. Excellent work
 
I've been thinning shots for a while now and more recently have been getting toe misses, neither of which are my normal miss. I think it may be related to not maintaining spine angle. For as much as I consciously think about it, I can't seem to get my body to do it. I will look at the videos above but would appreciate others including additional drills. (Is the drill where you keep you but touching a chair through the swing meant to help with this?). I look forward to hitting a ball in the middle of the face and actually compressing it again...
 
Bingo and this is what my focus is on after the hip was replaced. I meet with my PT today and will be asking for exercises that get my hammies and hips strong. As well as my core, these three are key. Wash board abs are not, but a strong core is.
Getting surgery is the perfect motivator to get in better shape because your already mentally committed to doing months of rehab exercises. I had shoulder reconstruction 3.5 years ago and ACL replacement in 2012. I'm actually more flexible and stronger now than I was before these two major surgeries. The rehab exercises wound up giving me some good work out habits that other than an occasional 4 week lapse, I've continued. I'm longer off the tee now than ever but I still really have to work on my hammy flexibility. I think genetically I inherited tight hamstrings!
 
I've been thinning shots for a while now and more recently have been getting toe misses, neither of which are my normal miss. I think it may be related to not maintaining spine angle. For as much as I consciously think about it, I can't seem to get my body to do it. I will look at the videos above but would appreciate others including additional drills. (Is the drill where you keep you but touching a chair through the swing meant to help with this?). I look forward to hitting a ball in the middle of the face and actually compressing it again...
If you think you're doing it and it's not happening then look at your take away. You may be lifting the club to the top and not turning.
 
I had been struggling to maintain my spine angle the last 2 years and it was causing a pile of push fades. I realized last week that I was way off in my tempo and I was swinging out of my shoes far too often. I figured out that if I swing with good tempo while focusing on clearing my left hip and keeping my head behind the ball at impact that my distance and consistency of contact went way up and my spine angle was much easier to maintain. The results have been really good lately so I figure that Im barking up the right tree here.
 
I had been struggling to maintain my spine angle the last 2 years and it was causing a pile of push fades. I realized last week that I was way off in my tempo and I was swinging out of my shoes far too often. I figured out that if I swing with good tempo while focusing on clearing my left hip and keeping my head behind the ball at impact that my distance and consistency of contact went way up and my spine angle was much easier to maintain. The results have been really good lately so I figure that Im barking up the right tree here.

I think this sums it up very nicely. I know I've always swung the club (from the top) way too hard, and clearing the hips while trying to smash the ball with brute force is a recipe for disaster, as well as injury, and not clearing the hips, well, I guess there's no way to maintain the spine angle if my hips are in the way. So I think in my case, never fully understanding how to generate clubhead speed without brute force creeping in has been what has kept me from playing my best and makes it pretty much impossible to maintain my posture.
 
I had been struggling to maintain my spine angle the last 2 years and it was causing a pile of push fades. I realized last week that I was way off in my tempo and I was swinging out of my shoes far too often. I figured out that if I swing with good tempo while focusing on clearing my left hip and keeping my head behind the ball at impact that my distance and consistency of contact went way up and my spine angle was much easier to maintain. The results have been really good lately so I figure that Im barking up the right tree here.
Push fades aren't a result of lost spine angle. They come about when you aren't operating behind the ball. But it sounds like slowing down fixed that.
 
I think this sums it up very nicely. I know I've always swung the club (from the top) way too hard, and clearing the hips while trying to smash the ball with brute force is a recipe for disaster, as well as injury, and not clearing the hips, well, I guess there's no way to maintain the spine angle if my hips are in the way. So I think in my case, never fully understanding how to generate clubhead speed without brute force creeping in has been what has kept me from playing my best and makes it pretty much impossible to maintain my posture.
Your spine angle can be solid with no hip release. You'll just hit hooks.
 
Push fades aren't a result of lost spine angle. They come about when you aren't operating behind the ball. But it sounds like slowing down fixed that.
Gotcha. I figured that it wasn't solely that. I can feel when I have that miss that its mostly my hip getting stuck from swinging too hard. I can also sense that when I stand up, I cut across the ball which compounds thing when they both happen in the same swing.
 
Lots of great stuff in here thanks for all the insight!
 
Your spine angle can be solid with no hip release. You'll just hit hooks.

Would it be correct to say that a properly executed hip rotation/release is one of the things that maintains the "squareness" of the clubface through impact? Keeping it from turning over? I am amazed at the way the top players independently rotate their hips on one plane while their shoulders rotate on another, all the while maintaining their posture. I've often wondered if it was something they had to learn, or if it was just a natural move for them that they just figured out.
 
Would it be correct to say that a properly executed hip rotation/release is one of the things that maintains the "squareness" of the clubface through impact? Keeping it from turning over? I am amazed at the way the top players independently rotate their hips on one plane while their shoulders rotate on another, all the while maintaining their posture. I've often wondered if it was something they had to learn, or if it was just a natural move for them that they just figured out.
In my recent experience, I would say that it certainly helps. But even if I release my hips well, if my head doesn't stay behind the ball, the ball doesn't go where I want it to. I think the tour players make it look easy because they have a had a lot of focused coaching with it for a very long time. It certainly doesn't feel like a natural movement.
 
... It certainly doesn't feel like a natural movement.

No, it sure doesn't. But when done right. It seems so effortless (or so I've been told). :confused2:
 
No, it sure doesn't. But when done right. It seems so effortless. :confused2:
For sure. Rickie Fowler is one of those guys. Would love to see a freeze frame of his tee shots on #18 at the Players. I was watching it last night and noticed it instantly. He does it so fluidly
 
 
That's awesome stuff Blazer ?


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Would it be correct to say that a properly executed hip rotation/release is one of the things that maintains the "squareness" of the clubface through impact? Keeping it from turning over? I am amazed at the way the top players independently rotate their hips on one plane while their shoulders rotate on another, all the while maintaining their posture. I've often wondered if it was something they had to learn, or if it was just a natural move for them that they just figured out.
Yes, it's key. But you still have to have the upper body working as well. But make not mistake, the hips are driving the shoulders. Rory is a rare case of the hips completely clears ging before his arms get there. That's why he pisses on 300 yd drives like they are nothing. DJ is close but uses his height well to take aerial shots of Rory's ball.
 
I work damn hard on my flexibility in my hamstrings and hip flexors so I can maintain my spine angle through impact. I totally agree that this is a huge problem for all levels of golfers and really gets difficult once you get into your mid 40's and really start to lose flexibility. 75% of my misses are because of this.

I think tightness in my hips & hamstrings is really holding me back. What kind of flexibility exercises do you do?
 
KellyBo and I were discussing this today. She was telling me she hit the ball really well in her tournament and felt the reason was due to a good athletic stance. Dayuuumm I wish I could stay in a more flexed knee position. Not easy for me these days


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I think tightness in my hips & hamstrings is really holding me back. What kind of flexibility exercises do you do?

Ditto this question.
 
I'm glad I came back to this thread. Awesome Tom Watson vid Blazer - thanks!

As for flexibility and strength as it relates to keeping the spine angle, I can tell you what a sports therapist that worked on my back told me. He said that he sees golfers all of the time with the same problems: their hamstrings are way too tight and their hip flexors are way too weak. He said this correlates to the psoas muscle being out of alignment or too tight, which in turn causes lower back problems.

In the golf swing, he said that tight hamstrings and weak hip flexors cause us to straighten up and stand taller coming into impact; the hips move closer to the ball and this causes all sorts of nasty shots.

When he adjusted me and worked the soft tissue and psoas, it brought me the only total relief I've had from back pain in the 24 years I've had it.

He said the key to maintaining and reinforcing the work he had done was for me to stretch my hamstrings and strengthen my hip flexors. Of course, my lazy bum did no such thing and I'm back to the level of pain that caused me to seek this guy out in the first place.

Back to golf, I know that my back problems do cause me to lose my spine angle in the downswing. Instead of tinkering with my swing, I decided just last night to start doing the stretches and strengthening exercises the sports therapist recommended.

Thanks again for starting this thread Freddie, and thanks to all who have contributed to it!
 
Imagine your chin is on a shelf at set up, keep it there throughout swing.
 
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