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Dropping Your Head - Backswing

While it is more common for golfers to stand-up or come out of their posture in the backswing, some players will struggle with lowering or dropping as well. That is not to say that some amount of lowering is not expected; the average drop in the backswing for a PGA Tour player is roughly 1 to 2 inches. However, if you are dropping more than this during your swing, it is most likely due to a lateral sway or an excessive amount of torso flexion or side bend. For students that fall into these patterns, I will have them get a little more visual awareness, whether it is through something like a pool noodle or mirror, and focus on making a centered pivot while adding some torso extension. This simple combo will usually go a long way to fixing this pattern and the compensations it can cause. 

Playlists: Fix Your Early Extension, Stop Moving Off The Ball (Sway), Stop Standing Up In Your Backswing

Tags: Early Extension, Standing Up, Sway, Backswing, Drill, Intermediate

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This video is discussing dropping your head in the backswing.

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So while the more common air is to have a loss of posture and really stand up, some

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golfers get concerned with dropping their head too much in the backswing.

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And so I'm going to discuss the couple common ways that that might be showing up in your

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swing.

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The real problem here, because the tour average is that the head or the upper body, so

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looking at kind of the center of their sternum or their upper neck, this area right

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around here, tends to drop about an inch to two inches during the backswing.

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That's partly because of the rotation around this side tilt, the fact that the ribcage

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is wider this way.

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And as the hip goes back, so as I'm loading into that in-step of that right foot, that

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hip will tend to go back just slightly and that hip going back just slightly comboed with

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the left shoulder going down.

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It creates a little lowering because if I stand in a golf posture, so like this, there's

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two ways that I could lower using my spine, there's two ways that I could lower.

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One would be to drop down by flexing forward like this and two would be to drop down by

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leaning to the side like this.

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Rotation won't have any effect on my head drop.

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So what usually happens is if my head is dropping down, then either I'm side bending a

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lot and having a big sway kind of off the ball with my hip like this, or I'm staying

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flexed forward too much and I'm not getting enough of that extension to keep my chest closer

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to the same height.

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Those can both be a problem.

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One of the kind of cousins to this move is too much movement towards the golf ball.

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And I see that some golfers who complain about their head dropping down, lose sight of

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that being a bigger air.

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So what usually happens in that case is when they go into the backswing, their weight shifts

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way into that right toe.

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You may even see the heel come off the ground.

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And so when I shift into that toe kind of like this, I'm really loading a more of a jump

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movement on the way down.

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It's almost like I'm getting in my toes ready to explode as opposed to loading more

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of a rotational movement by getting enough depth and kind of sitting into that hip as I

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rotate into my full top of backswing position.

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So if you're dropping down usually what I work on is working on that extended position

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and using a mirror in the down the line to just make sure that I'm feeling more of this

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backswing shoulder plane kind of like this.

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You'll see if I do nothing but flex forward then from the face on camera or from the down

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the line camera, you will see my head drop during the backswing.

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The other option which I think is far worse is if I have more of that sway into my toe,

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I'm really getting loaded this way and I'm drifting almost forward that way.

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That's a bigger problem because that tends to create a major compensation during the

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downswing.

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So whether you struggle with too much down or too much forward the solutions pretty much

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the same using some pool noodles getting a little bit more aware and doing some of these

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backswing shoulder plane or pivot drills should help you figure out where you are in space.

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It'll help you work on keeping that upper body a little bit more centered, work that

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into slow motion transition and then full speed transition drills will help you overcome

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what's going on.

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Oftentimes that lowering is actually a symptom of the fact that you really want to early

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extend and you really want to jump on the way down and oftentimes by working on the early

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extension pattern on the way down you'll actually correct the upper body diving down

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in the backswing either that or it'll be controlled enough that it's no longer a major

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problem.

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So work on trying to keep your upper body at about the same height, little drop during the

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backswing but if it drops down a lot use that as a diagnostic to try and figure out

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why the why may be the bigger issue that you really need to solve.

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