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Presetting Spine Rotation

The "presetting" drills are a great starting point for feeling the differences between setup and impact; golfers who struggle to get their lower-body open during the downswing will often benefit most from this version. That is, if we use a bit of 3D data from the PGA Tour, we can "preset" a pelvis-torso relationship that is both efficient and powerful. Ultimately, this should heighten our awareness for any upper-body dominant patterns AND encourage a more dynamic transition.

Tags: Poor Contact, Not Straight Enough, Early Extension, Cast, Impact, Transition, Drill, Intermediate

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This drill is pre-setting spin rotation.

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So the pre-setting drills are to help you feel what things are going to be like it, the

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impact when they're different from what they might be it set up.

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So this drill I commonly use for golfers who look at it from the downline video and basically

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their body isn't very open.

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So when I'm hitting a golf wall, if my body isn't very open, it looks a little bit more

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like this where my hip surfacing the camera and you can't really see any lower body rotation,

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then essentially at impact my hips and my chest are pointing in the same direction.

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So if I'm going to get my hips open and still have my shoulders facing the golf ball, then

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my spine isn't going to be somewhat rotated to the right.

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So what we're going to do in this drill is we're going to pre-set that right spine rotation.

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I've got one club across or club across my shoulders and the sticker across my hips and basically

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what I'm going to do is I'm going to pre-set my spine position and impact.

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So I'm going to rotate my upper body to the right and then I'm going to side bend my upper

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body to the right just like this.

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So now I'm kind of in this what feels almost like a locked position.

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Now I'm going to flex from the hips.

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I didn't bend from the spine, I flexed from the hips and now I'm going to turn my hips,

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keeping this same angle between my upper body and my lower body.

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I'm going to turn my hips until my shoulders are basically parallel to the target.

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So if I broke this down my hips are open, my chest is a little less open,

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my shoulders are facing the golf ball, but as a whole my spine is rotated to the right

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kind of like this.

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If you are not used to seeing your lower body open at impact,

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then that means that your hips and your shoulders would be very close to even with each other.

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This commonly happens from golfers who get really active with their arms,

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either from really pulling with the left shoulder or really throwing and going into internal

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rotation with the trail shoulder.

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So if I have more of a power source where I'm kind of doing this,

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you'll see that my brain would reflexively stop my pelvis to make the arm pull a little bit stronger.

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Whether it's coming from the left arm or the right arm.

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So in order to get this right spine rotation feel,

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I have to feel like I'm using more of my hips in my core in order to bring the club down the impact.

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So now in just like most of the pre-setting drills,

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we're going to hit some 9 to 3s with this pre-set position.

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So what I'm going to do is I'm going to rotate to the right side bend to the right,

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flex from the hips and now from here I'm just going to turn my hips to bring the club through.

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And hopefully I still have a little bit of right rotation.

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If I do it one of very short shot, then I can actually keep the exact same right rotation

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and pretty much stop it impact.

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So I'm going to stand up, rotate my upper body to the right, side bend to the right,

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flex from the hips and now from here I'm just going to turn my hips just like so.

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And I did very little with my arms and you can see that my shoulders are still

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to the right of where my pelvis is.

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It hasn't totally caught up just like that.

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So if you struggle with getting your hips open,

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this is one of the common kind of aha drills where many golfers get the experience

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of basically having the hips more open than the upper body for the first time.

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When you really highlight how your body is going to be rotated to the right.

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Some golfers feel like this is I'm hitting the ball more with at the side of my body instead of

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front of it. Some people just feel like the club is getting left behind me for a long time.

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There's lots of common descriptions for this, but ultimately it's just getting used to my spine

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being rotated to the right somewhere in the 15 degree range.

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That's pretty much the tour average of where the chest would be compared to the pelvis.

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And the shoulders would be close to square, but typically especially with the longer clubs

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you're going to see the chest more rotated the right than the pelvis is a great drill for feeling that.