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I have been fortunate in my experience as a golf swing coach to work with all kinds of clients with all kinds of golf swings. Through the years, however, I’ve seen that one of the major things that separates fairly consistent ball strikers from golfers who lack consistency is their ability to use the ground to move their body and generate power efficiently.

Understanding the role that the placement of your feet has in your golf swing is huge. This article is intended to inspire and intrigue your curiosity so you are willing to take the next step, which would be to stop guessing and visit a TPI Expert and/or an experienced swing coach who understands how your body moves and assists you in building a setup and golf swing that works with your body.

There is, in fact, an old saying that pretty much sums up what’s going on with the ground in our golf swing: “Good footwork = good golf.” Our feet are, after all, the only contact we have to the ground. Luckily, due to new technologies (force plates and pressure mats like Boditrak), we can measure what’s going on under our feet as our pressure shifts throughout the golf swing. We now actually have the measurable data to prove what was once very hard to prove.

You Are An Individual! 

If there’s one thing my experience as a golf instructor has taught me, it’s that we’re all individuals who move a little differently due to genetics and lifestyle. Because of this, how we place our feet on the ground can either help or hinder our ability to hit good golf shots. This video should help to shine some light on some different strategies of how you can work on finding a position to place your feet on the ground that is best suited for you.

What Does This Mean?

Suppose you were lacking the ability to rotate your hips efficiently (the hips are designed to be mobile joints). That would prevent you from having the ability to turn your hips and transfer your pressure into the ground efficiently in the backswing and/or in the forward swing. In this case, it could be an advantage to flare your feet slightly in order to assist your body in turning efficiently. The same goes for the width of your stance. The wider apart your feet are in your stance, the more stabile you will be. If you are lacking mobility and flexibility, then your joints and muscles are too stabile already, so you might benefit from having a narrower stance that creates less stability so you can move more freely in your swing.

One last pitch to visit an expert. Certain joints in your body are designed to be stable, while others are designed to be mobile (like the hips), but the body is clever. When it can’t get mobility from one part of the body, it tries to get it from another. These compensations can not only sabotage your ability to utilize the ground efficiently, leading to bad ball striking, but they set you up for pain and injury. Find a TPI Expert near you.

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Adam is a PGA Professional and TPI Certified Fitness and Medical Coach. He enjoys working with golfers of all ages and levels of expertise, and his approach is to look at every golfer as an individual to try to help them achieve their goals as effectively and efficiently as possible. He is also the author of two books: The Golfers Handbook - Save your golf game and your life! (available on iTunes and Amazon) And his new book, My Mind Body Golf Coach Adam also offers online lessons and offers a monthly membership to help golfers stay committed to the process of improvement. All this and more can be ordered through his website www.golfadamstevenson.com "The golf swing may be built from the ground up, but the game of golf is built from the head down" - My Mind Body Golf Aside being an author, Adam is also a public speaker, doing workshops and lectures introducing concepts of athletic movement for golfers of all ages and levels of expertise.

9 Comments

9 Comments

  1. ButchT

    Oct 10, 2017 at 2:55 pm

    Too long for info conveyed. Contrast was terrible. Sounded awfully nervous. I do appreciate the effort – thank you.

  2. Vegas Bullet Dodger

    Oct 5, 2017 at 5:41 pm

    Flair the toes and bend the knees for distance…
    Don’t let anyone tell ya otherwise

    • Demar

      Oct 5, 2017 at 7:39 pm

      … and good advice for sitting on the toilet too

  3. Engineer Bob

    Oct 5, 2017 at 4:03 pm

    Great introductory video on “utilizing the ground” and foot positioning.
    I sense that you have ‘experimented’ with force plates/mats to quantify the GRFs (Ground Reaction Forces) and observed how the “Center of Pressure” shifts back and forth in the golf swing.
    Of course trying to explain GRFs and CoP and even a Closed Kinetic Chain to golfers on this forum will frighten them off. They still think/hope their clubs are ‘powerful’ and their golf swing only needs some tweaking with a couple of good ‘golf tips’.
    In my view, a “TPI Expert” without force plates/mats is not really an ‘expert’ because you cannot eyeball GRFs and CoP shifts. Your thoughts?

  4. EnzoD

    Oct 4, 2017 at 8:40 am

    Most nervous video presenter ever. The information appears contradictory.

  5. Mat

    Oct 4, 2017 at 6:13 am

    This video is schizophrenic. Paid by the word?

  6. NG

    Oct 4, 2017 at 1:25 am

    Nearly broke my ankle with the toes in like that, even though it was easier to draw the ball that way

  7. Acemandrake

    Oct 3, 2017 at 4:58 pm

    Open & narrow: My chiropractor suggested this stance in order to take stress off of my lower back.

    It worked.

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Instruction

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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How a towel can fix your golf swing

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This is a classic drill that has been used for decades. However, the world of marketed training aids has grown so much during that time that this simple practice has been virtually forgotten. Because why teach people how to play golf using everyday items when you can create and sell a product that reinforces the same thing? Nevertheless, I am here to give you helpful advice without running to the nearest Edwin Watts or adding something to your Amazon cart.

For the “scoring clubs,” having a solid connection between the arms and body during the swing, especially through impact, is paramount to creating long-lasting consistency. And keeping that connection throughout the swing helps rotate the shoulders more to generate more power to help you hit it farther. So, how does this drill work, and what will your game benefit from it? Well, let’s get into it.

Setup

You can use this for basic chip shots up to complete swings. I use this with every club in my bag, up to a 9 or 8-iron. It’s natural to create incrementally more separation between the arms and body as you progress up the set. So doing this with a high iron or a wood is not recommended.

While you set up to hit a ball, simply tuck the towel underneath both armpits. The length of the towel will determine how tight it will be across your chest but don’t make it so loose that it gets in the way of your vision. After both sides are tucked, make some focused swings, keeping both arms firmly connected to the body during the backswing and follow through. (Note: It’s normal to lose connection on your lead arm during your finishing pose.) When you’re ready, put a ball in the way of those swings and get to work.

Get a Better Shoulder Turn

Many of us struggle to have proper shoulder rotation in our golf swing, especially during long layoffs. Making a swing that is all arms and no shoulders is a surefire way to have less control with wedges and less distance with full swings. Notice how I can get in a similar-looking position in both 60° wedge photos. However, one is weak and uncontrollable, while the other is strong and connected. One allows me to use my larger muscles to create my swing, and one doesn’t. The follow-through is another critical point where having a good connection, as well as solid shoulder rotation, is a must. This drill is great for those who tend to have a “chicken wing” form in their lead arm, which happens when it becomes separated from the body through impact.

In full swings, getting your shoulders to rotate in your golf swing is a great way to reinforce proper weight distribution. If your swing is all arms, it’s much harder to get your weight to naturally shift to the inside part of your trail foot in the backswing. Sure, you could make the mistake of “sliding” to get weight on your back foot, but that doesn’t fix the issue. You must turn into your trial leg to generate power. Additionally, look at the difference in separation between my hands and my head in the 8-iron examples. The green picture has more separation and has my hands lower. This will help me lessen my angle of attack and make it easier to hit the inside part of the golf ball, rather than the over-the-top move that the other picture produces.

Stay Better Connected in the Backswing

When you don’t keep everything in your upper body working as one, getting to a good spot at the top of your swing is very hard to do. It would take impeccable timing along with great hand-eye coordination to hit quality shots with any sort of regularity if the arms are working separately from the body.

Notice in the red pictures of both my 60-degree wedge and 8-iron how high my hands are and the fact you can clearly see my shoulder through the gap in my arms. That has happened because the right arm, just above my elbow, has become totally disconnected from my body. That separation causes me to lift my hands as well as lose some of the extension in my left arm. This has been corrected in the green pictures by using this drill to reinforce that connection. It will also make you focus on keeping the lead arm close to your body as well. Because the moment either one loses that relationship, the towel falls.

Conclusion

I have been diligent this year in finding a few drills that target some of the issues that plague my golf game; either by simply forgetting fundamental things or by coming to terms with the faults that have bitten me my whole career. I have found that having a few drills to fall back on to reinforce certain feelings helps me find my game a little easier, and the “towel drill” is most definitely one of them.

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Instruction

Clement: Why your practice swing never sucks

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You hear that one all the time; I wish I could put my practice swing on the ball! We explain the huge importance of what to focus on to allow the ball to be perfectly in the way of your practice swing. Enjoy!

 

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