Trouble keeping your drives in the fairway? You certainly are not alone. Many golfers wonder what is wrong with the mechanics of the swing and are quick to look at it as a source of the issues in accuracy.
Going back to basics should be one of the first areas you look at before you take apart a perfectly good swing. One of the key basics to any good swing is a player’s posture. A bad posture fails to activate the appropriate muscles that will assist you in a good solid balances swing that has speed and stays on plane.
Posture Set Up for Accurate Drives
You first will need to stand a bit farther away from the ball than for most of your other clubs. If you think logically, the driver is a bit longer than the rest of your clubs, so it will make sense to stand slightly farther away from the ball.
The easiest way to get the correct and most balances posture is to ‘stack’ your largest joints. In other words, your shoulders, hands and toes in a straight stacked line. Using this thinking and line as a guide, you will be able to find the correct amount of knee bend (flex), forward bend at the hips and distance from the ball.
You will feel in the correct posture setup when you feel like your chest is pointing at the ball and your rear is sticking out (the lower part of your back should be rather flat). You should be able to feel your glutes as these are the muscles that help give you the speed and control. If you feel like your quads are fired up, then you need to adjust. When the quads are fired up and stressed, this can lead to an unbalanced and slower uncontrolled swing leading to inconsistencies off the tee.
Without a strong foundation, you will find yourself falling off the plane and unable to hold your finish.
If you think more in numbers, the line from the hips to the head should be around 40 degrees from the vertical line extending straight down to the ground extending from hips and to the sky.
Quick Checks
Knees slightly flexed with knees not going past toes if you look down. You should be able to see your toes.
Body should bend at the hips and not the waist (buttocks will protrude slightly thus positioning your correctly).
Lower back should be fairly flat vs. curved giving you a sense of the buttocks locked in and the quads relaxed.
Your spine should be in alignment without any bending in the middle (no rounding of the back).
And for the more advanced player, from a frontal view, the spine should be slightly tilted away from the target to the side.
Final Thoughts
We are all searching for the keys to longer drives and more consistency off the tee. My theory is to keep the ball in the short stuff and the distance will come with confidence and practice. Without a solid posture foundation, there is no way I can create the speed I need to smash the ball a country mile. However, if my posture is good, my drives will stay in the fairway and the speed and control of my swing will improve.
Engage the glutes with a solid posture and see where that little white ball travels. I think you will be very pleased.
Let us know at Bunkers Paradise how it goes with this posture quick tip. We love to hear from you!
‘keep smiling and always believe’
