The Postition Of  Your Head in the Downswing

Pictures of our best modern golfers show that the head not only stays back but that it drops somewhat and, with most, even moves backward a couple of inches.
 
Almost sacrilegious, this seems. Yet there is a logical reason for it. As the hips move as far as they can to the left, and turn when they can move laterally no farther, and as the shoulders tilt, elevating the left and depressing the right, the body bows out toward the target. If the head doesn't go forward with the body, it has to come down unless we suddenly grow a few inches during the downswing. An archer's bow may be used as an example of what we mean.

The bow may measure five feet from tip to tip before it is strung. When it is strung it curves outward and the distance from tip to tip is less than five feet. When the archer draws it to shoot an arrow, the tip-to-tip distance is still less.

When a golfer hits the ball as he should hit it, his body takes the place of the bow: It curves out toward, the target, and the distance from head to feet is less than when he stands up to the ball.

Another reason the head drops slightly as the ball is hit is that most of the better players develop a rather definite knee bend as they come into the hitting area. They make it a practice to keep both knees bent all through the swing, as they should be, and when they bring the club down to the ball with great speed, the centrifugal force exerted by the flying club head seems almost to pull them down just slightly and hence bend their knees ever so little more.

Our third injunction in this first move from the top was, Make no effort to move the club.

The club, of course, will move. It will be moved by the shoulders. What we mean is that no effort should be made with the wrists, hands, or arms to make the club move. That is the important point. If we could turn the arms, hands, and wrists into wood for a fraction of a second as the downswing begins, it would be perfect.

 Then they and the club would be "frozen" into one solid unit and they would all start down together in one piece, motivated by the rocking, turning shoulders. Then if, with some electronic impulse, we could switch them back to life again as the hands got down to about the hip position, we would have the perfect movement.
 
The whole downward action is initiated by the lateral movement of the hips to the left. Since at the top we are in a tightly coiled position, this hip action causes the shoulders to rock to the right and turn.

The rocking action, with the left shoulder coming up and the right going down, is what moves the arms and the club. If the right shoulder comes down (rocks slightly) as it begins to turn, it brings the upper right arm against the right side and the swing starts down on an inside line. It is when the shoulders turn, throwing the right shoulder high and out toward the ball, that the swing goes outside. Keeping the head back helps the slight rocking action which brings the right shoulder down.

One of the most important things in golf is making this .first movement from the top without letting the angle between the shaft and the left arm open. The peculiar thing about it is that if the hip, shoulder, and hand actions are correct, the angle will not open. If they are wrong, it will.

The instant the right shoulder starts to move out high toward the ball, the arm-shaft angle begins to open, even if no effort is made by the hands to swing the club.

Most of the time the angle is opened up because the hands are trying to do something with the club. But even without the hands doing anything the angle will still open if the wrong shoulder action is made.

The start down from the top can be visualized in several ways. You can think of it as the "wooden freeze" just mentioned, a momentary period during which nothing happens except what is motivated by the hips.

You can also imagine a triangle, formed on two sides by the shaft of the club and the left arm, with the third side an imaginary line from the dub head to the point of the left shoulder. From the top this triangle must be tilted and brought down a ways without changing the length of the imaginary side.

 This we call the "eternal triangle," because it must be retained as long as possible. As the speed of the club head increases, the imaginary side of the triangle lengthens, of course, and the arm-shaft angle starts to open up. But the triangle should be kept constant as long as possible.

We have said several times that the arm-club angle should be held as long as possible. From our use of the words keep, hold, and retain, you may have gotten the idea that a conscious physical effort must be made to hold this angle. This is not true. What we mean is, if the swing is right, the angle will automatically be preserved, until late in the downswing. So, when we say the angle must be held, we mean that you must work on attaining the correct hip, shoulder, and hand motion which will permit the wrists to remain cocked and the angle preserved. Do nothing, in any event, to get rid of the wrist cock.

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