Keep your head back and behind the ball through impact! Top six golf pros agree

Bobby Jones published golf advice in various newspaper columns in the 1920s. Fifty of these columns were compiled and printed in a book titled The Best of Bobby Jones on Golf, published in 1996. Jones was quoted: “Staying behind the ball is a splendid maxim. If you ever get your head ahead of the ball, at any point in the swing, it’s bound to result in a bad shot.”

In Harvey Penick’s The Little Red Book, published in 1992, page 75 is titled “Stay Behind the Ball.” “All great golfers move their heads slightly backwards before and at impact, but never forwards. A golfer should stay behind the ball. That means set up with your head behind the ball and keep your head behind the ball. If move your head forward on the downswing or at impact, you’ll hit a small, ugly shot, probably a cut shot.”

Tommy Armour, in How to Play Your Best Golf All the Time, (1953) emphasizes: The cardinal principle of all golf shots is that if you move your head, you spoil the action of your body. In the 12 Key Points summary of his book, Armor lists Key Points 5, 10, and 12 identically to “keep your head straight”. Interestingly, however, in all the shots of the golfers’ shots throughout the book, the head is seen behind the ball through the impact area.

David Leadbetter in 100% Golf, 2004, states: “The head and upper body stay behind the ball as you come out of the swing and accelerate towards impact.” Try to maintain the angle of your spine from set-up to impact and don’t worry if your head has a little lateral movement. Your head and spine are behind the ball at impact.

Jack Nicklaus is the most constant in the movement of the head. In his book Golf My Way (2005), Nicklaus offers this warning: “If you hope to improve your game through these pages, but can’t or won’t learn to keep your head steady during your swing, don’t read any further. that I, or anyone else, can do for your golf game Any movement of the head, at any point from direction to impact, will alter the arc and plane of the swing, which, if not totally a factor destructive, it’s certainly a complicated one. All of Jack’s swing footage shows his head being steady, but also well behind the ball until after impact.

Like many golfers, I have tried dozens of tips and instructional techniques, all with little or no results. It wasn’t until I focused on this aspect of the swing that I finally hit 80, and that was 65 years old. Since then I have broken 80 several times and can finally enjoy the game. Learning to keep my head back was not easy. It required considerable practice, much of which was done without hitting the balls. I had to learn new muscle memory and that was not easy, especially at my age. But with tactile feedback in the head, the bad habit of “looking up” could be overcome.

Tiger Woods published his book How I Play Golf in 2007 and it has already become a bestseller. He writes, “Impact should look like steering. My spine angle is the same and my head is pretty much in the same place.” The attached image shows that his head is way behind the ball. He concludes: “It shows how simple the golf swing can be.”

What makes the golf swing complicated is the often contradictory instruction that can be found in print and by word of mouth. Some pros will teach that the head should remain steady throughout the swing. Some will preach that it’s okay to have some backswing or sideways movement on the backswing and just before impact. Others will say don’t lose sight of the ball. But NONE will suggest that the head rise or move forward of the ball until after impact. As written above, most if not all pros will agree that the head SHOULD stay back and behind the shot through the impact zone.

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