Staying centred on backswing

[Stephen]

I’ve really been struggling to stay centred on the back swing. When I try to maintain my knee flex and push my glutes back and down I’m forced to sway a long way off centre (caddy view) and from down the line my head comes off the wall. All of that adds up to some major re-alignment on the downswing to hit it flush. I’ve mostly been managing to do that and Tathata has been working well.

I want to improve and the way forward is staying centred. However, the only way I can achieve that is to straighten my back (right) leg as I lift the ribs and draw back a punch. None of the detailed descriptions I can recall talk about this. There is mention of bending the front knee and turning it in towards the top of back swing and a lot of focus on the need to move the glutes back and down. Straightening the right leg has the feel of making the right glute at least go up?

Anyone else struggled with staying centred or want to share there thoughts?

[Tathata Staff]

Hey Stephen! Thanks for posting this thread and reaching out! As it relates to staying centered, let’s go back to making sure we have our setup supported correctly first. Often times it gets misinterpreted how the “glutes stay back or push back.” The glutes stay back if we have the setup correct and support the proper pressure in the center of the body. Next time you work on your setup, make sure you feel a sense of the pelvis level, or in other words a sense of the glutes tucked slightly underneath and the belt line almost level or parallel to the ground. Go back and watch how the greats support their setup before they begin their motion. Feel the stomach tighten as you tuck the glutes slightly underneath and lift the belt buckle slightly. Engaging the center correctly and leveling out the pelvis at setup will ultimately help you keep the glutes back as you drawback energy to the top of your backswing and keep the glutes back as you surf to level. This feeling at setup in the golf swing is very similar to how any baseball pitcher lifts the leg and rounds the back prior to unloading towards the plate. We look forward to your progress, thanks again for reaching out!

[Les]

Stephen,

My opinion is that there should be no concern necessarily about the movement of the head as it is not the center of the golf swing but rather the dantien. The surf to level movement takes care of returning the dantien back to the center of the swing. If the head lags a bit behind is not a big concern. In fact you may find as you look at great players, they retain some spine tilt with their head behind the ball as they come through the hitting area. I believe that if we stay centered and balanced we too should have some spine tilt – corresponding to a tilt in the knees and hips as we thrust up and go into the superman pose.

[James]

I am a 66 yr old playing at a 10 handicap. I have one suggestion for the training program and that is during the routines put a mark on the floor or ground and pretend it is a ball. Don’t loose focus on the mark until after the club head passes the mark. One of the problems that slowed me down in my progress was focusing on the new swing mechanics and loosing site of a prime fundamental and that is to see the ball at impact. Once I began to focus on seeing the ball no matter if my head moved everything began to fall in place.