The Rotary Swing Book

by Chuck Quinton

Watch "Keeping Your Head Behind the Ball in Golf Swing" Video
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For golfers who miss shots frequently in both directions, one of the very first things I check is the position of their head throughout the golf swing. In doing so, I'm looking for something very specific that I see in about 75% of all amateur golfers. That is that their head is both too far in front of the ball at address and ends up even further ahead at impact. It is critical in any golf swing, one or two plane, that your head stay behind the ball throughout the entire swing.

In the swing sequence below, you can see just how well Adrian Wadey demonstrates keeping his head behind the ball at impact. Hitting a 6 iron here, Adrian exhibits a perfect ball position at address with the left side of his head setup directly on the back of the ball. At impact, his head stays well behind the ball and he is in a world class impact position.

Now, contrast that with an amateur's golf swing who exhibits the "flip" discussed in the video. Can you spot the differences?

The amateur golfer sets up with the ball too far back in his stance in relation to his head. In his effort to "stay centered" over the ball, he never gets behind the ball at the top of his swing. During the transition, his head naturally moves forward with the weight shift to the left side and his head gets well out in front of the ball. This forces him to release the club early just to make contact.

Staying "centered" over the ball is a sensation, a feeling, that removes extra moving parts in the one plane swing. It's true that your head need not move laterally during the swing, but this is only possible when you setup properly behind the ball. On the converse side, it is ok in the Rotary Swing for there to be some lateral movement of the head as a natural result of the rotation of the body and storing of energy in the right side of the body. The key in staying centered is to avoid a sway or dramatic shift off the ball, not to actually have the head centered over the golf ball throughout the golf swing.