This article was created by Steve Thomas and featured in Today's Golfer magazine for their 2024 November edition - Issue number 457.
The article content:
TOP 50 TEACHER Steve Thomas
www.stevethomasgolt.com, Head of Instruction & Fellow PGA Coach
at Three Hammers Golf Academy, Wolverhampton.
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CRIMEWATCH
KEEPING YOUR HEAD DOWN
Keeping your head down is one of those brilliant pieces of advice that tends to cause the exact problems it is intended to solve. It may seem to be the natural, ‘logical’ solution for the golfer who fears topping or thinning the ball, but as we will see, the restriction and stalled motion it promotes only serve to tighten the swing, narrow the swing arc and bring on that nasty, thin contact. Let’s discover why this is… and learn a different concept for your head that will produce better shots, more often.
THIN PICKINGS
Let’s take a closer look at what really happens when we try to keep our head down. The clearest and most damaging result is a complete lockdown of the chest and upper body, which has no room or freedom to rotate. With the body effectively stalled, our hands and arms are forced to deliver the hit… and unsupported by the core, they inevitably buckle, pulling the club in towards us. This is, of course, completely powerless, but with the swing arc so constricted, getting down to the bottom of the ball becomes even harder. If this looks familiar to you, you need to get one thing straight: so far from tightening and constricting everything, you need to develop a feeling of being more relaxed and extended through the strike. Let’s take a look at how you can achieve this… through freeing up your head and neck.
CHANGE THE STORY
Imagine yourself in the perfect finishing position, belt buckle facing the target, weight on your lead foot and trail toe. At this point you are tall, extended – a far cry from the bent-over address position shown here. So we can see that extension, straightening up, is a natural and desirable throughswing move. This in itself should free you from those damaging concepts of keeping the head down, or still. But let’s go a little bit further by learning how to promote this freedom in your motion.
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Allow your head to rotate
Grip the club in your lead hand only and place your trail hand in front of your face, as shown. Swing the club through slowly… and as it moves, allow your trail hand and face to follow it. Your head is not ‘down’, but neither is it being forced up. Instead, this rotation frees it to follow its natural path of lifting and extending into the followthrough.
More power, more consistency
Note how, when you give your head and neck permission to rotate through the strike, your chest turns too… also continuing to face the club. This is a move that promotes much better downswing mechanics; core rotation improves and the arms extend powerfully. Your swing will start to develop a more consistent radius and a lot more power than that stuck, head-down impact.
Drill: Face to face
To train this better throughswing move, take your 7-iron. Form your regular golfing posture. Hold the butt end of the club against your chest and place your trail palm against the shaft, as shown. Note how your head faces forward, looking right down the shaft to the clubface. This is a relationship we will preserve throughout this short movement.
Turn for the better
From here, push the clubshaft forward through your trail hand. Allow your head and chest to rotate in harmony with the club, continuing to face it until the clubhead passes knee height. You will feel rotation, extension and, above all, freedom – a far cry from that cramped and powerless head-down throughswing move. Train the feeling before bringing it into your regular swing.
Written by Fellow PGA Coach Steve Thomas
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