The fix for Posture that cannot be held
Fixing an address posture you cannot hold
What is actually happening
Bending from the middle of the back, standing too upright, or sinking into too much knee bend produces a position the body has to leave during the swing. Any change in height between address and impact moves the low point, and the strike moves with it.
- Seat line at address
- Spine at address
- Neutral reference
The fix
A posture that cannot be held is one the body has to leave as soon as it starts turning. It usually takes one of three shapes. The back rounds from the middle, with the chin dropped toward the chest. The body stands too tall, bent only slightly from the hips, so the arms hang close against the legs. Or the knees sink into a deep flex with the seat tucked under the hips. Each looks settled while you stand still. Once the swing begins, a rounded back tends to straighten, a tall body tends to dip to reach the ball, and deep knees tend to straighten as the backswing loads. Every one of those movements changes your height.
Height is what reaches the ball. The club swings around a centre roughly between the shoulders, so when that centre rises or falls, the bottom of the arc rises or falls with it. A body that rises between address and impact lifts the low point, and the club catches the ball above its equator, which is a thin or topped shot. A body that drops lowers the low point, and the club meets the turf before the ball, which is a fat shot with a divot that starts behind where the ball sat. Because the change is rarely the same size twice, the common pattern is fat and thin alternating, with the strike moving up and down the face rather than toward the heel or the toe.
Film settles it. Prop a phone behind you on the target line at about hip height and pause the video at address. The back should run in a fairly straight line from the tailbone to the base of the neck rather than bowing into a curve. A line dropped from the front of the shoulders should fall close to the knees and the balls of the feet, and the seat should sit out behind the heels rather than tucked under. Then scrub forward to impact and compare the height of your head with where it started. Divots that swing from deep to barely there, on swings that felt the same, point the same way.
This page is about address. Early extension is the neighbouring fault, where a sound posture is lost because the hips push toward the ball in the downswing. The film separates the two. If the address frame fails the checks above, fix the posture first, because no swing change will hold a position that was never stable. If it passes and your height still changes by impact, the swing is the cause. Distance from the ball is a separate question too: standing too close or too far moves the strike toward the heel or the toe, while posture moves it up and down.
The change is made before the club moves, and the order you build it in matters. Stand tall with the club held out in front at waist height. Push the seat back and tip the chest forward from the hips, keeping the back long, until the sole of the club reaches the ground. Let the arms hang. Only then soften the knees, just enough to feel springy, with your weight over the middle of your feet. Built in that order, the bend comes from the hips rather than from the middle of the back or the knees, and a bend from the hips is one the body can turn inside without having to change height.
The instinctive fixes chase the last miss. After a topped shot the familiar advice is to keep your head down, and tucking the chin into the chest rounds the upper back, which is the first shape on this page and one that rises further once it turns. After a fat shot the reflex is to stand taller at address, which sets up the second shape and a body that dips to find the ball. Each correction produces the opposite miss next time. Build the posture in the same order before every shot, and let the film rather than the last result tell you whether it held.
Drills
Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.
Club along the spine
Hold a club upright behind you so it touches the back of your head, the middle of your shoulder blades and your tailbone. Tilt forward from the hips, pushing the seat back, until your chest is over where a ball would sit, keeping all three points in contact. If your head or tailbone comes off the club, the bend has moved into your back. Make ten of these, holding each for three seconds. Success is ten in a row with all three contacts kept. Then take the club into your hands, build the same shape, and hit ten half shots before moving to full swings.
Needs nothing but a club
Stand, tilt, hang, flex
Build your address in four separate steps with a one-second pause after each: stand tall with the club held out at waist height, tilt from the hips until the sole touches down, let the arms hang, then soften the knees. Do it side-on to a mirror or a dark window and check that the back stays straight and the seat sits behind the heels. Walk away and rebuild it ten times. Success is the same shape in the mirror all ten times. Then hit twenty balls at three-quarter speed, rebuilding from the first step before each one, and move to full swings once the divots are a similar depth from shot to shot.
Needs A mirror or a dark window
Head height on film
Prop a phone behind you on the target line at hip height. Hit five balls with a mid-iron at three-quarter speed, then watch each swing, pausing at address and again at impact. Hold a fingertip on the screen at the top of your head in the address frame and see where the head is at impact. Success is the head sitting within about a ball's height of that mark on all five swings. When it does, repeat with full swings, then with the longest club you carry.
Needs A phone that records video
Rock and settle
At address, rock gently forward onto your toes, back onto your heels, and then settle in the middle, where either end of the foot could lift. Do it before each of ten balls hit with half swings. Success is holding the finish for a count of three on every shot without stepping forward or back. Move to full swings once ten in a row finish in balance.
Needs nothing but a club
Practice plan and log
Practise this fix, day by day
Keep a dated log of every session against this fix, so in a few weeks you can read back whether the change has taken instead of trying to remember.
Checkpoints
What to look for to know whether the change has taken.
- On down-the-line film at address, the back runs in a fairly straight line from the tailbone to the base of the neck.
- A line dropped from the front of the shoulders falls close to the knees and the balls of the feet.
- The seat sits out behind the heels, and the knees are flexed only enough to feel springy.
- Head height at impact matches head height at address when the two frames are compared.
- Divots are a similar depth from shot to shot and start at the ball or just after it, not behind it.
Feels
A feel is not a description of what the club does. It is whatever gets your body to do it, and a correct change usually feels exaggerated long before it looks correct.
- Your seat pushes back as your chest tips forward, as if closing a drawer behind you with it.
- Your back feels long from the tailbone to the top of your head.
- Your knees are springy rather than sat into.
Symptoms that lead here
Each of these can resolve to this cause. If the page above does not match what you are seeing, start from the symptom instead and let the questions narrow it.
- Posture at address looks wrongYour address looks hunched, too tall or sat down into the knees, and contact swings between fat and thin because the body cannot hold that shape once the swing starts.The usual cause of this
- Losing posture: standing up or dipping in the swingYour body does not finish the swing at the height it started it: you rise up out of your address posture, or sink down toward the ball, and the strike moves between thin, topped, heeled and fat as the bottom of the arc moves with you.
- Gripping too tight and tense over the ballYou hold the club so hard that your forearms are tight before it moves, or the handle twists in your hands at contact, and the swing comes out short, stiff and hard to repeat.
- Missing the ball completelyThe swing goes past the ball without touching it, and the ball is left sitting where it was or topples off the tee.
- Suddenly can't strike it at allBall striking that was reliable last month has collapsed on the range and on the course alike, with a new miss such as a shank, a top or a chunk that was never part of your game.
- Cramped over the ball, or reaching for itAt address you feel crowded with no room for your arms, or stretched out reaching for the ball, and the strike marks drift toward the heel or the toe of the face.
If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots
What this rests on
- Search for the Perfect Swing: The Proven Scientific Approach to Fundamentally Improving Your GameAlastair Cochran and John Stobbs, for the Golf Society of Great Britain, 2005 reissue, originally 1968
- The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013
- 40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
Did this help?
One answer, and nothing is published from it. A fix that keeps getting a no is a fix that is wrong, and this is the only way that shows up.
If something here is wrong, or contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.
The weekly fix
One fault a week, written the same way this page is.
Discussion
Golfers who have worked on this fault, on what helped and what did not. Read it as experience rather than evidence.
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