Losing posture: standing up or dipping in the swing

Where this can come from

These are the causes this symptom resolves to, in the order they turn up most often. That order is not a diagnosis and it is not your answer: two of them can produce a shot that looks identical from behind. Each has a fix you can read now, whether or not you answer anything.

1. 1

   Early extension

   The hips push toward the ball through the downswing and the body stands up out of its address posture. The hands and club are forced up and away with it, which moves the low point of the swing arc backwards and upwards. The result is a club that is still rising when it reaches the ball, which is why the strike catches the ball above its equator.

   Read the fix

2. 2

   Posture that cannot be held

   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.

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3. 3

   Standing too close to the ball

   The hands start nearer the body than the swing needs, so the arms have no room to pass and the club works out away from the golfer through impact. Strike drifts toward the heel, and the heel is the same continuum that ends at the hosel.

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4. 4

   Standing too far from the ball

   Reaching for the ball moves balance toward the toes and pulls the strike toward the toe of the face, which costs ball speed and adds draw-side spin through gear effect. Posture usually collapses as the swing tries to find the ball.

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5. 5

   Weight hanging on the trail foot

   Pressure stays on the trail foot through impact instead of moving toward the target. The low point of the arc sits behind the ball, so the club either bottoms out early and takes turf first, or is travelling upward by the time it arrives. Both misses come from the same cause, which is why fat and thin so often alternate.

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6. 6

   Trying to lift the ball into the air

   An instinct to scoop the ball upward adds loft through impact and moves the low point behind the ball. Height comes from the loft already built into the club and from a descending strike, so the attempt to help the ball up produces the opposite: a thin or topped shot that never climbs.

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Related symptoms

These are not here because they sound similar. Each one can come from a cause on the list above, which is why fixing one sometimes quietly fixes another. The closest matches are first.

• 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.Shares early extension
• Topping the ballThe club catches the top of the ball and it scuttles along the ground instead of climbing.Shares early extension
• Hitting it thinThe leading edge catches the ball near its middle instead of the face meeting the back of it, so the shot comes out low and hot and stings your hands.Shares early extension
• Lifting your head, or being told to keep it downSomeone tells you that you looked up or lifted your head, almost always after a topped or thin shot, and the advice that follows is to keep your head down.Shares early extension
• 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.Shares posture that cannot be held
• Hitting it off the heelThe ball comes off the inside of the face near the hosel with a clunky feel and less distance, and off a driver it tends to curve right.Shares early extension

What this rests on

• The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013
• 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