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Contact

Symptom

Posture at address looks wrong

Your 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.

This usually traces to something already true before the club moves: grip, aim, posture, or where the ball sits in your stance. All of those are checkable standing still, which is why the questions ask you to look rather than to guess.

Feet, hips and shoulders all square, seen from aboveA golfer at address seen from directly above, with the target at the top of the picture and the golfer standing to the left of the ball. A dashed line runs from the ball straight up the page to a pin: the target line. Three lines cross the body, drawn one behind another. The nearest to the ball runs through two footprints and is the feet, square to the target line. The middle line, dashed with a cross tick at each end, is the hips, square to the target line. The furthest line, dash-and-dot with an open circle at each end, is the shoulders, square to the target line. The figure moves. The three lines are laid down one at a time in the order a golfer checks them, feet first, then hips, then shoulders, and each arrives square to the target line before turning to the aim it is drawn at. A line that is aimed off the target is therefore seen turning away from square rather than only being reported as off it.
  • Feet, in the footprints: square to the line
  • Hips, cross ticks: square to the line
  • Shoulders, round ends: square to the line
  • Target line
Aim is three lines rather than one, and they can disagree without a golfer feeling it. They are drawn square here, which is the position the questions ask you to check yours against.

Narrow it to one cause

Each question is here because golfers answer it differently, and that difference is what rules a cause out. Nothing is generated while you answer: every question, cause and fix was written and checked in advance.

Start the questions

A few questions · no account needed

What you will be asked

  1. Seen from behind you, down the target line, what shape is your back at address?
  2. Where does most of your bend come from?
  3. Hold your address for five seconds. Which part of your feet is the weight on?
  4. Mark the face and hit five balls with a mid-iron. Where do most of the marks land?
  5. Which bad contact keeps coming back?

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. 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.

    Read the fix

  2. 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.

    Read the fix

  3. 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.

    Read the fix

  4. 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

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.

What this rests on

If something here contradicts what a launch monitor tells you, say so. Corrections change the page.

Discussion

Golfers who have had this shot, on what it turned out to be and what sorted it. Read it as experience rather than diagnosis: the questions above are what narrow it to a cause.

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