Golf Posture
- What is golf posture?
- Why is it important?
- How can the MGS posture improve your game beyond recognition?
Golf posture refers to how the body is positioned at the start or set-up or “address” position of the golf swing. Golf posture is the position of the spine – bent forwards or sideway (away from target). Golf posture can be more or less upright. Also, golf posture is often described as “C spine” when the upper-back is rounded, or as an “S” spine when the lower back is arched inwards and the upper back is arched outwards to give the spine an “S” shape.
For the typical golf swing it is said that golf posture is important in order to create a correct backswing. However, looking at any typical golf swing, it does not seem to make a difference what the starting golf posture is, because it is not maintained in either the forward or the sideways directions during the backswing. All golfers making a typical golf swing lift the trail side of their torsoes during the backswing, only to drop it down during the downswing. They often do not stay in the same amount of spinal flexion they set up in their starting golf posture either. What sense does it make to have some golf posture during the set-up if that posture is not maintained throughout the swing?
Why is posture important? It really does not seem to matter with all typical golf swings, but for the Minimalist Golf Swing (MGS), posture is king. Everything depends on a golfer’s starting posture and it never changes from address to impact. The golfer is required to be very upright and keep the trail side lower than the lead side throughout the movement. In fact, with the MGS swing, the set-up and golf posture are 95% of the job.
The rationale for the MGS’s starting golf posture is that if the club is grounded right behind the ball at the start of the swing, and the body never moves up-and-down or side-to-side, it requires no effort at all to return the club to the exact place it started out from!
How can the MGS starting golf posture improve your game? It makes it very unlikely if your starting posture is correct and you maintain that posture throughout the backswing, that you will not make flush contact with the ball. In fact, even those who are not as strong and fast as the pros and cannot lift and drop their torsos fast enough, always bottom their club out right under the ball. The margin within which a golfer can err is dramatically increased as the body is always in position to drop the club right down at the ball, with no extra effort on the golfer’s part. The result is instantly better trajectory being imparted to the ball. Combined with the MGS pre-swing rotation, a good starting posture and set-up are able to give any skill-level of golfer better distance, direction and trajectory.