Eric Cogorno here with Performance Golf Zone.
In today's video, we're going to talk about how your head moves in the golf swing.
There's a lot of misconceptions about how your head moves.
I want to prove some of them false.
I'm going to talk about how your head actually moves, help you guys have some swing thoughts
that can help you play better next time you go out on the course.
So, how your head moves in the golf swing.
Let's talk general first, and then let's talk about some misconceptions that we hear here.
So, certainly, as I'm making a motion, as I'm swinging the golf club, like any athletic
motion, there's going to be some head movement going on.
So, if I were to watch anyone play any other sport, whether they throw a ball, hit a ball,
there's going to be some head movement in space - up, down, left, and right - and some
turning of my head as we go.
I think the idea of your head staying steady and still is a nice idea, and in general,
maybe we don't want to have so much movement, but in an effort to try and keep your head
so dead still, I've seen that cause as much harm as it can help certain people.
So, the biggest misconception with the head motion is that a lot of people come in, and
every time they hit, and some of you watching this are some of these people, when you hit
a ball and you mis-hit it, whether you top it, or it goes left, right, or whatever, your
assumption is that, "I picked my head up."
I hear that so much, in person, doing all my lessons, that, "Well, my tendency is, I
pick my head up, and that's why I didn't hit my shots," and I'm here to tell you, I have
never once, ever, since I've been doing this, seen someone hit a bad shot because they picked
their head up, not once.
So, there's all kinds of other things that might have happened, that you hit a bad shot,
but picking your head up during the downswing follow-through is not one of them.
So, what I hear people say is, "Hey, I make a pretty good backswing.
When I come down, all of a sudden now, my eyes, I took my eyes off the ball.
I lifted my head up and I was this way too soon."
Well, if you go watch some of the best players in the world, most notably Annika S�renstam
when she used to play, David Duval, Dustin Johnson, Henrik Stenson as of late, myself,
when I'm at impact, or when they're at impact, their eyes are actually forward of the golf
ball a couple feet, not even on the ball when they hit it.
So, the idea that your eyes must be on the ball or must be fixated on the ball to hit
perfect shots is false.
It's not true.
I think, the motion part we need to talk about a little bit, but your eyes don't have to
be fixated on the golf ball to hit perfect shots.
Now, if I'm taking a normal setup, and my head and my eyes are pointed down towards
the ground here, let's talk about where my head should be now in space.
Something at setup that I see all too often is, people take a setup and they'll look like
this, which is, their chin is up here.
They feel like they're trying to take a good posture, but their eye line, then, is far
too horizontal and not down towards the ground.
My neck and my head should be tilted down at address, this way, to the point where my
eyes are on the golf ball, not up like this where I'm looking at the ball through the
bottom part of my eyes.
Your neck should be down, head tilted down during the setup position.
That's the first part that's important here.
As I go, during my backswing, I go up to the top, now, if you were to draw a circle around
my head from the address to the top, it is true, I don't want that head to move really
far out of that circle when I go back.
I'd like to be somewhat centered at the top of my backswing.
There's going to be some rotation here of my neck and some tilts, but I don't want my
head to be moving drastically up.
So, when I make a backswing, I don't want to be going way up, and I also don't want
to be going down.
The best players might have some slight movement up or down when they go back, but more or
less, you're kind of staying pretty much where you started with.
And there's some different movements that go along with that, but you want to stay more
or less over the golf ball when you go back.
Now, the important part is, from the top of the backswing, during the downswing, I do
not want you to make a swing where you're trying to keep your eyes and your head down
on the ball forever, into the follow-through.
Why don't I want that?
Well, in fact, it causes more problems than solving problems, meaning, if I were to make
a normal golf swing here, when I come down, my eye is on the ball, my head's here, but
notice, as my upper body's rotating, I'm turning, I'm turning, I'm turning, I'm on the ball,
but then my eyes are going to basically follow the golf ball and the club as they go through.
They're turning with it.
They're turning, turning, turning, turning all the way into the follow-through.
If I try and keep my eyes down or keep my head on the golf ball the entire time, what
does that do?
Well, it limits my ability to turn my chest and rotate on the way through.
Say, if my head has to stay here forever, and I were to go through impact, notice how
I can't continue rotating my upper body when my eyes are down at the golf ball and I'm
facing the ball forever.
So, if I'm trying to exaggerate keeping my head down, I can't rotate my upper body.
"Well, why does that matter, Eric?"
Well, if I don't rotate my upper body, notice, my ability to keep my arms straight gets limited.
All of a sudden, I can't rotate my upper body.
My arms start to bend.
My arms start to bend, my wrist conditions start to get jacked up, then my contact gets
compromised.
My face control gets compromised, I'm hitting the ball shorter, and then I don't know where
the direction of the ball goes.
So, a lot of bad things from there.
In a good golf swing, you would see, at impact, we're here, and again, the chest turns, the
eyes turn, the head turns with the ball and the club head through impact.
That enables me to have my arms straight past impact for good compression.
That enables me to continue turning my body rotation-wise to create speed, to get my low
point forward.
That enables me to get off my back foot into my follow-through.
Again, imagine this position where my head's down forever.
What does that look like?
Remember all the other videos and the bad stuff I don't want you to do?
That means I'm going to probably keep my weight too far back, my arms get bent, all the things
I don't want you to do for solidness of contact.
So, I'm urging you guys, get out of this idea that you're hitting bad shots because you
picked your head up or lifted your head up.
That is not true.
There could be some other different reasons why you're doing that.
We have to figure that out, but it's not from this.
If I were to hit one here and you watch, again, I'm looking for the eyes and chest to turn
with the club head.
So, here's an example of a good one.
Everything turns through together.
I can then finish up on my left side, I can extend my arms, and turn.
And try it.
If you're someone who keeps your head down forever, when you start to turn through, you're
going to notice a dramatic difference in your ability to rotate.
It's going to feel a lot more athletic.
Here's another good one.
Eyes are rotating with the club.
I'm turning and keeping my arms extended.
So, there, I was able to turn through nicely as I kept my eyes moving.
Now, here's what it would look like if someone tried to keep their head down forever.
I'll do a little exaggerated version.
Here's what I see when someone comes to see me.
And then, they might sort of fake a follow-through.
Now, can I work that enough where I could hit the ball somewhat solid when I do that?
Sure, but that ball, again, probably went like 30 yards shorter than my normal swing.
Here's my head down too long again.
So, I can't possibly make a full rotation or extend my arms all the way through.
It's going to cost me a lot of distance with both my irons and my driver.
So, listen, the point here is, the head motion, you need to understand, is just that you don't
want to keep it down forever.
That's the moral here.
You want to let your eyes rotate.
You want to let your head come up.
You definitely want to extend and come up on your follow-through, not stay down forever.
That's not why you're hitting your bad shots.
So, stay somewhat centered, eyes down at address, somewhat in the middle as you go back, and
then let that turn-and-rotate get your eyes and chest towards the target on the way through.
That's the basics of the head motion.
Don't keep it down forever.
Hope that that makes sense.
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