Consistency in golf can mean a lot of things, from the distance or shape of the shots you’re hitting to the scores you’re putting up. But any measure of consistency goes back to one critical question: How good are you at making solid contact with the ball, swing after swing?
The biggest contact killer I see with average golfers is a loss of body posture, typically at the end of the backswing or the start of the downswing. When the body moves up and down, it becomes very difficult to put the club on the ball with any—you guessed it—consistency.
When you think about the great ball-strikers today, Jon Rahm certainly comes to mind. Rahm has one of the most repeatable swings in the game, and one aspect that stands out is how beautifully he stays in his posture. It’s no doubt one of his superpowers.
We uploaded a video of Rahm’s driver swing to the Mustard Golf app. Using AI-supported technology, Mustard analyzes swing positions and moves like body rotation, hand path and dynamic posture and serves up instruction tailored to the user’s swing.
The app also assigns grades for several parts of the swing. Rahm’s grade for posture—the app calls it “body lift”—was a 10 out of 10. We picked the right player.
In the image below, note the dotted line on Rahm’s upper body. That line represents where his spine was at address. At the top of the swing, you can see it’s running right through the middle of his torso, which proves his posture is unchanged from the setup. A perfect 10.
Let’s go a little deeper on how you can maintain your posture during the backswing as well as down and through the ball. Consider three key moves:
-First, keep the clubface square for the first few feet of the swing -Second, feel like the turning of your chest moves the club in the backswing -Third, with the face square at the top, simply “transport” the club to impact
On the first point, you might be wondering how clubface rotation could possibly affect posture. Good question. When you spin the face open with your hands and arms in the takeaway, the clubhead tracks abruptly to the inside and you essentially run out of room to swing, which prompts a lifting action to keep the club going back.
The best way to prevent too much face rotation is to focus on keeping the clubface “looking” at the ball for the first few feet of the backswing. When the face stays square like that, you maintain plenty of space to keep swinging back without lifting.
Related to this move is synchronizing your body turn with the movement of the club. Think of your chest as the engine and the clubhead as the caboose: Turning your chest is what should move the club back. When you let the clubhead be the engine, your body has to catch up, which leads to some funky body moves, like pulling out of posture.
How can you check that your chest is setting the pace? Practice swinging back to the point where the clubshaft is parallel to the ground. At that point, your chest should be at a 90-degree angle to the shaft. That means your body and club are in sync and can work together to the top.
Take care of those first two moves, and the clubface should be square at the top of the backswing, which really simplifies the last move. Because you didn’t spin the face open going back, there’s no need to spin it back to square. You can simply “transport” the club down to the ball. No manipulation required. That’s a very consistent way to swing.
Trying to close an open clubface during the downswing is where a lot of players get into trouble. It often comes in the form of a throwing motion with the arms and wrists, which leads to hitting behind the ball. After you crash into the ground a few times, your brain tells you to stand up—and there goes your posture.
The fix here, of course, is to not let the clubface open going back. When you accomplish that and have a square face at the top, you can make a proper downswing: Shift toward the target, turn your body forward and transport your arms and the club to the ball.
All right, so here’s what we know. You should keep the clubface pointing at the ball as you start back, feeling like your chest is what’s moving the club. Then, from the top of the swing, let your arms simply fall as you shift to your front foot and turn your body through.
Get those few moves right, and I know you’ll start smashing the back of the ball with the clubface dead-square. That’s how you hit good shots. Consistently.
