For Your Swing by Dave Ramssay June 2011

Impact Position and Address Position are not Mirror Images


I'm not really looking to continue beating a dead horse, but I have more poor golf advice that keeps catching my eye.  Sunny weather has a way of bringing out all the seasonal players in the Pacific North-wet.  When we pull our clubs out of buried garage corners and dark closets after a long hibernation, it's not just our golf equipment that needs to be dusted off - our golf swing needs some tuning up as well.  Needless to say, the golf range is seeing some action.  And with that, I've been reminded of more poor golf advice between well-intentioned partners.
 
"Your impact position should mirror your address position."  Actually, this is a common misperception.  There are similarities, but the vast majority of good players have very significant differences between their address and impact positions.  I'll spare you a lengthy article about the nuances of all these definite and possible differences, but I will say that average and below average players typically have problems with 1) not having their hips turned farther left (and pulling their body and arms rotationally) at impact than address; 2) not having their hands far enough ahead of the ball at impact; 3) not having the proper wrist angles at impact (resulting from an 'early release').
 
These differences can have a slightly unique appearance with different players of different body types and abilities.  One key is that it's not enough to just copy positions in a swing that you want to emulate.  Your ability to get to any position in the golf swing will be greatly aided or hampered by the parts of the swing that come before it - all the way back to the setup (posture, grip, alignment).  For that reason, when making changes you should look at the whole picture of your swing and not just the 'snapshot' of impact.  There are reasons that you're in that position.
 
I'd love to help you learn your correct impact position.  I'm happy to give the first three people that mention this article a complimentary swing analysis!
 
See you at the course!
 
Dave