Head Rotation in a Golf Swing

Rotate Your Head for Increased Shoulder Turn

Hi, Robin here. One of the most common faults I see every day is players trying to overly restrict their head during the golf swing. Now, this is not a good idea. And to try to prove that to you, I first of all want you to do a very simple test. Taking a pen or chopstick, I want you to place it in your mouth, standing up straight, and just test how much you can you can rotate your head to the right and to the left. Now, you can see with me I was able to rotate my head about 70 degrees, that’s quite normal. Now, if you thing about that, if you can’t rotate you head 90 degrees but you want to make a 90 degree or more shoulder turn on the swing, you will have to let your head rotate a little bit. Players who don’t let their head rotate, overly restrict the head, cannot complete their shoulder turn, so their swing will look quite short and restricted, or they have learned to compensate in some way.

Perhaps, they are going to lift and tilt, or they are going to collapse their left arm. None of these are good habits to have.  These are compensations which will have some effect later on in the swing. So, if you want to be able to turn your shoulders freely in the swing, you’ve got to let your head rotate a little bit. If this is you, the fix is almost the same as the test. Place a pen or a chopstick in your mouth. Now, in doing this, what I want you to do is point the pen or the chopstick at the ball at address. Keep it pointing at the ball early in the swing, and then allow the pen or the chopstick to rotate slightly to the right as you finish the back swing. It should look something like this. Allow your head to free up.  Allow it to move a little bit with the rotation of your shoulders. It’s an important aspect of a good swing. If you have got one of these faults lifting, tilting, collapsing your left arm, or a very short swing, I’m sure this is going to help you.