Set Up Overview

• Hips back - are you bending from your hips?
• relax knees
• arms hang
• grip (location and strength)

The purpose of setup is to prepare for what you want to do when you hit the ball. Impact and the downswing are the real reasons that we get set up the way that we do. Our primary focus is to control the location of contact with the golf ball. On this site, we refer to the place where the club hits the ground as the brush location. Where and when the club if furthest away from your body will dictate how solidly a golf ball is struck and in large part how successful we will be in golf.

Our setup will differ from an “athletic position” because our intentions are different than other sports. We are not going to need a lot of lateral motion or agility, a mere 6 inches of body shift is more than sufficient to play good golf, and the object that we will be striking is resting on the ground. Other than that, we are going to strive for a position that allows for freedom of movement of the spine, hips, shoulders, and wrists. The process of getting into a good alignment is fairly easy. We want to bend from the hips, and not collapse the spine. We will have a slight bend from the knees and the arms hanging. The alignment of the body should match the shot that we intend to hit. The grip strength should match the swing but allow for freedom of movement in the wrists. We should also be aware of our ball position and its relation to the intended low point of our swing.