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Troubleshooting - Set Up

There are a handful of common problems that show up in the set up position.  Most of them relate to your idea of what you want to do during the downswing. But here is a check list for the most common set up problems and how they affect your golf swing.

Set up -

  • miss aligned shoulders - either pointed too far to the right, or more likely, too far to the left
  • tension in the arms/hands - limits wrist movements and generally leads to a shoulder dominated swing
  • grip in the palm - limits wrist movements
  • bend from the spine instead of the hips - using the spine to get down to the golf ball instead of the hips makes rotation difficult

There are lots of other topics that can cause cofusion that we answer in the Set Up section.  These questions include:

  • How much foot turn out (foot flare) should I have and why?
  • How wide should my stance by?
  • How do I know if my grip strength matches my body movements?
  • How do I determine if I am bending from the hips or spine, and what are good ways to practice it?

If you have any questions that we haven't thought of, please send us a message so we can help you with your Set Up for great golf.

Playlists: Beginner Program

Tags: Set Up, Concept, Beginner

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In this concept video, we're going to go over troubleshooting the common setup errors.

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Now there's really four or five major errors that I tend to see with setup, both with

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my students as well as with your video submissions.

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So the first one would be bending from the spine instead of bending from the hips or

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bending from the knees instead of bending from the hips.

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So if we remember from the drill videos, if we remember from the concept video, essentially

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to get down to the golf ball, we need to bend from the hips.

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Now even if you're trying to bend from the hips, what can often happen is you will bend

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more from the spine like so, the spine like so or the knees like so.

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All of those are going to put you in a bi-mechanically disadvantageous position because

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they're going to inhibit how much you're actually going to be able to use your hit muscles,

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the muscles around your hips.

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So let's go through those one by one.

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First one is going to be C posture.

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What you're basically going to do is you're rounding from your mid back as you go down

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to the ground.

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So what you want to pay attention to is you want to practice one of the drills that gives

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you feedback with either a club along your back or along your front so that you can make

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sure that your spine stays pretty long.

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Now it's okay to have your neck and your very upper shoulders kind of round down to

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look down to the golf ball but you don't want to have a major rounding of your spine.

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If you're seated you can do this little experiment and you can figure out why.

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So if you're seated and you take a club and place it across your shoulders and then you

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were to turn your upper body while staying nice and tall, you can feel how much your rib

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gauge and your mid back moves.

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Now if you were to then slouch and go ahead and try and rotate, I'll let you do it first.

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You feel that?

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It definitely shortens and makes rotation much more difficult.

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So what ends up happening is when you set up more in this posture your takeaway is going

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to tend to be more with your arms which when we get to that section you'll learn that

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that can mess up your sequence.

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So we want to make sure that we're keeping that mid back a little bit more straight so

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that it sets you up for a good takeaway position which you'll learn how to do in the other

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videos.

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The next one would be S posture which would be rounding more your lower back like so.

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Now because I've really arched my lower back like so this is that old athletic posture

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like if I was going to do a deadlift or if I was going to sprint but it doesn't set

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me up very well for my hips to rotate.

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And the other thing is you can see how that lifts my chest way up right?

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So now I'm no closer to the golf ball so the second part of S posture is typically

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I end up rounding my spine so it creates this kind of S curve to your back and again

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messes up your ability to rotate both with your upper body as well as your hips.

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When you set up an S posture it inhibits a couple of your glute muscles which will make

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it more likely for you to have a little bit extra kind of lateral movement as opposed

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to if you have your lower core muscles on because your back is nice and flat when you go

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into your take away.

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The last little piece of that is the amount of knee bend and again if I was to bend

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from my hips just like so there's my set up posture.

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Now if I was also bend for my knees I'd be way too close to the ground so what usually

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ends up happening is I bend for my knees and then my posture is very vertical kind of

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like so.

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Yes my weight is somewhat in my heels but again my hips have now gotten into a position

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where it's tougher than the rotate.

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A fun little experiment you can do for that is if you stick your foot out you can feel

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how much your hip rotates like so.

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If you were to bring this hip way up and then try and rotate you'll feel how some of

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the rotation has been lost.

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The more that you sit into your knees the more that it can inhibit how much hip rotation

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you're going to get.

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It's not a great example but just know more knees less hips.

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So that would be the major set up posture ones.

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The second piece would be setting up with your arms to tense or to straight.

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So what'll happen is most golfers are going to have if you remember from the arm bend

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they're going to have a little bit more flex in the trail or right arm for right handers.

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You're going to have a little bit more flex in this arm compared to this one.

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This sets the arm up to rotate in the backswing and bring the club around your body.

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When your arm gets too straight like so it'll do two things.

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It'll mess up your shoulder alignment and it will tend to make the club either come away

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very shut if I did kind of a body driven takeaway or it'll cause me to fan the club more

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with the wrists and forearms or open the club with the wrists and forearms a little

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bit too soon.

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So if those arms are too straight it's a good indication that you have tension kind of

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in your neck and your whole plan is to kill the ball with your arms.

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You want your arms to be relatively relaxed or like ropes because the engine is going to

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come from the body as you'll learn in the movement layers.

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Third which kind of goes a little bit with the tension in the arms is having the club

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too much in the palm.

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This also works with the whole setup posture thing because if the club is too high up in

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the palm like so you'll tend to get a wear spot in the heel of your hand right in there

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and maybe even on your right thumb but you'll tend to get a wear spot in the heel of

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the hand there.

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That's a big indicator that you are up too much in the heel of your or you're too much

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in the palm of your lead hand.

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But that does is that prevents wrist movement as you learn in the grip video.

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So if that locks your wrist then you're going to have to make adjustments with your elbows

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with your shoulders in order to do what the wrist should be doing.

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One of the common reasons that people end up gripping the club more in the hand is if

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they're set up posture is poor.

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If I was sitting more in my knees with kind of a C posture or an S posture where my chest

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is relatively vertical and I don't have a ton of this spine bend or hip bend it will tend

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to put the club more high up compared to my arms.

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If I was to try and get it in the fingers this would feel very, very uncomfortable.

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Where if I hinge from the hips now it puts the club a little bit more underneath my left arm

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or my left hand which allows me to grip it in the fingers a much more easily.

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So if you have a tendency of having that club slip up double check your posture those two go hand in hand.

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No pun intended.

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The last one would be alignment and this one is very hard to see just based on the videos

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that you send in because I ask you to put alignment stick on the ground so I trust that that's pretty reliable.

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The problem can be when you get on on the course and you tell me that most of your shots are slices or blocks off to the right.

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I kind of interpret those that those are actually the same.

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What ends up happening is if you're not going through a clear pre-shot routine and if your upper body tends to get a little bit more on top of it like so it could be an irrelated thing.

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It could just be a habit thing that it doesn't feel comfortable and it could just mean that you need to practice some of these nine to three drills with an alignment stick on the ground so that you can pay a little bit more attention.

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So those are the big setup errors.

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If I've highlighted them we've got drills in the drill section that will help you correct them so go ahead and review your notes and

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good luck with your next practice session.

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