Golf Smart Academy
This drill teaches you to sense pressure through your sit bones instead of relying only on what you feel in your feet. That matters because many golfers think they are “forward” simply because pressure is in the lead foot, while the upper body is actually hanging back. When that happens, low point control suffers, and fat and thin shots become much more common. By learning how your rib cage and upper body stack over your pelvis, you can build better balance, reduce sway, and create the kind of forward body position that helps you strike short irons and wedges much more solidly.
How the Drill Works
The idea is simple: instead of judging your balance only from foot pressure, you learn to feel where your torso is positioned relative to your pelvis. Your sit bones—the two bony points at the bottom of your pelvis—give you a much clearer sense of whether your upper body is truly centered, tilted back, or moving forward in a functional way.
When you sit on the ground, those contact points become obvious. You can immediately tell if you are balanced evenly, rolled onto one side, or twisted with your upper body and lower body in opposite directions. That makes the floor an excellent feedback tool.
The drill starts on the ground with two warm-ups. These prepare your core and improve your awareness of pelvic movement. Then you move into a seated rotational position that mimics the relationship between your upper body and pelvis during the golf swing—especially through impact for a right-handed golfer, where the lead side needs to be stable and the upper body needs to stay more forward than many players realize.
After you understand the feeling on the floor, you stand up and recreate it in your golf posture. A chair, countertop, or even a golf club pressed against your sit bones can help you sense whether you are truly “sitting into” the correct side. From there, you make short 9-to-3 swings while preserving that stacked relationship.
This is especially valuable if you:
- Hit fat or thin shots with wedges and short irons
- Struggle to control your low point
- Tend to sway in the backswing
- Slide your hips forward without actually getting your upper body forward
- Lose shaft lean and flip through impact
Step-by-Step
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Start on a firm indoor surface. Sit on the ground where you can clearly feel both sit bones. A harder surface gives better feedback than grass or carpet.
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Do the first warm-up: the seated good morning. Hold the backs of your thighs. Gently roll your pelvis backward so your torso leans back slightly, then use your arms to help pull yourself back up. Keep it smooth and controlled. You are not trying to do a crunch. Do about 5 repetitions.
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Do the second warm-up: the sit-bone walk. Lift your feet slightly off the ground so you are balancing more directly on your sit bones. Then “walk” by lifting one side of the pelvis, moving it forward a little, setting it down, and alternating sides. There should be a subtle rotational action, not just a rock. Go forward for 5 to 10 steps, then backward for 5 to 10.
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Move into the lead-side balance position. If you are a right-handed golfer, shift so you are more supported on your left sit bone. You may keep your feet off the ground for a greater challenge, or lightly set your heels down if you need support.
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Add opposing rotation. While staying supported on the lead-side sit bone, turn your upper body to the right and your lower body to the left. Then return to neutral and repeat. This creates the separation you need to feel between torso and pelvis.
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Compare both sides. Briefly try the opposite side so you understand the difference, but for a right-handed player, the lead-side version is the key one because it relates more directly to impact and low point control.
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Rehearse the impact orientation. Put your left foot down and rock into a position that resembles impact. Feel how your upper body is oriented relative to your pelvis. This is the sensation you want to carry into standing.
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Stand up and recreate the same pressure. Use a chair, countertop, or golf club against your sit bones as a reference. Get into your golf posture and shift until you feel the same lead-side support you felt on the ground. The key is that your upper body moves forward with the pelvis relationship intact—not just your hips sliding toward the target.
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Preset the stacked position. Before swinging, feel that your upper body is lined up over the lead-side sit bone. It may feel as if your chest is more over the ball than normal. For many golfers, this is exactly the correction needed.
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Make slow 9-to-3 swings. From that preset position, make easy waist-high-to-waist-high swings. As you turn back and through, keep the same relationship between your upper body and pelvis. Do not let your torso drift back over the trail sit bone in the backswing.
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Gradually add a ball. Start with short irons or wedges. Keep the swings small and focus on contact. The goal is not speed—it is preserving the stacked feel so the club bottoms out in a more predictable place.
What You Should Feel
This drill is built around awareness, so the sensations matter. If you are doing it well, several feelings should stand out.
Pressure in the lead sit bone
For a right-handed golfer, you should feel more support and grounding through the left sit bone. That does not mean you are rigid or frozen. It means your body is organized around that side instead of drifting away from it.
Your upper body more forward than expected
Many golfers are surprised by how much the torso needs to feel “over” the ball with wedges and short irons. If you are used to hanging back, the correct position can feel exaggerated. That is normal.
Less dependence on foot pressure alone
You may still feel pressure in your lead foot, but the important change is that you no longer use the feet as your only reference point. You are paying attention to how your torso stacks over your pelvis.
A stable, covered impact feel
Through the strike, it should feel as if your chest is still covering the ball rather than backing away from it. That helps the handle lead, improves shaft lean, and makes the strike more compressed.
Better control of the bottom of the swing
When your upper body stays properly forward, the club’s low point tends to move forward as well. That is why this drill can be so helpful if you hit behind the ball or catch shots thin from trying to rescue the strike at the last second.
Core engagement without tension
The seated version will lightly challenge your abs and trunk muscles, especially when your feet are off the ground. You should feel active and organized, not stiff.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Confusing forward foot pressure with forward body position. You can have pressure in the lead foot while your upper body is still hanging back.
- Sliding the hips without moving the torso appropriately. A hip slide alone does not guarantee good low point control.
- Rocking instead of rotating in the sit-bone walk. The warm-up should include a subtle twisting action, not just side-to-side wobbling.
- Turning the upper body over the trail side in the backswing. This is one of the biggest errors. As soon as your torso drifts too far back, compensations begin.
- Trying to make full swings too soon. This drill works best with small, controlled motions first.
- Over-tensing the abs and shoulders. You want awareness and structure, not a braced, robotic motion.
- Ignoring the lead-side support. For right-handed players, the left sit bone is the key anchor point in the standing version.
- Doing the movement only with the lower body. The whole point is learning the relationship between upper body and pelvis.
How This Fits Your Swing
This drill is not just a balance exercise. It connects directly to several important swing issues.
It improves low point control
If you struggle with crisp contact, especially on partial shots, wedges, and short irons, this is one of the most useful body-awareness drills you can do. The club bottoms out where your body organization allows it to. When your torso is too far back, the low point often stays behind the ball. When your upper body is better stacked over the lead side, the strike becomes much more predictable.
It helps clean up fat and thin shots
Fat and thin contact often come from the same root problem: inconsistent body position through impact. One swing bottoms out early and hits the ground first; the next one pulls up and catches the ball thin. Learning to feel pressure through the sit bones gives you a more reliable center of mass and a more repeatable strike pattern.
It reduces sway
Many golfers sway because they lose awareness of where their torso is relative to their pelvis. They move off the ball in the backswing, then have to recover late. This drill teaches you to stay organized around the lead-side support point instead of drifting. That does not mean there is no motion in the swing—it means the motion is structured rather than loose and sliding.
It improves impact alignments
When you keep your upper body more forward relative to the pelvis, several good things tend to happen:
- More shaft lean
- Less flipping through impact
- Better compression with short irons
- More stable rotation through the ball
- Less need for last-second hand manipulations
It is most important with wedges and short irons
You can benefit from this feeling with every club, but it becomes especially important with shorter clubs where precision matters most. With the driver, golfers can sometimes get away with more compensations because the ball is teed up and the club is longer. With wedges, those compensations show up quickly in poor contact.
It gives you a better definition of “weight forward”
Golfers hear that phrase all the time, but many interpret it too simply. They shove the pelvis toward the target, feel pressure in the lead foot, and assume they are in a good impact position. This drill gives you a more useful definition: weight forward means your upper body is positioned correctly relative to your pelvis, not just that your hips moved left.
If you build this awareness first on the ground, then in standing posture, then in small swings, you give yourself a much better chance to transfer it into your actual motion. Over time, that can lead to more centered contact, more stable balance, and a swing that does not need as many compensations to find the ball.
