Correcting the Reverse Pivot

Thin shots, fat shots, no distance or just plain inefficient contact could be due to a dreaded reverse pivot. If you reverse your body pivot your golf balls flight shouldn’t go up in the air. It will be struck with an ascending approach up into the ball, giving the ball top spin and staying very low to the ground or even worse, nose diving into the ground. The reverse can be caused from a beginning golfer thinking incorrectly that they’ve got to get the club under the ball to help it up. A faulty set up can also encourage a reverse. And the more exaggerated the reverse the worse your miss can be. Even golfers who have been playing for years can display a tendency to creep in the old “reverse tilt”.

Your bodies pivot is crucial to consistency. And if you want to get the most out of your swing you have to know what your body is doing.

Here are some quick tips to make sure you are pivoting correctly. Look in a mirror or on camera to see what your body is doing……..

in the Back Swing:

• Let your head swivel behind the ball a little.
• No swaying of the hips in your rotation back.
• Hips rotating on a fairly level plane.
• Chest and upper body weight over your right thigh.
• Left shoulder over your foot.
• No straightening or buckling of the right knee.

in the Forward Swing:

• Start your forward swing from the ground up.
• Your weight moves over to your left thigh.
• Head is staying behind the lower body.
• Hips, lower torso, upper torso, chest, shoulders and arms are rotating or pulling to the left and in that order.

Making the correct body pivot will promote proper weight shift, encourage acceleration of the club head and induce proper release of the forearms and club. These principles will result in better consistency and longer distance in your shot.

Here you can see my spine is tilting to my left at address. This can encourage a reverse pivot.

Incorrect spine tilt at the top of the backswing is usually done in part by having a lateral motion (sway) of the hips to the right (away from target) in the back swing.  Rotation of the hips need to be the action in the backswing not a lateral swaying and sliding of the hips.

Here you can see that my clubhead was casted which means it has caught up with my hands prematurely (loss of wrist angle). This results in a loss of clubhead speed, clubhead ascending up into the ball, increasing dynamic loft, etc... this can often be attributed to too much lateral motion towards the target with the hips on the downswing. More body rotation will encourage the angles to be maintained. 

Here you can see my spine tilting correctly at address towards my right.

This picture resembles the correct tilt of my spine at the top of my backswing.