Balance and Your Golf Game

Maintaining your balance throughout your swing can make a tremendous improvement to your golf game.

Golf professionals all have different opinions on improving your golf, but most agree on one thing. Unless you keep your balance during the entire swing, you simply cannot have a good stroke. Keeping your balance should be easy right? If you are so tense that you’re crushing your club, tensing your entire body and trying to hit the ball too hard, it’s nearly impossible.

Golf balance exercises should be a must for every amateur golfer. One of the biggest issues with most amateurs is balance, stability and body control in their golf swing. 

So often I see a golfer swinging outside their physical capabilities and losing their balance, resulting in a severe mishit that will end up being a double or triple bogey.

There is a physical requirement to maintain your balance throughout your swing. Your golf posture is a very unnatural position for the body to be in at address, let alone throughout the swing.

Having a forward tilt over the balls of your feet requires a high level of both strength and flexibility in your hamstrings. Just get in your golf posture and reach back behind your upper leg to see how tight your hamstrings are.

If your hamstrings are tight and/or weak, you will have no chance at maintaining your golf posture and ultimately balance throughout your golf swing.

How about your quadriceps?

They play a critical role in keeping your golf swing stable. Rotating your upper body around a somewhat fixed lower body takes a tremendous amount of leg (quad) strength. Also your quads help maintain your knee flex that you had at address. If your quads are weak, your legs will straighten, causing you to come out of our swing.

As you can see, your golf balance requires muscular strength and flexibility. Without it, you’ll be falling all over your swing forever!

One great golf balance exercise (drill) is swinging and actually hitting balls on one leg. Give it a try! You’ll soon find out how difficult it is. But stick with it, and you’ll become a pro at it. If you can hit straight balls on one leg, using both legs will be a cinch.

A lot of golf performance training programs have the golfer do a majority of their strength exercises on one leg. It is brutal! It takes so much focus and concentration, you’ll be sweating before you even grab the weight.

There are dozens of golf balance exercises that will dramatically improve your balance, stability and overall control. It’s amazing how many golfers think these balance exercises are easy until they attempt a full set of just one exercise. 

They thought differently after that!

This could be your missing link to a great game! Focus on those golf balance exercises!

Work On Your Balance

As a beginner playing golf, you’re told quite often to not hit the ball too hard. Staying focused and hitting the ball with the center of the club will give you a longer shot than a swing that doesn’t hit at the club’s center, no matter how hard. Establishing your balance frees you to hit the ball correctly.

Keeping your head steady will allow you to focus on the ball. With your eyes on the ball, this creates a foundation for keeping you balanced. Movements or distractions that disrupt your balance mean you lose focus on the ball.

Keeping your body relaxed is the key. Relaxing your muscles and body will prevent your head from moving too much during the swing.

Use a mirror to watch yourself. This allows you to quickly realize that you need to relax in order to keep your head steady while you swing. Since your build and movements are not the same as mine, you’ll have to work out some of the details on your own. Work the most on keeping your head from moving about too much through your swing. Doing this will let you focus on the ball and you will make better connections because of it.

If you can improve your balance, you’ll see several problems disappear altogether. Eventually, you will grip your club correctly every time, keeping your balance and keeping your head steady, without even thinking.

A correctly formed follow through is also a good sign that you can keep your balance during the swing.

Concentrating on your balance, and strike will prevent you from swinging too hard. The amount of strength you put into your swing will be just right, and you’ll stay relaxed and finish successfully with a smooth swing.

Enjoying a great game of golf requires keeping your balance. This isn’t a quick fix, it’ll take time but you should start seeing improvement quickly, but be patient. Focus on maintaining your balance, and in almost no time at all you will be enjoying such an improvement your friends will be asking for your secrets.

Balance and Your Golf Game: Conclusion

Having good balance is something often overlooked by beginners and high handicappers. Improving balance during the golf swing will undoubtedly bring benefits to your ball striking and should improve your scores and enjoyment.