Transcription
Milo Lines:
Hey, everybody. Welcome back out to Superstition Mountain. Milo here, along with Henry, and today we’re talking a little bit about head movement in the golf swing. Should you keep your head down and your eyes on the ball, or should you let them turn?
Henry Fall:
So this is a response to a recent YouTube question about what the head is doing in the golf swing. Now a lot of us have been told to keep our head down even through impact, but there’s also been sort of a lot of people that have been saying for the past, I don’t know, a couple decades now that you should have open up your head and let your eyes follow the ball, or even turn ahead of the ball. And you’re seeing this in some of the top players as well.
Milo Lines:
Yeah, for sure. The other thing I hear is you should keep your head still. And if you actually put a circle around a lot of the best players in the world, their heads don’t stay still, they move around a bit.
Henry Fall:
Up, down, back left.
Milo Lines:
Yep, the one thing you don’t see is a whole lot of movement from about here on. If anything, their heads might back up a little bit.
Henry Fall:
Right.
Milo Lines:
You don’t see their heads floating forward.
Henry Fall:
I would say that for us is probably the one big no no with the head, would be if you’re hitting a ball here is to have your head get excessively out in front of the ball.
Milo Lines:
Yeah.
Henry Fall:
Because you look at any athletic motion throwing a ball, playing tennis, baseball, their heads are always behind that object, they’re not getting out ahead of it.
Milo Lines:
Exactly. Cool, so let’s talk about some of the factors that dictate whether or not we should actually let our eyes turn or heads turn. Now there’s a thing called eye dominance, and are we all left or right eye dominant? No.
Henry Fall:
One or the other one, hopefully.
Milo Lines:
One or the other. Yep. But not everybody’s the same. So throughout history you can look through and you could see guys like Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, they kept their head down quite a long time, right?
Henry Fall:
Right.
Milo Lines:
Through the golf ball. We can also look through and see some of the best players that come to mind like Henrik Stenson, David Duval, Annika Sorenstam, whose eyes actually turned a long before they hit it.
Henry Fall:
Even DJ we see, especially with his wedges.
Milo Lines:
DJ with short clubs is really letting his head go.
Henry Fall:
Yep.
Milo Lines:
So I’ve actually done some studies on this and I know that Tiger Woods, left eye dominant, Jack Nicklaus, left eye dominant, Annika Sorenstam, right eye dominant, David Duval, right eye dominant, DJ, right eye dominant. So eye dominance can play a role. If you’re a left eye dominant player, it might not make sense for you to let your head turn. That would be really uncomfortable and disconcerting to take your dominant eye off the golf ball, right?
Henry Fall:
Yeah.
Milo Lines:
Where if you’re a right eye dominant player, as I turn, I can still see that ball out of my right eye. I can’t see … All I can see is my nose with my left eye, but I can still see my hand right here, even though my head is looking over here. So that could make a definite difference in what would be right for you. Yep.
Henry Fall:
That was really interesting, and you were actually probably the first person that ever told me that about their eye dominance and we hear about it in like putting and lining things up, but not really … You don’t really hear much about it in the golf swing and how it can play a factor in how someone’s head is moving in the golf swing. But let’s talk a little bit about during the swing, the head maybe moving to their trail side, the head might move up, or for you even if it actually almost goes a little left in the back swing in your lead side.
Milo Lines:
In my golf swing, my first move is a little move off, and then as I turn, I create spine extension, which actually moves my head back toward my front foot in my back swing. And then as I start down, it stays there and then backs back up.
Henry Fall:
Yeah.
Milo Lines:
So a lot of people say, “Wow, your head stays really still.” But when I film it, my head actually wanders around a little bit.
Henry Fall:
Yeah.
Milo Lines:
And as do most others, if you look at Tiger Woods from the 2000 era, his head would wonder kind of back off the ball this way quite a lot.
Henry Fall:
Yeah, and then you got Jack Nicklaus who kind of had his chin start pointing to the right a little.
Milo Lines:
Jack would co*ck his eyes like this so they would turn right on the plane, so he’s looking at the ball out of his left eye.
Henry Fall:
I wonder why that was, but I guess that also speaks to the fact that your head is also sort of on a plane or that tilt.
Milo Lines:
Yeah, so you can see as I’m bent over here, the brim of my hat is pointed on a plane and so my head can turn on this plane and be okay. What we really don’t want to see happening is my eyes getting tilted this way or this way excessively, because if that happens, it sends signals to my brain on which direction to swing. So if my eyes are co*cked like this, it’s going to be really easy to start swinging way from the inside, and if my head gets co*cked this way, it’s going to be really easy to start swinging like that. So it’s pretty important that our eyes work on the plane that they’re supposed to. So if my head is going to turn, I want it to turn like this and stay on the plane.
Henry Fall:
Right. Versus if you did that again and if your chin were to start face … Or that way, or if your chin was starting to face me or even come up out of it like that, a lot of things can go awry from there.
Milo Lines:
So I’m okay if the head turns like this, I’m okay if the head works up and down. I really don’t want to see the head going a long way forward.
Henry Fall:
Yeah, that would probably be the biggest no no in my mind.
Milo Lines:
And I really don’t want to see the head getting co*cked one way or the other. So those are the two real … Forward or twisting the head off plane would be the two no nos, but all the rest of the head movement is kind of natural. It should be in the back swing, I prefer to see the head work slightly to the right if it’s going to move any direction. I really don’t want to see the head moving to the left. Or maybe at the very top of your backswing, like mine. It moves a little right and then it stabilizes and moves back a little to the left. I’m cool with that because that’s just my upper spine extending.
Henry Fall:
Yeah. So I guess for our viewers at home, one thing to think about is if they are trying to keep their head down or in the shot, keep their eyes in the shot, stay in the shot. Or if they’re trying to rotate their head open is to consider what your eye dominance is before they make that change or try to implement that.
Milo Lines:
How do you figure out which eye is your dominant eye?
Henry Fall:
Oh, that’s another video we’re going to have to do now.
Milo Lines:
Hope you’ve all liked this video. If you have, like and subscribe and check out MiloLionsgolf.com. In the description, you can find a link to it. I’d love you to click on it, come over and visit us, where we can help you one on one get better at your game.
