Better Contact: How to Maintain Your Spine Angle Through the Golf Swing

If you’ve spent much time around golf, watching or playing, you’ve probably heard someone mention spine angle at some point.

It’s a concept not often overlooked in the golf swing but provides a solid foundation for you to hit a good shot. The key word, when it comes to spine angle, is posture.

So, maintaining a spine angle is good, both for your long-term health and immediate success.

What Does Maintaining Your Spine Angle Mean

Your spine angle is what your spine creates with the ground.

You can easily spot your spine angle. Here’s how:

• Have someone take a photo or a video of your golf swing from a down-the-line position.
• Now, you could draw a line down your back and on the ground.
• You’ll see a “V” forming. That’s your spine angle.

Setting Up With a Good Spine Angle

Before you measure the spine angle, you need to have a spine angle at setup. Many amateur golfers will hunch over the golf ball with their ball rounded rather than straight.

Your back has to be straight at the address and throughout the swing to maintain a spine angle.

Keeping the Spine Angle

Most of the issues in a golf swing come from increasing or decreasing the spine angle in the backswing and downswing.

When golfers do that, it becomes difficult to return to the same angle at impact while making solid contact.

So, make sure the angle created between your straight back and the ground at setup stays the same throughout the swing (until the impact has occurred).

Why is Spine Angle Important in Golf?

Following are the reasons why a spine angle is important in golf:

• It allows you to swing around your body in a fluid and natural way.

• It keeps your back healthier for longer, so you can continue to play the game you love.

• It allows you to swing around a centralized point and return your body and the club to impact.

• It allows you to generate power without sacrificing consistency.

When it comes to maintaining spine angle, I like to reference two images when helping golfers swing a golf club. They are:

• A pendulum: Because it has a fixed point, a moving point, and is connected by a line that swings back and forth, the pendulum makes a perfect reference.

The fixed point represents your head or the top of your spine.

The goal is to maintain your spine angle throughout the swing, leading your fixed point to stay still.

• A Tetherball: It’s a vertical pole that has a rope tied to the top. On the end of the rope is a ball, that’s about the size of a basketball. The goal is to hit/swing the ball in your direction all the way around the pole before your opponent does (in the opposite direction).

In this case, the pole is your spine, the rope-your arms, and the ball is your club. If your spine (pole) stays in place the whole time, the club (ball) will return to the same place as well.

How to Maintain Spine Angle?

There are a couple of things you can do to maintain your back throughout your swing:

Admit That Your Spine Will Never Be Straight

Your back naturally curves a little bit. The important thing is to set your back in a way that it’s naturally supposed to be.

For example, your lower back curves towards your belly button.

So understand that when we say, “Straighten your back”, we mean straighten your upper body and upper back. Here’s how:

• Take your shoulders and push them backward. This might feel like you are pinching your shoulder blades together.
• Next, push your chest out.

Note that when you’re straightening your back, it will feel like your hips are sticking out when that’s not the case at all.

The Key to Maintaining the Spine Angle

Once you’ve set your spine angle before the swing, you can forget about “maintaining” your spine angle.

Focus on your head and the top of your spine, instead. Keeping your head still throughout the backswing and downswing, until after impact, is what will be the key throughout your swing.

Another thing you can do is, imagine having a book on the top of your head and try to balance it there the whole time.

Drills to Maintain Spine Angle

Try out these drills if you want to maintain a straight spine angle throughout your entire golf swing quickly:

Club Down the Back Drill

• Address the golf ball.
• Take your club, without moving your back, and lay it down your back.
• The club should touch your back in the back of your head, middle of your back (shoulder blades), and tailbone.
• Once your back is set, move the club back to your hands and hit a few shots.

Feel free to check your back position with this drill every couple of swings.

Down-The-Line & Face-On Video

• Have someone take videos of your golf swing, both down-the-line and face-on view.
• Then, watch your swing in slow motion.
• Draw a line down your back from the down-the-line view and make sure it stays the same throughout the swing.
• On the face-on view, draw a circle around your head and make sure it stays in the circle throughout the entire swing as well.

Slow-Swing Drill

Practice a slow swing that takes about 1-2 minutes to complete where each move is done in extremely slow motion.

In this drill, all you have to do is focus on your back the entire time. This will help you learn how your body can move around your straight back.

Final Thoughts

Remember that your spine angle should change after you hit the ball. Maintaining your spine angle is important for the backswing and downswing. If you can keep your back straight and in the same position, with a twist throughout the swing, you’ll see a much better pivot move, more solid shots, and your scores drop.