Don’t listen to this ‘disastrous’ golf advice, says Peter Kostis

Anyone who has played the game has probably heard some version of this advice:Keep your head down!“

While the advice is well-intentioned, and intended to prevent players from rising through influence and tip top, a top instructor says it’s advice you shouldn’t bother following, and in fact, doing so is “disastrous.”

“There’s nothing worse than, ‘Hey, keep your head down,'” he said Top 100 GOLF Teacher Peter Kostis on Kostis and Gary McCord’s latest episode Off Their Rockers Podcast.a GOLF production. “Keeping your head down is disastrous.”

Why is this? such bad advice? According to Kostis, it has to do with the composition of the spine.

“Your spine is made up of three parts: You have the lumbar spine, you have the thoracic spine and you have the cervical spine,” Kostis said. “And if you keep your head down, you’ve blocked the cervical spine. What will he do? It will reduce your ability to bounce back. And if you really keep moving forward, you won’t have any kind of sequel to speak of.”

To avoid this, Kostis recommends keeping the head relatively still in space but still rotating through the stroke, which he demonstrates using a long club.

“I’m going to put my head up against this stick, I’m going to adjust my posture,” he said. “So now I’ve set the angle of the spine, I’ve set the position of the head behind the golf ball. Now, what am I going to do? Well, I’m going to turn my head a little to the default right so I can make my full turn. Then when I come forward, I will stand with my head there again. And then as I pass, I’ll let my head spin.”

As Kostis points out, using the club this way will train you to let the head rotate in line with the swing, without moving up or down, side to side or back to front.

“It allows me to keep my spine angle forward and allows me to release the club from under me and not around me,” Kostis said. “Just like any other sport, you want to keep your eye on the ball.”

But instead of focusing on watching your club hit the ball, consider letting your head roll naturally at impact.

“That’s the only way you can end your pursuit,” Kostis said.

To see a video of Kostis’ advice, watch the full episode of “Off Their Rockers” below.

Editor of Golf.com

As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural women’s varsity player class, Jessica can blow away anyone in the masthead. She can also drive them in the office, where she is primarily responsible for producing print and online features, and overseeing major special projects, such as GOLF’s inaugural Style Issue, which debuted in February 2018. Her series The original interview, “A Round With,” debuted in November 2015 and appeared in both magazine and video form on GOLF.com.