It's Your Posture, Stupid!

I snuck out of the office today to meet with a golf pro that I am friends with. He was going to bend my irons so that they fit better for me. As he was fitting my clubs, he commented to me that I have a good golf swing and am hitting the ball well but if I improved my posture, I probably wouldn't need to have my clubs bent. I had been choking down on the club a lot which created a situtation where I had very little space to move my arms and body through my swing. So, I choked-up on the club shaft, straightened out my knees a bit and stuck my butt out so it looked more like I was getting ready to perform a squat in the weight room. This created a more "athletic stance" and room for me to get my hands and body through the swing. It immediately made a huge difference. Instead of the club striking the ball toe first, I was consistently striking the ball flush and getting better ball flight with a lot less effort. This has been the single best piece of advice that I have received from anyone regarding my golf game. I need to practice this new stance so that it becomes "second nature" to me, but it will be worth it. This probably won't shave a lot of strokes off my game immediately because I'm going to have to readjust my yardage with each club, but I've come to the conclusion that sometimes you have to take a step back in order to take 3 steps forward. I was also told that this new stance will help alieviate my back problems in the long run which is good because after two rounds last weekend, my back was killing me!