Instruction
The difference between pressure and weight in the golf swing
Understanding the difference between pressure and weight in your golf swing is an absolute must for golfers of all skill levels, and it’s something I cover in almost all my lessons. It’s not only crucial to a proper setup, but vital to making a powerful pivot and hitting longer, straighter shots.
Before we get into golf terms, let’s look at the terms pressure and weight in general. Here’s what Merriam-Webster has to say.
- Pressure: The weight or force that is produced when something presses or pushes against something else.
- Weight: A body’s relative mass, or the quantity of matter contained by it. The heaviness of a person or thing.
So how do these two concepts transfer to our golf swing? Usually, students feel pressure in their feet and believe that’s where their weight is, but this is a common misconception. To get my players to better understand the difference between the two, I like to break the body into two halves, both of which have weight and mass.
- Your upper half (torso and head)
- Your lower half (glutes, hips, and legs)
I like to have my students stand straight up from their golf posture, and then have them put their weight onto their lead foot, which is the left foot for a right-handed golfer. While maintaining what they feel as pressure and weight on their lead foot, I have them tilt their upper body back toward their opposite foot and hold that position. They now have pressure on their lead foot, but weight behind the ball.
Now, let’s examine the set-up position from the face-on view. How we address the ball in our set-up position dictates where both our pressure and weight are located, and where it will move when we pivot. One of the most important keys to the correct setup position is having a slight tilt to our upper body, so the right shoulder is below the left for a right-handed golfer and our head is behind the ball. This will put our mass behind the ball, even though we feel pressure in our feet. This makes it easier to return to our impact position and maintain our spine angle without any extra movement.
With irons, studies show the most efficient set-up position has roughly 55-to-60 percent pressure on our lead foot. That pressure will then shift to the inside of our right foot on the backswing.
How we pivot or turn during our backswing is the engine of our golf swing and critical to hitting straight shots. This is where being able to feel the difference between pressure and weight is vital to making a good pivot and maintaining our spine angle. Too many times, I see players try to shift their weight onto their trail foot, only to have their upper half fall back toward the target.
Players feel pressure loading up on their trail foot, but in fact, their mass and weight are moving in front of the ball.
A correct pivot and turn has pressure loading into our trail foot, while we maintain our spine angle. And the upper body stays back behind the ball.
To practice, check your set-up position in front of a mirror, or video your golf swing from the face-on position. Take notice of the relationship between your upper half and lower half, and make sure you have some tilt to your upper body. When you make a turn, make sure the angle from your upper half to your lower is maintained throughout the backswing, and your torso and head stay back behind the ball. Do this, and you will be hitting great shots in no time.
There may be no more painful affliction in golf than the “yips” – those uncontrollable and maddening little nervous twitches that prevent you from making a decent stroke on short putts. If you’ve never had them, consider yourself very fortunate (or possibly just very young). But I can assure you that when your most treacherous and feared golf shot is not the 195 yard approach over water with a quartering headwind…not the extra tight fairway with water left and sand right…not the soft bunker shot to a downhill pin with water on the other side…No, when your most feared shot is the remaining 2- 4-foot putt after hitting a great approach, recovery or lag putt, it makes the game almost painful.
And I’ve been fighting the yips (again) for a while now. It’s a recurring nightmare that has haunted me most of my adult life. I even had the yips when I was in my 20s, but I’ve beat them into submission off and on most of my adult life. But just recently, that nasty virus came to life once again. My lag putting has been very good, but when I get over one of those “you should make this” length putts, the entire nervous system seems to go haywire. I make great practice strokes, and then the most pitiful short-stroke or jab at the ball you can imagine. Sheesh.
But I’m a traditionalist, and do not look toward the long putter, belly putter, cross-hand, claw or other variation as the solution. My approach is to beat those damn yips into submission some other way. Here’s what I’m doing that is working pretty well, and I offer it to all of you who might have a similar affliction on the greens.
When you are over a short putt, forget the practice strokes…you want your natural eye-hand coordination to be unhindered by mechanics. Address your putt and take a good look at the hole, and back to the putter to ensure good alignment. Lighten your right hand grip on the putter and make sure that only the fingertips are in contact with the grip, to prevent you from getting to tight.
Then, take a long, long look at the hole to fill your entire mind and senses with the target. When you bring your head/eyes back to the ball, try to make a smooth, immediate move right into your backstroke — not even a second pause — and then let your hands and putter track right back together right back to where you were looking — the HOLE! Seeing the putter make contact with the ball, preferably even the forward edge of the ball – the side near the hole.
For me, this is working, but I am asking all of you to chime in with your own “home remedies” for the most aggravating and senseless of all golf maladies. It never hurts to have more to fall back on!
Over the last couple of decades, golf has become much more science-based. We measure swing speed, smash factor, angle of attack, strokes gained, and many other metrics that can really help golfers improve. But I often wonder if the advancement of golf’s “hard” sciences comes at the expense of the “soft” sciences.
Take, for example, golf instruction. Good golf instruction requires understanding swing mechanics and ball flight. But let’s take that as a given for PGA instructors. The other factors that make an instructor effective can be evaluated by social science, rather than launch monitors.
If you are a recreational golfer looking for a golf instructor, here are my top three points to consider.
1. Cultural mindset
What is “cultural mindset? To social scientists, it means whether a culture of genius or a culture of learning exists. In a golf instruction context, that may mean whether the teacher communicates a message that golf ability is something innate (you either have it or you don’t), or whether golf ability is something that can be learned. You want the latter!
It may sound obvious to suggest that you find a golf instructor who thinks you can improve, but my research suggests that it isn’t a given. In a large sample study of golf instructors, I found that when it came to recreational golfers, there was a wide range of belief systems. Some instructors strongly believed recreational golfers could improve through lessons. while others strongly believed they could not. And those beliefs manifested in the instructor’s feedback given to a student and the culture created for players.
2. Coping and self-modeling can beat role-modeling
Swing analysis technology is often preloaded with swings of PGA and LPGA Tour players. The swings of elite players are intended to be used for comparative purposes with golfers taking lessons. What social science tells us is that for novice and non-expert golfers, comparing swings to tour professionals can have the opposite effect of that intended. If you fit into the novice or non-expert category of golfer, you will learn more and be more motivated to change if you see yourself making a ‘better’ swing (self-modeling) or seeing your swing compared to a similar other (a coping model). Stay away from instructors who want to compare your swing with that of a tour player.
3. Learning theory basics
It is not a sexy selling point, but learning is a process, and that process is incremental – particularly for recreational adult players. Social science helps us understand this element of golf instruction. A good instructor will take learning slowly. He or she will give you just about enough information that challenges you, but is still manageable. The artful instructor will take time to decide what that one or two learning points are before jumping in to make full-scale swing changes. If the instructor moves too fast, you will probably leave the lesson with an arm’s length of swing thoughts and not really know which to focus on.
As an instructor, I develop a priority list of changes I want to make in a player’s technique. We then patiently and gradually work through that list. Beware of instructors who give you more than you can chew.
So if you are in the market for golf instruction, I encourage you to look beyond the X’s and O’s to find the right match!
Most pros take months, even years, to win their first tournament. Lottie Woad needed exactly four days.
The 21-year-old from Surrey shot 21-under 267 at Dundonald Links to win the ISPS Handa Women’s Scottish Open by three shots — in her very first event as a professional. She’s only the third player in LPGA history to accomplish this feat, joining Rose Zhang (2023) and Beverly Hanson (1951).
But here’s what caught my attention as a coach: Woad didn’t win through miraculous putting or bombing 300-yard drives. She won through relentless precision and unshakeable composure. After watching her performance unfold, I’m convinced every golfer — from weekend warriors to scratch players — can steal pages from her playbook.
Precision Beats Power (And It’s Not Even Close)
Forget the driving contests. Woad proved that finding greens matters more than finding distance.
What Woad did:
• Hit it straight, hit it solid, give yourself chances
• Aimed for the fat parts of greens instead of chasing pins
• Let her putting do the talking after hitting safe targets
• As she said, “Everyone was chasing me today, and managed to maintain the lead and played really nicely down the stretch and hit a lot of good shots”
Why most golfers mess this up:
• They see a pin tucked behind a bunker and grab one more club to “go right at it”
• Distance becomes more important than accuracy
• They try to be heroic instead of smart
ACTION ITEM: For your next 10 rounds, aim for the center of every green regardless of pin position. Track your greens in regulation and watch your scores drop before your swing changes.
The Putter That Stayed Cool Under Fire
Woad started the final round two shots clear and immediately applied pressure with birdies at the 2nd and 3rd holes. When South Korea’s Hyo Joo Kim mounted a charge and reached 20-under with a birdie at the 14th, Woad didn’t panic.
How she responded to pressure:
• Fired back with consecutive birdies at the 13th and 14th
• Watched Kim stumble with back-to-back bogeys
• Capped it with her fifth birdie of the day at the par-5 18th
• Stayed patient when others pressed, pressed when others cracked
What amateurs do wrong:
• Get conservative when they should be aggressive
• Try to force magic when steady play would win
• Panic when someone else makes a move
ACTION ITEM: Practice your 3-6 foot putts for 15 minutes after every range session. Woad’s putting wasn’t spectacular—it was reliable. Make the putts you should make.
Course Management 101: Play Your Game, Not the Course’s Game
Woad admitted she couldn’t see many scoreboards during the final round, but it didn’t matter. She stuck to her game plan regardless of what others were doing.
Her mental approach:
• Focused on her process, not the competition
• Drew on past pressure situations (Augusta National Women’s Amateur win)
• As she said, “That was the biggest tournament I played in at the time and was kind of my big win. So definitely felt the pressure of it more there, and I felt like all those experiences helped me with this”
Her physical execution:
• 270-yard drives (nothing flashy)
• Methodical iron play
• Steady putting
• Everything effective, nothing spectacular
ACTION ITEM: Create a yardage book for your home course. Know your distances to every pin, every hazard, every landing area. Stick to your plan no matter what your playing partners are doing.
Mental Toughness Isn’t Born, It’s Built
The most impressive part of Woad’s win? She genuinely didn’t expect it: “I definitely wasn’t expecting to win my first event as a pro, but I knew I was playing well, and I was hoping to contend.”
Her winning mindset:
• Didn’t put winning pressure on herself
• Focused on playing well and contending
• Made winning a byproduct of a good process
• Built confidence through recent experiences:
- Won the Women’s Irish Open as an amateur
- Missed a playoff by one shot at the Evian Championship
- Each experience prepared her for the next
What this means for you:
• Stop trying to shoot career rounds every time you tee up
• Focus on executing your pre-shot routine
• Commit to every shot
• Stay present in the moment
ACTION ITEM: Before each round, set process goals instead of score goals. Example: “I will take three practice swings before every shot” or “I will pick a specific target for every shot.” Let your score be the result, not the focus.
The Real Lesson
Woad collected $300,000 for her first professional victory, but the real prize was proving that fundamentals still work at golf’s highest level. She didn’t reinvent the game — she simply executed the basics better than everyone else that week.
The fundamentals that won:
• Hit more fairways
• Find more greens
• Make the putts you should make
• Stay patient under pressure
That’s something every golfer can do, regardless of handicap. Lottie Woad just showed us it’s still the winning formula.
FINAL ACTION ITEM: Pick one of the four action items above and commit to it for the next month. Master one fundamental before moving to the next. That’s how champions are built.
PGA Professional Brendon Elliott is an award-winning coach and golf writer. You can check out his writing work and learn more about him by visiting BEAGOLFER.golf and OneMoreRollGolf.com. Also, check out “The Starter” on RG.org each Monday.
Editor’s note: Brendon shares his nearly 30 years of experience in the game with GolfWRX readers through his ongoing tip series. He looks forward to providing valuable insights and advice to help golfers improve their game. Stay tuned for more Tips!
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Tyler
May 15, 2016 at 11:19 am
This is my kind of instruction! Something with scientific substance rather than blind tips to follow. Thanks! Can’t wait to give this a try.
Kelvin Kelley
May 15, 2016 at 2:06 pm
Glad you enjoyed it Tyler
N.
May 14, 2016 at 10:44 am
As some have stated it seems to me that this theory confuses terminology.
Weight is different to mass and that in turn is confusing the theory of ‘centre of mass’ and balance
In response to somebody’s comment the author wrote ”For example, shift all your pressure on your trail foot on your backswing, 100 percent of it, even lifting your left foot off the ground (right handed player) now tilt your upper half back to the left, in front of the ball. You can easily do both.”
This is just irrelevant as there is no other place for pressure to be located other than your right foot if only 1 is on the ground. If you do the same with both feet on the ground and shift 70% of your mass to the left, you move the centre of mass left also. You will feel pressure shift to the left to balance this mass.
Unless im completely wrong……Ideally it would be useful if somebody with pressure mats etc weighed in
Someone
May 9, 2016 at 11:43 pm
Sorry, an easier way to think of it is like a sprinter at setup on the start line. All their weight and mass is forward, but their feet have pressure on the toes despite being behind the mass/weight.
heman
May 9, 2016 at 10:03 pm
good article if you understand the terminology as used by the author.
Jeff
May 9, 2016 at 4:42 pm
Interesting article.
What I often see is a golfer actually lifting his left shoulder at address which partially tilts there torso.
I was taught to have level shoulders and slightly lower the right shoulder which can create a tilt.
Suited me and very easy to do.
Kelvin Kelley
May 9, 2016 at 10:00 pm
Jeff,
Glad you enjoyed the article. Having tilt to your upper body at address putting your head behind the ball is crucial to a good setup and making the proper pivot. A great drill to feel this is put your hands together (palms together) while in your golf posture and simply slide your right hand below your left, and let your upper half tilt.
larrybud
May 9, 2016 at 8:43 am
There is NO difference between weight and pressure in a STATIC position. IMPOSSIBLE. Our left and right feet have the same area pressing against the ground.
Pressure per sq in=Weight / Area.
dapadre
May 9, 2016 at 4:28 am
Very good article as this is a key element which is forgotten especially for beginning golfers. One question/TIP, why not also show a picture of a CORRECT backswing along with the incorrect you have.
thanks
LimpingBassoon
May 9, 2016 at 1:03 am
…?
LimpingBassoon
May 9, 2016 at 12:30 am
This article could have been great if the author focused more on the dynamic aspect of the golf swing.(movement and acceleration) However, he instead kept explaining only about the positional change during the swing(the static part), and regretfully, got it completely wrong.
The article went fine until this point,
“They now have pressure on their lead foot, but weight behind the ball.”
Nope. They still have both pressure and weight on their lead foot. Cold hard fact.
They might have the weight of the uppermost part of their torso behind the ball, but if you meant this you should have written more accurately. The total weight of the body is always distributed in exactly the same way the pressure is distributed, UNLESS there is some acceleration going on.
larrybud
May 9, 2016 at 8:39 am
@LimpingBassoon
[“They now have pressure on their lead foot, but weight behind the ball.”
Nope. They still have both pressure and weight on their lead foot. Cold hard fact.]
Exactly. If the position is static, you cannot have more pressure on the lead foot yet have the majority of weight on the trail foot, since presumably, our left and right feet are the same size, hence same area on the ground with each foot.
Kelvin Kelley
May 9, 2016 at 9:46 am
LimpingBassoon,
Thanks for the comment. You have obviously studied boditrak and pressure matts thoroughly and those are great teaching tools. Examining linear traces of pressure is always a benefit. How we take that information provided and teach it to students is more important, otherwise you just read numbers at your home computer. The point of the article is to maintain your spine angle throughout the swing and to get students to understand there is mass/weight to your upper body. For example, shift all your pressure on your trail foot on your backswing, 100 percent of it, even lifting your left foot off the ground (right handed player) now tilt your upper half back to the left, in front of the ball. You can easily do both. This would be an example of not properly using your pressure matt data, as we are now in an incorrect body position as the “incorrect” picture shows.
LimpingBassoon
May 9, 2016 at 6:36 pm
Mr. Kelly thanks for the reply, I also think that the main point you emphasized is hugely important, and every reader will benefit from the idea of ‘maintaining the spine tilt’! (regardless of how the explanation reaches the conclusion)
However, physics is physics and wrong is wrong. The basic concept of weight and pressure shift is incompletely/incorrectly represented in the article. Actually, I have no experience with boditrak or pressure matt(though I’d absolutely love to). But it doesn’t take serious experiments to know if the weight and pressure go together or not. They ALWAYS go together if there is no acceleration. It was simply wrong to say otherwise.
It is important to note that during the golf swing, the pressure DOES shift even if the weight does not. But it is not because of spine tilt. It is because the body and the club get accelerated during the swing.
TonyK
May 9, 2016 at 7:38 pm
Yes. Even with some acceleration. The amount of player’s torso lateral acceleration*upper body(mostly) mass relative to their body weight is small. The static weight simply dominates.
Monahan
May 8, 2016 at 10:07 pm
Good info. I like your explanation of weight and pressure, makes sense. Never thought of it that way.
Normal sized Adam
May 8, 2016 at 10:02 pm
Large Chris absolutely CRUSHING the swing thought game. Great read, thanks for the insight, kelvin.
Tom Duckworth
May 8, 2016 at 9:46 pm
I thought at the top if the back swing that I should feel pressure on the inside of my right foot.
Some golfers even lift their left heel off the ground a little. Then weight transfers back to the left at the start of the down swing. I must be missing something.
Kelvin Kelley
May 8, 2016 at 10:19 pm
Hey Tom,
Thanks for the comment/question. You are absolutely correct, pressure moves into the right foot on the backswing (for right handed golfer), as the article states. More importantly, we start with tilt to our upper body in our set up and maintain that angle throughout the swing. The article is to help you understand the importance of our upper and lower half in relation to each other, and understand that even though you feel pressure moving back, it may not be your upper half as well and you could be losing your spine angle.
Mike
May 8, 2016 at 7:49 pm
Large Chris, I don’t follow u and your explanation similar to a science experiment.
Joe Brenna
May 8, 2016 at 5:21 pm
Had trouble with balance and his instruction makes sense and helped me out from all the chunking… Added 20 yards and made me more consistent.. Thanks Bro…
Little Larry
May 8, 2016 at 3:32 pm
Easy there Large Chris, I don’t think we need to turn this into a Math Problem, golf is hard enough already.
10-8 Smizzle
May 8, 2016 at 3:55 pm
Pretty basic to those of us outside of West Virginia
joe
May 8, 2016 at 4:23 pm
10-8 Smizzle — yo common core math man. YOU and WV can eat sh*t.
10-8 Smizzle
May 8, 2016 at 5:34 pm
here’s the problem with public schools…
Rather than going there to learn he obviously went there to help the football team go 4-6
Since his favorite college team lost to WV he lashes out
Note: favorite doesn’t mean alma-mater
Large Chris
May 8, 2016 at 1:37 pm
“They now have pressure on their lead foot, but weight behind the ball.”
I appreciate you trying to explain the difference, but this sentence is meaningless. There is a little less WEIGHT going through the lead foot and more WEIGHT transferred to the trail foot. In this (strictly speaking static system) context, pressure is just weight divided by area, Eg the area of the foot on the ground (just the toe, just the heel, or the whole foot planted).
What the various pressure mat systems show is (at setup) static WEIGHT distribution between your feet and during the swing dynamic FORCES being directed through various parts of both feet.
LimpingBassoon
May 9, 2016 at 12:36 am
It makes me sad that this is the only person who understands correctly and everyone does not even try to put any effort to think again.
Large Chris
May 9, 2016 at 7:59 am
I assure you Limp it makes me sad as well, people muddling up simple physics terms and not seeing that it matters.
Cornfused...
May 9, 2016 at 1:40 pm
Here is the problem as it pertains to golf, and perhaps the teacher here is trying to get the student right without muddling it up with math. The proper setup for this example is a slightly tilted forward hip (there is your weight being 55% forward) but your upper body being tilted away from the target. If you tell a student that he needs to have 55% of their weight forward to create a static pressure being more on the front foot. The student will then lean their upper body over their left foot. No matter which setup philosophy you follow this will lead to disaster for a golf swing and possibly the students body. The thing here is that this is a golf problem, not a math problem.
Someone
May 9, 2016 at 11:40 pm
So for all the math/physics majors, I believe the best way to understand “weight behind the ball” is that the persons body mass is behind the ball, and to achieve that the inside of the left foot has pressure because it is supporting the mass. Think of the inside of the left foot as a support that is holding up a falling wall. All the “weight”/mass is behind the ball, but the inside left foot is the support stopping it from falling forward. So the mass (the persons body) is behind the ball whilst still having the pressure on the inside left foot. So not impossible at all.
Kelvin Kelley
May 11, 2016 at 3:56 pm
Someone,
Thanks for the comment. Another great way to explain the difference, well said.