You've probably heard this before but please don't discount what I'm about to say because it's so important...the posture that you setup to a golf ball with has either a great positive or negative affect on your golf swing. For example, your setup posture largely determines whether or not you can shift your weight and turn fully and without restriction away and through the golf ball.

This obviously has a HUGE effect on your potential distance output.

Also, your posture position at setup will largely determine how well you maintain your balance as you're swinging and how forcefully you can swing down and through the ball, thus determining how far you can hit the ball.

Yes, the posture you set at address really is that important!

But don't believe me, instead listen to what this pretty famous golfer has to say about it...

"You need to be in an athletically ready position so you can respond to movement quickly, smoothly and without losing your balance."

Tiger Woods

But luckily, having a good athletic posture position is really, really easy to achieve. Unfortunately most golfers either don't place enough importance on posture or they think their posture is OK.

Unfortunately most amateur golfers have very bad setup posture and sadly they don't understand that this has a huge negative detriment on their golf swing itself. But like I said a second ago, it's really easy to have good posture and here's a simple exercise to help improve yours. Here's what you need to do...

1. Stand up straight with your feet about shoulder width apart, then

2. Take the straightness out of your knees, then...

3. Place a club along your spine, and then

4. Now bend forward while making sure that your spine remains straight. And a very, very important point when doing this exercise is you want your backside to move back when doing this as it creates a balanced golf posture position. You want your weight to be on the balls of your feet when you're setup and it won't be unless you follow the steps I've suggested.

And finally.....

5. After you've bent over (by moving your backside back and keeping your back straight) the next thing you need to do is move your left hip (lefties move your right hip) slightly towards your target. Doing this automatically places your head behind the ball, which is just what you want.

6. Once in this golf posture position you can place a club on the ground in a position to hit a ball, and you probably will have to either bend over more or stand up straighter depending on what club you are using. For example, you will have to bend over more for a wedge than you would for a driver simply because a wedge is quite a bit shorter than a driver is.

If you really seriously want to improve then you should practice this setup exercise at least once a day. Hey, it only takes 30 seconds MAX and the consistency it gives you will be unbelievable.

About the Author

The professional golfer Nick Bayley has discovered from extensive analysis just one golf swing fault that could be stopping you from ball striking consistency and success. And now you can take a simple 2 minute golf swing test to see if you have this swing fault or not. To take the The Golf Swing Test go here now: http://www.yourgolfswingtest.com