What is Spine Angle in Golf?

Spine angle is the amount your upper body is tilted forward from the hips at address. It is set by hinging at the hip joints, not by rounding the back. A good spine angle for an iron sits somewhere around 30 degrees from vertical, and the entire purpose of the angle is to give the rotating body somewhere to swing the club around — without tilt, the club has nowhere to go but a flat baseball plane.

The job of the spine angle in the swing is to stay constant. From address through the top of the backswing, through impact, through the early follow-through, the angle should not change. When it changes — when the upper body stands up out of its posture or the chest rises toward the ball — you get loss of posture, early extension, and inconsistent strikes.

The most common reason spine angle changes is that the player tries to make space for the arms by lifting the chest instead of letting the hips rotate behind them. Fix the rotation problem and the spine angle stays where it should. Fight the spine angle directly and you'll just feel stuck.