Position of head can be crucial

The position of the head can be crucial to a good golf swing. Yet what the "correct" position of the head is can be difficult to explain. It is so important, however, that I am going to dare to put forth the following guidelines:

* The neck should be relaxed. But the crown of the head should feel "up" or "high."

* The head should also feel "out," but still with the neck quite relaxed.

* The eyes, or eyebrows, or even ears if you like, should be on a line parallel to the line of aim.

* When you raise your head to take a look at the target or the fairway ahead or the pin one eye should come up underneath the other. Look "up and under." Don't ever look "round."

* As you return your gaze to the ball you can then, if you wish, turn the head slightly "under and up" the other way as Jack Nicklaus always has done.

Some golfers apparently try to look "under" the ball from behind it, so to speak. Others look down on it, or to a spot on the turf just behind it, as if looking at it only with the left eye.

There's no rule about this, or indeed about almost anything else in golf. The question is, what suits you?

All the same, try to carry your head the same way on every shot.

And I should have the neck relaxed . . . the eyes on a line parallel to the line of aim, so that as you look up you look "up and under" . . . and then, as an ancient Briton once said, "seeing under yourself."