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I am taking golf lessons and the instructor wants me to have a more athletic stance spreading my feet out more and having a more inclined spine angle. It feels weird, like I am reaching for the ground. My spine angle with the 9-iron is around 30 degree now, it was 25 degree. The instructor said that he wants my spine angle to be more like 33-35 degree with the 9-iron. Do you guys have an opinion on this?

Rats! I keep forgetting to bring my protractor to the range.

If you subtract the lie angle of the club from 90, you will have a pretty good idea of what the spine angle should be for that club. If the club has a 60* lie angle, you need about a 30* spine angle. The lie angles of a set of clubs may vary from 57* to 64*. The standare lie angle for a 9 iron is around 64*, so a spine angle of near 26* would be correct. Why your instructor wants your's to be 33-35, I have no idea. Could be he want you to over correct what you are doing so that when he figures you'll go back to your old ways, your spine angle will be close to correct. That's a problem I see with a lot of instructors. they have you over correct something rather than have you do it correct. All this does is force you to come back for another lesson to "undo" what the over correction has done to your swing. It's a way of getting a life time of lessons from a student rather than one or two they really need.

I have a friend at work that wanted to start playing so I told him to take a few lessons and practice in between and then don't take any more lessons for awhile until he can make use of the basics he is taught. He wouldn't listen he has paid for 6 lessons in advance and the instructor is talking about signing him up for a series of putting lessons. My friend after 3 lessons is only allowed to hit a 9-Iron (according to his instructor) and won't even attempt to try and play a pitch and putt course until his lessons are complete. He sounds like he is being talked into signing up for further lessons series ( paid for in advance of course) and he won't listen to us and cut the ties with this guy This could takes months before he will even see a par 3 course witch is where he needs to be to develop the flow of the game and some gamesmanship.

I am 5'-10" tall, and I hit a 9 iron with about a spine angle of 18 to22 degrees from vertical. Less spine angle gives me higher club head speed, and better direction control.

Ask the instructor why? I'll bet he has a good reason, and this will allow you to get a better idea of the instructor wants you to work toward.

A greater spine angle allows you to turn your shoulders more, from my experience. Maybe you're having trouble turning.

Spine angle and tilt are important because of where it allow the right shoulder to go.

Stand too upright and your shoulders turn too level to the ground to effectively apply force on plane. Think about it. Your shoulder turns horizontally, but the arms are supposed to go at an angle to that turn? Ideally your right shoulder and hands should be moving roughly along the same plane.