I slide my hips at the beginning and sway during the downswing, actions which inhibit their rotation and lead to lag loss. Worse, my hips would slide back, an action I've never seen in a pro golfer. I slid on purpose because I thought a good hip slide was important for getting on plane and preventing right elbow-right hip interference. Well, I notice that the one to two inch bump happens automatically in transistion and the extra, harmful slide isn't necessary. I need to rotate, withou swaying, my hips on the downswing, like good golfers do, to maintain lag pressure and stay on plane.

I've read and heard about the right hip/side firing through, posting up on the firm left leg/side, and clearing the left hip. My question is, what is a proper downswing hip rotation and how do I achieve this, especially in addition to stopping my sliding and swaying?

Thanks

That is a lot to ask. The most important part though is your slide back on the backswing. It is not an easy habit to break. It took a lot of work and study on my part to develop a backswing that would get the weight on my right side and not slide or overrotate the hips. You must correct that first I think.

The first thing you must perfect is keeping the flex in the right knee throughout your swing. Straightening that right knee in the backswing is a killer. When you take your address there should be a flex in your knees. Think about keeping the flex all the way back and through especially with the right leg. I mean literally think about it, visualize and feel that knee staying flexed the entire time. The next thought is blocking the hips from sliding. Look at your feet at address. Is your right foot flared out towards the back of your stance? Bring it back in. Have it exactly parallel with your target line. Take your back swing and resist that knee from moving backwards at all. You should feel a lot of pressure on your right leg. This means you are getting a good weight shift over the right leg which is what you want. If you slide back you will never get a good weight shift. You are trying to place your weight over a moving target.

Finally, when you have that really firm, solid base, take the club back with your shoulders almost exclusively. Don't turn your whole body to get the club back which is what you are really attempting to do when you slide I think.

See, not an easy thing to correct. I hope I haven't given you too much info. I am just basically describing my on journey to correct the problem. My final advice is to take some lessons where someone used video analysis. It is amazing how with a video and drawings lines on the images illustrating some faults in your swing how things becomes so much clearer.

Jazz...

Like you said, for a lot of people the bump happens automatically...try feeling like your right hip goes straight forward (in front of body, not towards target) in the downswing for a while. Rather than think of hip rotation focus on that right hip movement and see what you get.

Note: this is only a feeling to try for, in reality the hip will head towards the target but that will happen without the golfer making it happen.

QUOTE: JazzSinger @ May 23 2007, 10:07 PM

I slide my hips at the beginning and sway during the downswing, actions which inhibit their rotation and lead to lag loss. Worse, my hips would slide back, an action I've never seen in a pro golfer. I slid on purpose because I thought a good hip slide was important for getting on plane and preventing right elbow-right hip interference. Well, I notice that the one to two inch bump happens automatically in transistion and the extra, harmful slide isn't necessary. I need to rotate, withou swaying, my hips on the downswing, like good golfers do, to maintain lag pressure and stay on plane.

I've read and heard about the right hip/side firing through, posting up on the firm left leg/side, and clearing the left hip. My question is, what is a proper downswing hip rotation and how do I achieve this, especially in addition to stopping my sliding and swaying?

Thanks

Jazz,

This is great. To get your hip turn and slide just right. Take the club back with your right arm then uncock and roll it through to the finish and bust the ball till you start to puff. Then ease back til comfortable. Then notice how perfect the hip action was.

ph

PH, Great drill! Works great with only the right arm, but using both arms, no good. After range practice yesterday,I think a lightbulb ignited. In order to do that drill, my downswing needed to be steeper than I was used to. Why? Because my club was laid off at the beginning of the downswing. Recently, I had worked on getting on plane on the second part of the downswing, when the clubhead goes below parallel. I ignored the first half of the downswing when the butt end of the club is supposed to be tracing the plane line. Using a pen flashlight taped to the club, I discovered my backswing and the beginning of my downswing needed to be more upright.Rotation happens naturally. Will have to wait til the weekend to try it out. Those articles on the plane are gold. I am beginning to beleive that all major swing problems can be solved by being on plane. Must be a reason why there are no less than 4 articles on the plane, and I am predicting there will be more.

Jazz

The articles so far provide the basis for tinkering with different planes and what you can do with them, pro’s and con’s etc. Stay tuned as we are working on lot so fun stuff behind all the Iseekgolf website changes – Rome not built in a day as they say.

the hip slide is a natural movement and not initiated intentionally.

as you’ve seen in books. put an umbrella up against your front foot and when you’re up at the top of your back swing,

drop your hip and rotate forward like you would be completing your swing and follow through. your front leg should be parallel or touching the umbrella. what your hip has done is to drop and rotate.

it should feel natural.

i had problems with sliding hips on the backswing.. in my efforts to stop sliding, i brought about another issue.. i ended up locking my bottom half too much to the point where my hips at the top of the swing looked pretty similar to what it was at address. I was so fixed on stopping this sliding movement, that i stopped rotating my hips

When i saw this, i didnt realise i was even doing it.. and wondered why i was feeling strain in my lower back after a range session.. if you could imagine the strain it would place on the lower back when all youre doing is largely turning shoulders with little hip rotation..

i suppose its at least something to be conscious of.. proper rotation

I did similar to aimr…so focused on not elvis legging it I took out all leg motion…hips were square from addreess until after impact.

The good news is, from there you can train the correct moves in properly…not a bad way to go as part of the fix.

I think that it is a mistake to start the downswing with a rotation forward of the right hip.

The right buttocks must be kept on the tush line, and the downswing should start with a slide of the pelvis to the left so that two things happen simultaneously – weight is transferred to the left leg and the left leg starts to straighten AND the left buttocks is pulled back to the tush line. Later in the downswing, the right pelvis will passively rotate around to the left. If the right hip rotates too soon, this will cause roundhousing and pulled shots.

See this video for more details.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Jeff.

I did similar to aimr…so focused on not elvis legging it I took out all leg motion…hips were square from addreess until after impact.

The good news is, from there you can train the correct moves in properly…not a bad way to go as part of the fix.

haha yea…. the balance must go onto the front leg once the swing is finished. therefore the hip cannot be in the address position if the movement follows the swing.

final exams tomorrow morning…. wish me luck all.

The good news is, from there you can train the correct moves in properly…not a bad way to go as part of the fix.

yeah, i’ve been working on the correct rotation, and one thing i can say is that i simply dont sway any more

I think that it is a mistake to start the downswing with a rotation forward of the right hip.

The right buttocks must be kept on the tush line, and the downswing should start with a slide of the pelvis to the left so that two things happen simultaneously – weight is transferred to the left leg and the left leg starts to straighten AND the left buttocks is pulled back to the tush line. Later in the downswing, the right pelvis will passively rotate around to the left. If the right hip rotates too soon, this will cause roundhousing and pulled shots.

See this video for more details.

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Jeff.

I liked that vid.. will give it a try

I wonder if a stable pivot, especially the feet and legs helps with downswing rotation and keeps one on plane. At address, I am more or less flat-footed and on the backswing, I lift my left heel off the ground and my left knee turns and points towards the right leg. On the downswing, I normally am pushing off my right leg and foot and my right knee turns and points to the left leg. Also, I normally don’t get onto my left heel, and even if I do, my entire lower body is very wobbly. As toolish noted, I think a good starting point is to maintain a very stable base, trying to keep flat-footed and maintaining the address leg positions on both the back and down swings. Eliminate all that knee pointing. Depending on how one measures hip turn, I think one could be surprised that one can achieve a decent hip turn on the backswing with a stable base. I also wonder if people overdo the backswing hip turn to the detriment of balance and stability. That is a whole lot of wondering I am doing :)

JazzSinger,

You may be wondering but you are certainly right. Once a good hip turn is understood for a backswing it is not necessary to really work it very hard. I find that structure in the knees are very important and if done correctly at address the hips will be free to turn and accept the backswing motion.

Concerning the right foot I would prefer my guys to understand that it is not a weight transfer as such (I know you did not say that) but more of a Pressure Transfer. The knees will respond to this quite naturally.

With that video – I am not too big on the left hip being that far past the left foot . . . Like the idea though… very Elk… I don’t think there is too much post war Hogan there. Hogan covered (on top of ) the ball a lot more.

Anyone got any comments . .

Jazz . . not big on your leg action either… unless you are a bit older and just don’t have the flexability… some core work woudln’t hurt to firm that up.

With that video – I am not too big on the left hip being that far past the left foot . . . Like the idea though… very Elk… I don’t think there is too much post war Hogan there. Hogan covered (on top of ) the ball a lot more.

Anyone got any comments . .

Jazz . . not big on your leg action either… unless you are a bit older and just don’t have the flexability… some core work woudln’t hurt to firm that up.

i gave that drill a go and found the hip didnt go that far forward of the left foot as seen in the vid.. probably more so over the left foot and into the follow through. Maybe a bit exaggerated for teaching purposes?

Was wondering what people think of this as far as it being a solid fundamental to work on.. in particular that move from being fully coiled and then keeping the right hip tucked back and the left hip to rotate in line with the right..

I really like the idea, and when i tried it, it felt like a step forward for me.. but still interested in peoples thoughts

I like the drill a lot. Guru once wrote that 90 percent of swing woes come from the right hip- right elbow interference on the downswing. When people read that they are supposed to rotate on the downswing, I imagine they rotate the right hip and thus cause a roundhousing/over the top motion. Been doing that for years. Never occurred to me that one rotates the left hip out of the way first to avoid the right elbow-right hip interference. Yesterday, by not overdoing the left hip rotation on the backswing, and by delaying the right hip rotation on the downswing, I was better able to have my left hip reestablish contact on the downswing, and I struck the ball better by not going OTT. In my case, stabilizing the base doesn’t mean restricting anything. Just accomodating my swing to my level of flexibility. I think the instructor on the video overdoes the hip rotation on the backswing .Doesn’t suit my swing. Is that what the slide/bump on the downswing really is, reestablishing left hip contact?

JazzSinger, here are some ideas from my teacher that have helped me with the backswing: 1. Keep the head still. Set up and look at the ball, and keep the view the same – no eyes moving to the right. 2. As you make the backswing, the left knee moves directly out in front of you. You can see it on Hogan’s later swings. 3. Weight shift will be to inner right heel. This is the result of rotation. If you slide, the weight shift will be more to front/outer part of right foot.

I think that it is mistake to think of what the knees are doing, and the left or right heel, during the backswing/downswing pivot actions.

I think that one needs to think of the “bigger” picture – a mental image of the anatomy of the hip pivot action, which is how the right hemi-pelvis pivots over the right femoral head in the backswing and how the left hemi-pelvis pivots over the left femoral head in the late downswing/followthrough. There are useful anatomical photos in this review of the hip pivot action – http://perfectgolfswingrevi...

Jeff.

Jeff,

I agree accept for the Hemi, femoral head. Isn’t a Hemi some part of a car engine? And, isn’t the femoral head the “alter” at which we all pray??? Aw, just kidding, ‘cause I’m a B.F.M.F.W.N.C.F.T.O. (well just a little).

Rotation on the downswing??? What about forearms and hands and clubface? What causes what and when does it happen? Rotation on the downswing?? Shift this tilt that?? Sheesh, what about the forearms and hands and oh, and the clubface?

I think I’ll got back to the alter…...and do some more praying!!! Might try a little rotation.

Jeff,

I agree accept for the Hemi, femoral head. Isn’t a Hemi some part of a car engine? And, isn’t the femoral head the “alter” at which we all pray??? Aw, just kidding, ‘cause I’m a B.F.M.F.W.N.C.F.T.O. (well just a little).

Rotation on the downswing??? What about forearms and hands and clubface? What causes what and when does it happen? Rotation on the downswing?? Shift this tilt that?? Sheesh, what about the forearms and hands and oh, and the clubface?

I think I’ll got back to the alter……and do some more praying!!! Might try a little rotation.

yes Hemi is part of a car engine….. LOL

it is also part of music. a Hemi Demi Semi Quaver!

rotate the hipsss rotate the hps. hha

Jeff, Didn’t mean to disturb the thread. Your biomechanical input is a Godsend as I think this is an area all good teachers should become aware of to help build a noncompensating swing.

Our Mystery Man wasgiven a hard time for using the language of his highly educated field so I directed my humor toward yours…a bit. Hope no harm done!

Your reference to the language in your golfswingreview.com, for those who took the time to check it out, was very clear.

So, I thank you again,

spike

What about forearms and hands and clubface? What causes what and when does it happen? .

I am totally with spike here – the arms rotate throught he ball – remember PH and his uncock and roll – get that right and see what the body does . .. you will start to see it take care of itself . . .

Just keep the arms in front of the chest and uncock and roll…

I found a flail is great for learning that. A couple of pieces of wood, one shorter than the other so you dont lose a finger, joined at one end. works a treat and builds muscles in the left hand/wrist/forearm too