The Biggest Secret? SLIDE Your Hips

[iacas]

Y'know, I see post after post after post on here where people either complain about their hip slide and their lack of rotation near impact or people recommend that you rotate more.

You know what a lot of pros work on that you never hear them talk about? Getting their hips to slide forward, to push forward all the way to impact.

It's easy to be misled, too. Even Hogan's Five Fundamentals book talks about "bumping" the left hip and then rotating through the ball, but that's not really what Hogan did. It's not what Tiger does. It's not what Sergio Garcia does.

Contrary to what Golf Magazine and Golf Digest will tell you, better players have relatively square hips and shoulders at impact. Their right knee pushes towards the target, rolling the right foot on the instep, not lifting up on the toe as early.

Here are a bunch of images for everyone. We'll start with one I've used a few times already:



Here's Tiger hitting a 9-iron of all things. Took the photo with my iPhone and I apologize for the DVR banner being in the first one, but the position is nearly exactly the same and it wouldn't really matter - the camera position didn't change:



And remember, that's a 9-iron. This is a big one so I'll just link to it: Tiger and Geoff posted up on their left side at the follow through.

Nick Faldo in his prime:



Some others (Baddeley, Scott, Faxon, Howell III, Montgomerie, Duval, Els):



Note also Kenny Perry's rolled right foot. He's not a short hitter either.

Click this for a final image showing the impact positions of quite a few pros. Check that out and compare them to the hip and shoulder positions of most amateurs at impact. You'll notice a few things:

1) Pros hips are slightly open to the target line at impact, but only slightly. Amateurs tend to be either quite a bit open at impact or square to the line because they've pushed their butts toward the golf ball and are straightening up.

2) The left hip of the pros is much higher than the right (because it's pushing towards the target). Amateurs tend to have very flat, level hips at this point.

3) Their shoulders are closed relative to their hips. Even Chris DiMarco - a pronounced fader of the golf ball - has his shoulders closed relative to his hips. Amateurs tend to reverse this and get the shoulders a lot more open than the hips.

This all ties into the hip slide. The longer you push your hips forward towards the target line, the longer your hands can remain on plane to deliver the clubhead on the plane. The instant your hips start spinning open the hands, clubhead, and shoulders all kick out over top of the plane, leading to a pull, a cut, a slice, or even a fade if you have absolutely perfect timing, but good luck with that.

Drill for this: put something (a little tripod perhaps between your knees, closer to your right knee than your left, and just towards the ball. Hit balls moving your right knee towards the target, not out towards the ball. You want to feel the right foot roll over onto the instep, the knee to bank inwards (again towards the target), and not to go out towards the ball where it'll hit the tripod or stick or whatever you've got positioned there.

FWIW, here I am demonstrating this:



I've circled and drawn lines on a few things. As with all of the above, they're not super-precise, but they're close.

First note the right heel and the knee. In the left photo the heel is lifting because the knee is kicking in. The hips are open and the shoulders, pre-impact, are already open. The hips and shoulders are the second thing to notice.

The last thing to notice is what it did to my club. Clearly the position on the right is a better position. The tripod is visible in the image on the right.

[unoiron]

Impressive analysis.

[Phil McGlenno]

Now why'd you have to go and let the big secret out? Now everyone's going to start hitting good golf shots and teachers like me will have to actually help students to improve rather than keep 'em hooked like we have been doing with a steady diet of quick tips and confusing lingo.

Seriously - this is a big key to the golf swing and it's nearly impossible to play good golf without pushing your hips forward or when you have dramatically open hips or shoulders at impact. Unless you're Jim Furyk, but that guy's a freak.

[hamletsdead]

Thanks for posting that -- very helpful bit of info, and jibes with what I do when I hit it well.

[Ringer]

Iacas, very good. It's absolutely right.

I have a fundamental disagreement with 95% of instruction on hip turn, and here you've nailed one of the reasons I came to my conclusions.

The front hip must establish itself over the heel of your front foot. Then your back hip must establish itself over the toe of your front foot. This is the ONLY way a person can BALANCE themselves on their finish.

So, pushing the right knee toward the toe of your front foot is key to this hip action as you have pointed out.

I describe the hip action as more of a dual door hinge.

Imagine your back hip is a door hinge on the backswing. Your front hip rotates around that door hinge when you make your turn. Then to make your forward swing, you need to switch the rolls of your hips. Now the front hip needs to become the hinge while the back hip rotates around it. Before your front hip can do that, it must establish a new position. The best place for your front hip to go is over the heel of your front foot. This is the furthest toward the target it can go without you loosing balance and affecting your ability to move the rest of your body.

Once this DIRECTION is done correctly, the speed can be however fast you want. In fact, the faster it is done, the better.

This is why I cringe everytime someone says the solution to their slice is to "slow their hips down".

The solution is actually to learn the direction you want them to go. Then get there as fast as you want.

[pshizz]

Why do you think gary player kicks his right knee in right before he starts his swing? It's so that at the top he can feel like he is pushing off of the inside of his right foot. I copied this move, and it have helped my accuracy and consistancy alot, not to mention increased my distance.

[McGolf-Doggie]

What a coincidence.

I hadn't played golf nor been on the site for a few weeks. After today's round I took a partner back to the range for us both to work on a few things.

This just happened to be what I worked on. The results were dramatic in terms of a more accurate ball flight with the driver. For me it was a missing link.

I was going to start a thread about this after a such a great finish to the day with the driver, but I guess it's already here. I'm still reliving those ballflights at 330 am in my sleep!

[tm22721]

I agree that if you don't get the secondary axis tilt right, nothing much else matters. OTOH it is the most difficult concept. Cannot be taught, cannot be learned. Must be earned.

[jamo]

I agree with everything you say but i have an opinion on hip slide:

hip slide is bad on the backswing. If you slide back, not only can you not rotate back, when you slide forward you will have just returned to your starting position.

I think a lot of people get this wrong because they hear "hip slide is good" and think backswing and downswing.