The Biggest Secret? Slide Your Hips

***iacas*** · September 26, 2009

On February 7, 2023 I "sunset" this topic in favor of this one here:

This topic will remain. It has a lot of good information. The new discussion is an updated, refreshed take on this topic, and discussion is welcome and encouraged over there now.

Thank you!

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 are often quite a bit more open at impact than amateurs: around 40° or so with their hips, and 15-20° or so with their torsos. Amateurs are often square or even closed with both of those numbers.

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:

Pros hips are open to the target line at impact. Amateurs tend to be either (rarely) open quite a lot at impact or very close to square to the line (far more common) because they've pushed their butts toward the golf ball and are straightening up, which slows down pivot speed.
The left hip of the pros is much higher than the right (because it's pushing towards the target as it rotates). Amateurs tend to have very flat, level hips at this point.
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 often (not always) reverse this and get the shoulders 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 without going forward, 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.

Edited February 8, 2023 by iacas
Added sunset notice, link to new topic.

unoiron · September 26, 2009

Impressive analysis.

**Phil McGleno** · September 27, 2009

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** · September 27, 2009

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

**Ringer** · September 27, 2009

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** · September 27, 2009

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** · September 27, 2009

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** · September 27, 2009

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** · September 27, 2009

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.

***iacas*** · September 27, 2009

jamo said:
hip slide is bad on the

That may be true. And yeah, I'm talking about from top of the backswing down to the ball, of course. If your hips slide back on the takeaway or backswing, then you've likely got problems, indeed.

**Jemehl** · September 27, 2009

I once read that you should feel as if your belt buckle is sliding out and your leading shoulder is falling back.. Does this make sense ?

***iacas*** · September 27, 2009

Jemehl said:
I once read that you should feel as if your belt buckle is sliding out and your leading shoulder is falling back.. Does this make sense ?

It doesn't to me. Too much instruction focuses on increasing hip turn through impact, when really most hip turn in pros occurs after impact. "Belt buckle facing the target" is true in the follow-through, not at impact. Belt "out" makes no sense... where's "out"? The buckle faces the ball at impact (roughly), so "out" would mean towards the ball, it seems like.

**McGolf-Doggie** · September 27, 2009

Iacas: http://thesandtrap.com/forum/showthr...268#post360268

A post from "What are you working on?" where I quoted your thoughts on hip slide...

As I noted at the time, It was what I was working and it was paying great dividends.

Likewise I am stunned when I see instructors of one type or another seem to want to eliminate hip slide.

For me, ensuring I initiate the downswing with a good hip slide, especially on the downswing, is key to the longer clubs especially.

**WUTiger** · September 27, 2009

None said:
iacas noted in his summary: 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.

Point 2 is something I picked up on at my last lesson. I often came through with level hips, and ended up with a low pull of some sorts when I thought I was "staying with the shot." Right knee kick helps clear hips through the ball, increasing acceleration.

And, excellent analysis overall.

**KaiL** · September 27, 2009

If you look at the pictures carefully, you will notice the angle between the left shoulder and the left hip barely changed from top of back swing to impact....

The left hip goes from roughly 45 degrees right of target line to roughly 45 degrees left of target line. The left shoulder from 80-90 degrees right of target line to parallel to target line.

It looks like the right hip slide towards the target and the left hip rotate left 90 degrees and up.

**Uber$winG** · September 27, 2009

I like this video of Tiger’s swing. The rock wall in the background gives the viewer a static reference point to note the lateral move (slo-mo starts at 12-13 sec.).

***iacas*** · September 27, 2009

BTW, if you compare this picture to the earlier one of me showing two different positions (roughly "P6" or "shaft parallel to ground on downswing), you'll see some things in Phil Mickelson's swing that probably aren't the best.

I've heard more than a few instructors say that Phil should be glad he's talented, because his swing is a mess. And we all know he's not the most consistent fella out there.

Note a few things. I'll let you figure out which is good and bad.

A) Hips are only slightly open relative to target line (roughly 25 or 30°)
B) Shoulders are closed relative to hips (not as much as some might like, but not bad)
C) Heel lifting
D) Back knee kicked in towards ball

**allin** · September 28, 2009

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

The discussion hinges on something we higher handicaps struggle with, our hips do not post, our left side is not firm enough, also when we slide our head slides even more. We lack the ability to separate the lower body and upper body movements, plus our ability to maintain proper sequence and timing is limited.

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