When to rotate at the hips?

Ok, I did a search and didn't find too much on hip rotation in dealing with the follow through. I know that your belt buckle is supposed to be facing the target when you hold your follow through, but when am I supposed to start that rotation.

I try to keep my body as still as possible on the back swing, with a little more weight on my front foot. I think I'm turning at the hip before I actually strike the ball. Are your hips supposed to be in sync with the shoulder turn. Meaning when you get back to the address position of your down swing should your hips start turning with the shoulder, or before or after.

Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.

Flux

My hips always start the downswing. When I get to the top I fire them through without throwing my body forward across the ball.

As many instructors say. Big muscles lead the smaller muscles. So you must start your turn with your hips but don't let them out race your arms. It should be one fluid motion. Your hip turn should start just before your arms complete the back swing to create the maximum torque.

On the backswing, you start with hands, arms and shoulders all moving together, by virtue of the fact that the human body is articulated the hips will automatically turn to follow that shoulder turn. You don't actively rotate your hips on the backswing, it all happens. Note you must keep your right leg braced, it almost doesn't move on the backswing, it's the left leg that kicks in a bit to accomodate the maneuver. At the top of your backswing, your right left is bent the same amount as address and the knee is still inside your right foot... ie. it hasn't straightened or collapsed to the outside of your right foot. This is how you build up tension / power in the backswing. Those big back muscles are the engine of the swing, not your arms.

The downswing is different, you want to unwind the other way around, so hips release first and they keep on turning... the hips lead the shoulders through impact. This is how you get a nice inside out swing, leading with the arms is one sure way of coming from the outside and slicing!!!

You also mention that you keep your weight on your front foot. At address if anything you should have more weight on your back foot, 50/50 is ok though. You should accompany the backswing with a weight shift to the back foot, the release of the hips accompanies a weight shift back to the front foot.

Once you release your hips, keep them turning all the way through the swing, your shoulders will eventually catch up just after impact.

Thanks for all the help everyone. I wish I could've gotten all this before I headed to the course. Everything said here makes sense based on my performance today. I did notice that if I rotated my hips even the slightest bit on the backswing I was slicing pretty bad.

As for my weight distribution, I almost have to lean in a little bit, for some reason if I don't I'm scooping out chia pet divots. I'll work on that though, Thanks again.

EDIT: I guess I'm doing something right though. According to the eHow.com way of calculating handicap, my round today lowered it by 2 full strokes today!

The following is strictly my opinion and your mileage may vary (YMMV)! This is one of the most important (swing related) items you can work on. I believe it to be so important it surpasses every other swing component and is "possibly" second only to tempo. Just how important is the movement of the lower body? If done incorrectly everything related to the full swing 'can' be more difficult; lack of space through the strike, over the top (OTT), chicken wing (left elbow) and inconsistent ball contact, in other words, "an action dominated by the shoulders".

Thinking strictly about the hips leading the downswing (again, IMO) isn't the way to go. I believe the focus should be lower, starting with footwork and working your way up, the hips will react to what your feet and legs are doing.

In regards to the backswing, the shoulders do lead the hips. The hips react to the turning of the shoulders (think X factor). Is it a 2 to 1 ratio? Not sure, but the hips on average rotate about half as much as the shoulders. As TarDawg stated, you should feel a "coil" or winding up sensation (torque if you will) during the backswing. The above mentioned pertains to a conventional swing theory and not the 'stack and tilt' (S&T;).

What I like to focus on is getting the right hip over the right heel at the top, this ensures your weight gets off your front foot. It also keeps the right hip fairly level and prevents it from getting too high. From there, the move is to transfer the weight to the left foot (shoulders remain turned while the weight shifts from right to left). Once the majority of the weight has transfered to your front foot, the left hip should start clearing out (in other words, your weight has shifted to the left heel).

The above post strictly refers to my opinion and should be taken with a shot of Tequila.

Nicely put WorkerOfTheBall!

I also like to allow the left heel to rise slightly in the backswing as it allows a slightly larger shoulder turn. Welcome if you're as old as I am Replanting the left heel is my trigger for starting the weight shift back to the left.

I think the most dangerous hip rotation to occur would be one that starts too early, which is what a lot of players do as it should as stated in lots of instruction books and on TV increase the players distance potential, i feel that they do not explain it correctly.

In the downswing you have to get your body positioned correctly to achieve consistent strike and ball flight, if you rotate your hips too early this consistency will be near unachievable, for an example of this look at how much T Woods has slowed down his hip rotation since he turned pro.

IMO in the downswing by the time your hands have dropped down to waist height your hips should not be majorly rotating at all, instead they should be storing energy ready to unleash it, once you have reached the hands at waist level all your weight should be on the inside of your left thigh with your hips having not moved much so far in the down swing, once you are in this position you are free to rotate your hips as fast as possible and unleash all the stored energy, this is hitting the ball using your whole body to create club head speed, a good pro to watch as an example would be Stuart Appleby.