The Secret to Hip Slide/Sway in the Golf Swing

[iacas]

Hip Slide or Sway in the Golf Swing

As some may know, I'm "sunsetting" and re-writing some older instructional topics. Next up is this one:

This is what I consider an "oldie but a goodie." I still stand by a lot of the stuff described therein, but I've made some small updates to how I teach it and how I understand it.

Late last year, some images I posted to Twitter were used in this Golf Digest article:

State-of-the-art images reveal one big mistake high-handicap golfers 'always make' | Instruction | GolfDigest.com

Those tweets are:

The images from that article (or, rather, similar new ones I made specifically for this topic) are in this gallery album. I may add more images to that album eventually, but for now, it's just weight shift/hip slide graphics.

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Defining Hip Slide/Sway

Let's define what we're talking about first. Simply put, hip slide or sway is motion toward or away from the target. This is motion in the plane of a face-on camera's depth. At setup, it's to the golfer's left or right. GEARS uses the convention that negative hip sway (as measured at the center of the pelvis) is away from the target and positive is toward, so I'll use that convention as well.

Though the golf swing is largely rotary, there is some "translation" or sway or sliding of the hips in this plane. If you picture a golfer's pelvis as shaped somewhat like an oval — most golfers are wider than they are "thick" — the image illustrates what I'm talking about with regards to "sway." This image is from an "overhead" perspective of a righty golfer with the target to the right.

On the left, the golfer has rotated only. On the right, the golfer has shifted or swayed back slightly during the backswing, and shifted or swayed forward a decent amount throughout the downswing† and follow-through.

The left pattern (or one that involves too much sway away from the target) is exhibited by many bad golfers, and the right pattern by the majority of the game's best players. For example… Here are a selection of professional golfers in GEARS. Some are men, some women. Some are hitting driver. Some sway as little as 2 or 3 inches, some as much as 8 or more. Again, full-size versions of these images are in this album.

It's clear that these golfers have not only rotated, but somehow moved the center of their hips forward. Before we had 3D tools like GEARS, some people would say this was an illusion because the golfer "rotated." I believe the blue oval graphic above dispels that myth — and more closely represents what you see from the GEARS images here with the right-side "Sway + Rotation" part of the graphic.

Hip sway is a big part of how golfers create axis tilt:

But… I Thought Hip Slide was Bad?

If nearly everyone playing the game for a living moves their hips toward the target during the downswing, it's clearly not a bad thing. Sure, you'll occasionally hear people say "I got ahead of it" or something, and there are cases where amateur golfers will slide their hips too far, but on the whole, amateurs stink at getting their hips to move forward properly.

Whatever you call it — sway, slide, transfer, flow, weight shift… — it's a good thing in the proper amount.

Let's take a look at a number of ways to get it done. I'll start with what I consider to be a great example. You will see from the poster frame that I've highlighted and inset the hips themselves. I've turned on the "Bones" Wireframe as well as the "Ball Position Line" so that you have a constant reference point. This is a Tour player and major champion. The video slows down late in the backswing through the downswing.

Here's the same video from a traditional Face-On camera (not the "perspective" look like above). It will play at three different speeds.

From the early backswing, where this golfer has shifted slightly to his right, to impact, the center of his pelvis covers 6.9" in going from -1.4" to 5.5" at impact:

A closeup look at the way this golfer's hips move are fairly revealing.

Do you see that? Not only do this golfer's hips move forward, they move downward too. We'll re-visit this later on. For now, some more videos. I'll keep the commentary light, but we'll start off with a closeup view of a top-ranked LPGA Tour player hitting a driver (with an interesting ball position for a driver):

In that video, you'll see the same sort of movement: down, forward, and around. In the next video, a multiple-time Tour winner… who doesn't do much of the "down" you see from the above, instead opting to go from -1.6" to 6.9" (a shift of 8.5"), almost all of which occurs during the downswing.

The golfer above, a Tour winner, doesn't go back (negative sway) much, but pushes forward a good bit as well, ending up 6.4" forward at impact. 

Another Tour winner here without much downward movement, but a good bit of forward. This next video, #7, is not a Tour winner, but a student of mine who absolutely crushes it. 7I clubhead speed was upwards of 104 MPH.

He's also a tall guy at about 6'5", hence the wider stance and slightly larger forward sway. We'll continue our run of major champions with a female major winner:

This includes both a driver and an iron swing, and you can compare the two. For now, I'll just note that she doesn't move quite as far forward relative to her starting position (about 3.2" versus 5.4"). Next up, a major champion and one of the more studied swings in professional golf…

A bit less hip sway than others have shown… but note the slightly back ball position. Three more (in two videos). Next up, #10, is a two-fer — one golfer is a major champion and the other is not chopped liver, with multiple PGA Tour wins and many top-three finishes in majors. I put them together as they have a similar move despite arriving at the top of the backswing differently:

If you watched those videos, you'll notice the same thing in common that forms the topic here: the pelvis (hips) of professional golfers move target-ward during the golf swing.

Okay, okay! I believe you! But…

How do I Slide Forward Properly?

If there's one thing about this that's changed in the dozen+ years that I've been teaching, it's that I used to teach a more "active" hip movement whereas I now teach a more "passive" one (feel ain't real, but it's really close here). Long-time members will know I never really taught "pushing off," but I did teach players to more actively move their hips forward. And, depending on the player, I sometimes still do a little. As you saw above, some pro golfers appear very much to be moving their hips forward pretty actively.

How do I ask golfers to get forward now? If you think back to when I described the motion of the hips in many players as "down, forward, and around," the clue is the first word: down.

Picture a right-handed golfer standing at address who then just picks up his left leg without shifting his center of mass entirely over his right foot. He'll start to lean and fall to his left, yes? Of course! Kinda like this image to the right (you'll have to imagine he picks up his left leg).

Assuming Rory's right leg remained in place and the same length, his right foot would act as the center of rotation and his body would "rotate" down and forward. Rory's left hip (the green dot) would trace an arc with a "yellow line" radius around the right foot. Gravity's a son of a gun…

… but in this case, it's quite helpful. Golfers can be more passive about getting their pelvis/hips to move forward by using gravity to their advantage.

If you flex the lead knee, lead hip, and to a small extent the lead ankle, you're effectively shortening the lead leg, and your body will start to "tip" or "fall" in that direction — down and forward. It turns out… this little bit of falling is often more than enough to get the golfer moving in the right direction.

I describe this motion as "falling" (you can see this back in the COVID practice plans on Day 10 at about 2:45 in that day's video) because effectively you are. Falling is very passive. Gravity is always trying to pull us closer to the earth, so if we let it — if we "soften" the lead leg (ankle, knee, hip) — we can get our pelvis moving forward with very little effort.

So the mechanics are often simply:

• At some point† in the swing we "fall" a little by softening the lead leg.
• When we've fallen "enough," we extend the lead knee. Often this is done fast.
• We're turning almost† the entire time, but the extension of the lead knee really kicks that up a notch as it can push the lead hip "back" away from the ball.

Now, you might be thinking… "Erik you keep using the word fall, but falling is downward, and this topic is about the hips going toward the target." And to that, I'll just point to the red arrow, and call to mind something like this:

This tree falls by going forward for the most part at first, just like you will do if you soften your lead leg. 😀

† What's the Timing?

A few times above, I put a little cross to indicate that I had more to say. The first time was when I said you move your hips forward during the downswing, right beneath the graphic with the blue ovals.

Turns out… this "fall" begins well before the start of the downswing. It begins during the backswing. In another topic, I described the golf swing from a rotation and a "shift" as:

On 12/27/2022 at 10:56 PM, iacas said:

⬅️⬅️⬅️______➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️➡️

__↩️↩️↩️↩️↩️↩️↩️__↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️|↪️↪️↪️↪️↪️

In other words, golfers often shift back a little before they turn back, then shift forward again while they're still turning back! (If I was being picky about it, I'd have tried to find a way to draw some much smaller arrows as you do continue forward a bit throughout the whole downswing and into the follow-through.) The initial shift back, in fact, gives golfers a little more "room" to build momentum. It gives them a little more room to fall.

The golf swing has been described as two shifts and two turns, but they overlap. The forward shift overlaps both turns!

As a generalized template:

1. Your backswing starts with a small shift to the trail side. This may be before the clubhead has moved, it may be concurrent, it's rarely after.
2. This small shift back is often "done" before the golfer gets to A2.
3. From A2 to A3, the golfer winds "up," staying against the wall somewhat.
4. From A3 to A4, the golfer "re-centers" by letting the lead leg "soften."
5. This falling increases in momentum throughout the downswing, until the golfer "lands" over his lead leg, after which he can extend it.

I explained both the backswing and the downswing motion here:

Here's an Instagram Reel video of my daughter @NatalieB doing a "stepping" drill (man, I wish you could still embed IG videos):

Erik J. Barzeski (@iacas) • Instagram reel

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92 Likes, 0 Comments - Erik J. Barzeski (@iacas) on Instagram: "When golfers are trying to fix the “flow” or shifting in their golf swings, asking them to throw a ball, pick up and set down their front foot, or take a...

By "stepping," her body is going to start falling left pretty early, because she needs extra time to pick up her foot, move it forward a bit, and let it settle onto the ground. (If you do this drill, be careful not to lean toward your trail side and elevate your lead hip to lift your foot off the ground — try to do it a little better than Natalie did by bending the hip and knee to "shorten" the leg to pull it off the ground).

I often call this whole move "Load and Explode." As you fall, you "land" on your lead leg quads/hamstring. After you've lowered onto that side a bit, the lead knee extends quickly, almost violently, to push the lead hip back (away from the ball) and to really spike the rotation rates later in the downswing. You get a lot of good things out of this, some parametric acceleration, good GRF, etc.

"Load and Explode" is basically one-legged jumping. Think about it this way: if you're standing there, and someone says "jump as high as you can," you'd first lower yourself by softening (bending) your hips, knees, and ankles. Then you'd rapidly extend them to propel yourself upward. The same is true in the golf swing, but to a smaller extent and just with your lead leg: you soften (bend) the joints in the lead ankle/knee/hip, then extend them rapidly. It's one-legged jumping.

Okay, so How do Amateurs Screw This Up?

I'm so glad you asked. 😉

Like I said, some shove their hips really far forward. This often requires very "active" muscles, not the "passive" ones (for the falling part) that I prefer.

The first video shows a golfer who used to sway his hips back (away from the target) 4-5 inches, and worse than that, he did so really late in the backswing. Right at the time he should be building momentum and his fall should be picking up pace going forward, he was going the opposite direction. To compensate, he would very actively shove his hips forward.

You'll see he's cleaned up the backswing and eliminated the big, late sway away from the target, but his muscles are still trained go shove forward far, because before, they had to.

This golfer gets 9.1 freaking inches forward of where he started at impact! You'll notice that his backswing is pretty good. He's building the momentum, he's moving forward, and he gets to the top (change of direction of the club) fairly vertically — he's not leaning away from the target or arching toward the target. His hip sway away used to lead to an almost left parentheses look at the top: (. Now he looks like… |. 😉

Because he used to be -4" to -5" at the top, he trained himself to shove his hips 9 inches forward, because at least that would get him to 4 or 5" forward around impact. You can see in this video that because he's focused on moving "forward" so much, he has no real time to "load" or "fall" because he's gotta get 9" forward in about a quarter of second!

This next golfer demonstrates a fairly common pattern:

The left parentheses I mentioned about the former guy? You can see a bit of it here. And, though this guy gets 6.1" or so forward at impact, notice:

• He's still over 2" back at the end of his backswing.
• This robs him of the time he needs to "load" or "fall" so he, too, just forces his hips across.
• Notice that the downswing begins almost entirely with rotation: his arms (and the club) stay "up," his left hip starts rotating out of the way, and he floats forward.
• The back ball position (similar to the above student).

Oy. 😄

Speaking of "floating" across… this is the type of golf swing I describe as "swinging on stilts." If you replaced your legs with a pair of 2x4s (literally pieces of wood), your swing might look a bit like this (from two angles because it's particularly bad! 😄😞

🤮The golfer is in a decent spot at about the 7-second mark, and then… his legs turn into stilts.

Here's that golfer's "pelvis lift" graph compared to a four-time major champion who has appeared a few times in this article…

The four-time major champ is in blue, the golfer on stilts is in yellow. What you're looking at here is the relative elevation (from setup) of the center of the pelvis throughout the swing. The dotted line is impact, and the lines to the left correspond to the top of each golfer's backswing. The left side is in inches.

Rory (whoops), as you can see, is going down slightly most of the backswing, then as he begins falling (before the solid vertical blue line), he lowers more than one inch in total. My student, on the other hand, lowers a bit during the backswing, but is actually rising throughout the transition and the entire downswing. You can see that on video, but to see it in a graph like this highlights just how little he loaded (or how quickly he un-loaded).

My penultimate example is rare for two reasons. First, he's going to turn a LOT more than most golfers are even capable of turning. The video plays through a bit faster the first time, then pauses briefly twice on the downswing. You'll note that his pelvis turns about -40° during the backswing. I pause briefly the first time when he reaches PGA Tour average for pelvis turn at impact (around +40°), and then pause again at impact so you can see his total backswing to impact hip turn. And second, because he spends so much energy turning (and he does so very EARLY), he doesn't get forward much.

2.1" and about 110° of total rotation, backswing to impact. That's INSANE. And, so much speed is expended early, so he can't use it late.

Anyway, that is not typical. This is, though:

This golfer pulls himself about 4" forward… by the end of his follow-through. I say "pulls himself" because the club and his arms basically "pull" the rest of his body through to a finish. At impact, he's a paltry 0.2" forward, and even late in the backswing he's moving a tiny bit to his right. This is a "turn, turn" golf swing without much shifting at all. The golfer "fakes" a good finish, but just turns. He doesn't "load" into the right side, and he doesn't shove himself forward, either. He just tries to turn. The result is a lot of poor contact and less power than he can generate if he uses his legs and body more appropriately.

Common Mistakes

• Not shifting back much (see the footnote just below) early in the backswing. This robs you of having a little more forward momentum.
• Shifting back late in the backswing. Golfers who do this are going the opposite direction at the wrong time.
• "Actively" shoving your hips forward. This is often either a learned behavior or a compensation for something else, like getting the trail elbow stuck and needing to push the whole hips/elbow "group" forward to try to hit the ball cleanly.
• "Floating" across. Sure, the hips get forward, but there's no athleticism to their motion.

Footnote: this topic is about shifting forward, hip sway/slide in the forward direction. See any "flow" threads to talk about the backswing shift. Also, I still teach a lot of newer players to "just turn" on the backswing, because you can still fall forward from a centered position. It's not the best but it simplifies things, and for someone trying to break 100 or even 90, sometimes a centered, non-shifting backswing is all they can handle as they work on and focus on other, more important things that will contribute more than a 2" shift.

Pop Quiz! (In the spoiler in case you're feeling a bit lazy today 😄)

Spoiler

Here's one of my Instagram videos. The cross in this video is drawn on the golfer's left hip at the transition (the video includes a portion of the backswings of both golfers). The blue golfer is the same as the first video used in this topic, and the gold golfer is a student. What does this student do? What should he do?

Erik J. Barzeski (@iacas) • Instagram video

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7 Likes, 2 Comments - Erik J. Barzeski (@iacas) on Instagram: "Does your lead hip motion more closely resemble the left/gold golfer or the right/blue golfer? Video on this coming soon(ish)… #golf #golfevolution...

Leave your answer as part of your reply if you'd like.

Quick Question… Does "Down" = Speed?

The answer to this is complex. The short version? Yes, it can. The long version? Well, there are a lot of things going on during a golf swing — hips are turning, arms are lowering, wrists are unhinging, weight is shifting. Any and all of those things contribute to speed. Witness the shorter backswings of Tony Finau and Jon Rahm, for example, to show that you don't necessarily need 120°+ of shoulder turn like Rory McIlroy to hit the ball far.

But, generally speaking, and within the context of playing golf (as opposed to long drive competitions)… yes. The more you load, the more you can explode. To a point.

"Down" is a means to an end… it lets you build momentum "easily" (passively). It gets your body in a position to be athletic and explosive. How far down should you go? I generally recommend you go as far down… as you can get out of. If I try to drive down a bunch, I stick the club in the ground six inches behind the ball, because I'm not explosive enough to get back "up out of the ground."

Discussion

Let's discuss! Though I know the old topic was well-read, and helped a lot of golfers, I want this new one to have some activity, too. Are you at a point in your game where you're working on this?

If you are looking to do this, there are some drills at the 30-Day Practice Plan, and elsewhere on the site. Also, I regard the above as a "living" document, so I'll occasionally make some changes to it. I may edit it occasionally to link to posts later in the discussion (in addition to fixing any typos or clarifying something). So… discuss! Post. Ask me questions, share your own videos. Posting keeps the topic toward the top of the forum, too, and bubbles it up on search engines, etc. so more golfers can see this information and join the discussion.

So, questions? Comments? Whaddya got?

30-Day Practice Plan - Golf Evolution

[saevel25]

Great summary and and update on the topic.

It makes sense from an athletic perspective. A lot of athletic motions have this kind of flow/momentum built in. That flow/momentum is done by this counteracting motion. 

2 hours ago, iacas said:

Common Mistakes

• Not shifting back much (see the footnote just below) early in the backswing. This robs you of having a little more forward momentum.
• Shifting back late in the backswing. Golfers who do this are going the opposite direction at the wrong time.
• "Actively" shoving your hips forward. This is often either a learned behavior or a compensation for something else, like getting the trail elbow stuck and needing to push the whole hips/elbow "group" forward to try to hit the ball cleanly.
• "Floating" across. Sure, the hips get forward, but there's no athleticism to their motion.

The third one I did because it gave me time to get the swing back down due to how much I overswung. I was much more of the hip slide, upper body stay back, get the hands down and time up impact. 

I do like the falling feeling, or maybe sinking down into the left hip/knee. This is giving me time in a different way, allowing me time to get my hands down. 

Right now, this is something I am working on the timing of. When we first added this as a secondary item to work on, it was really quick to pick up. It is falling/sinking into my left knee before the club finishes the backswing. Starting somewhere around A3-ish. For me, it is split second feeling, then I need to explode upward with that left leg. It's like, as soon as I feel the pressure build, explode up. 

 

[boogielicious]

Falling is part of what we worked on in Erie. The key for me was to not let my hip center move towards the ball in the backswing but instead to shift away from target. That made it easier for the fall to set me up to move my hips forward properly. I think I have changed the picture on that.

[GolfLug]

Outstanding post. Of the common faults it became clear from my GEARS visit that I both sway and thrust my hips. Not falling very well either to post up to lead and then swing very well from my swing videos. Quite a bit of work in the last year and thankfully some improvement.

I do think I have poor arm dynamics to be some what self defeating towards core improvement. Need to tie all of it together.  

[cedrictheo]

This is so good. I especially like seeing how the “ideal movements” evolve over the years and @iacas ‘s willingness to update his opinion as he gets more information.

My experiences with these moves: recentering happens naturally if I shift back early. The fall is surprisingly subtle (perhaps because I have a history of thinking I should push my hips forward as much as possible throughout the entire downswing). Knee movement (especially one that leads internal hip rotation on the lead leg) is important to get the right hip movements.

Reflecting on where I’ve come from (S&T) and how I see things now has me realize that phrases like “hips forward” are too one sided for them to help. I think that way of phrasing things lead me to overdo stuff. What I prefer now are ranges of acceptable movements. As an example… shift pelvis 0-2 inches back from P1-P2.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, cedrictheo said:

My experiences with these moves: recentering happens naturally if I shift back early. The fall is surprisingly subtle (perhaps because I have a history of thinking I should push my hips forward as much as possible throughout the entire downswing). Knee movement (especially one that leads internal hip rotation on the lead leg) is important to get the right hip movements.

That reminds me of two things, and I may update the OP to point this out. I think it actually warrants a new post (in this topic) on it, though, actually.

Thing 1: The move is small, because if you "fall" an inch or two at the right time, you're going to fall 4 or 5. So if you fall early enough, and the right way, you can almost focus entirely on the rotation. Which explains why a lot of good players — guys or gals who do that fall piece without thinking about it — can say "I just turn as hard as I can." If you don't have that fall part, the "turn as hard as I can" looks like Video #14.

Thing 2: If you watch the left knee in video 14, you'll see it whipping around. It points toward the ball almost at the top of the backswing, then part-way into the downswing it's already pointing 45° toward the target. Good players often keep the lead knee pointing more toward the ball longer into the downswing. When it turns while it's flexed, your hips stay back.

I'll clarify the second in a video. It may take a little while, but I'll add a link at the bottom of the OP when I post it here in this discussion.

P.S. Only three likes on the first post? Man, tough crowd here. 😉

[dennyjones]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

P.S. Only three likes on the first post? Man, tough crowd here. 😉

ha ha!  They are all practicing!

[JetFan1983]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

P.S. Only three likes on the first post? Man, tough crowd here. 😉

You've got one incoming from me soon since I can already tell it's good. It's a lot though, and I want to read through the entire thing first. Plus there are a lot of links to click as well. I'm not complaining, just that I'm going to set aside some time soon to go thru the whole thing! Looking forward to it!

[Wanzo]

 

19 hours ago, iacas said:

Are you at a point in your game where you're working on this?

Yep 😉

Trying to work on the fall being a little more passive by softening the lead leg.

19 hours ago, iacas said:

Though the golf swing is largely rotary, there is some "translation" or sway or sliding of the hips in this plane. If you picture a golfer's pelvis as shaped somewhat like an oval — most golfers are wider than they are "thick" — the image illustrates what I'm talking about with regards to "sway." This image is from an "overhead" perspective of a righty golfer with the target to the right.

This image was particularly helpful for me to visualize the goal.  For the longest time, I've tried to work on a "centered pivot" and would have thought the left image is more ideal.

 

19 hours ago, iacas said:

Here are a selection of professional golfers in GEARS. Some are men, some women. Some are hitting driver. Some sway as little as 2 or 3 inches, some as much as 8 or more. Again, full-size versions of these images are in this album.

Over the years, I've been concerned with "running ahead" of the ball in my downswing.  In some of these images, the pro's head ends up ahead of address and some behind.  So this might be a question specific to me, but does it matter to you so much where the head ends up at impact?  Sometimes when practicing the fall piece, I'm worried that I'm practicing running ahead of the ball too much.  

But I see you addressed that here....

19 hours ago, iacas said:

Sure, you'll occasionally hear people say "I got ahead of it" or something, and there are cases where amateur golfers will slide their hips too far, but on the whole, amateurs stink at getting their hips to move forward properly.

 

[mchepp]

20 hours ago, iacas said:

"Actively" shoving your hips forward. This is often either a learned behavior or a compensation for something else, like getting the trail elbow stuck and needing to push the whole hips/elbow "group" forward to try to hit the ball cleanly.

This is a very good description of my challenge. It is a good way of saying it.

[dufferifick]

Darn good(and deep dive into) discussion on movements.

This past summer I was fighting this position, that position, and everything else in the golf swing.

I took about a week of just swing the club as fast as I could. Learning how the body moves. Imitate the impact position and maybe a few frames past impact.

NO BALL. It will free your mind of "golf positions"

Then, without thinking about this or that, visualize the path and swing.

Your body will do things without thinking if you know the end you seek.

Guess what?  I finally working into a subtle hip slide forward When you do that it seems you also load the arm against the chest and get better explosion off of the chest.

After a week of that, I tried hitting a ball.  If it went well, I'd hit another.  If not, regain the feel. and repeat.

I gain nearly 2 club lengths during that summer.

Edited February 23, 2023 by dufferifick

[iacas]

Decent video there. They emphasize the "falling" as well.

[mvmac]

On 2/7/2023 at 5:32 PM, iacas said:

From the early backswing, where this golfer has shifted slightly to his right, to impact, the center of his pelvis covers 6.9" in going from -1.4" to 5.5" at impact:

Giving this thread a little bump. Great post and love this graphic.

To help incorporate some of this into my own game I been very conscious and dedicated to NOT stopping at the top of my backswing the past month or so. I might rehearse to 2 or 2.5, then continue to the finish. My tendency is to shift right but get back left too late or not create that "fall" left as I still winding on the backswing.

[Bumper]

I don’t believe that the body motion you refer to as translation is properly so termed.  Instead since the head remains fairly fixed, the motion of the upper body should be understood as rotation.  Translation means a uniform movment of the entire figure in the plane, while if a point of the figure remains fixed it’s a rotation.

As far as I can tell, the golf swing involves rotation in all three planes in which the body moves, each movment being fairly easy to perform: the body rotates or twists around a vertical axis, the upper body rotates around a mostly horizontal axis perpendicular to the target line near the upper torso or head ( the hips sway and the shoulders rock), and the uppper body rotates around a horizontal axis near the hips that is parallel to the target line (the upper body extends and flexes).  So, you spin, sway, and lift your head…all the things you are told not to do.

[iacas]

This isn’t really true @Bumper. The upper body absolutely moves laterally whether you look at the ribs or the shoulders.

I’m teaching all day today but will try to show you GEARS images later today.

[iacas]

Okay, I'm home now, and can reply.

15 hours ago, Bumper said:

I don’t believe that the body motion you refer to as translation is properly so termed.

Let me quote myself:

On 2/7/2023 at 8:32 PM, iacas said:

Though the golf swing is largely rotary, there is some "translation" or sway or sliding of the hips in this plane. If you picture a golfer's pelvis as shaped somewhat like an oval — most golfers are wider than they are "thick" — the image illustrates what I'm talking about with regards to "sway." This image is from an "overhead" perspective of a righty golfer with the target to the right.

I used the word "translation" or a form of it (translates, translated, etc.) exactly one time in my post, and it's right there, above. It talks specifically about the hips translating (i.e. moving laterally), and I'll stand by my usage of it.

15 hours ago, Bumper said:

Instead since the head remains fairly fixed, the motion of the upper body should be understood as rotation. Translation means a uniform movment of the entire figure in the plane, while if a point of the figure remains fixed it’s a rotation.

I thought perhaps based on what you said here — and because it's true that good players translate their ribs and shoulders (base of their neck if you'd like to think of it that way) forward as well — that I had perhaps talked about the whole torso moving forward when I replied earlier:

9 hours ago, iacas said:

This isn’t really true @Bumper. The upper body absolutely moves laterally whether you look at the ribs or the shoulders.

 

 

I created four images really quickly between lessons that I think illustrate how the whole torso moves during the golf swing. These are all major winners (11 majors between the four of them). The yellow is the backswing, the blue is the downswing. GEARS is showing the ribcage and shoulder "dots". The lines connected to them drop down vertically.

Combine the above with the axis tilt numbers (pros shift their hips forward while staying relatively vertical)…

And you arrive at the conclusion that their torsos often translate forward as well. There's some head movement, too, but because the head is above the shoulders… it's not as much.

[Chris Brooks]

On 2/28/2023 at 4:21 PM, iacas said:

Decent video there. They emphasize the "falling" as well.

They include a self-diagnostic of checking lead leg about halfway through downswing to see if it is halfway out of the bounding box of the a-frame at setup. Do you agree that this is a good checkpoint?

[iacas]

14 hours ago, Chris Brooks said:

They include a self-diagnostic of checking lead leg about halfway through downswing to see if it is halfway out of the bounding box of the a-frame at setup. Do you agree that this is a good checkpoint?

I think that's pretty good. I might like to see it almost… hip and knee stacked on top of the ankle, but that will depend on stance width, too.