The Secret to Hip Slide/Sway in the Golf Swing

[SEMI_Duffer]

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

How do I Slide Forward Properly?

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.

This is a fascinating observation, to me, because I just recently realized this, for myself, during my own swing training.

At one point my instructors had me training a motion where you adopt your setup stance then learn to surf your hips target-wards a bit while pushing your lead hip away from the ball and maintaining spine angle.  (That was difficult for me to learn.)

Now that I'm at the point of training the beginning of the down-swing I suddenly realized I'm not purposely surfing my hips forward like that.  That just pushing that lead hip back (which necessitates flexing the lead knee), while keeping the trailing hip back, makes it happen automagically.

Good article, @iacas.  Thanks!

[colin007]

8 hours ago, SEMI_Duffer said:

That just pushing that lead hip back (which necessitates flexing the lead knee), while keeping the trailing hip back, makes it happen automagically.

, @iacas

Do you mean straightening?

[Vinsk]

10 hours ago, colin007 said:

Do you mean straightening?

I hope not. I’m visualizing it has flexed too essentially shorten the lead leg.

[SEMI_Duffer]

3 hours ago, Vinsk said:

I hope not. I’m visualizing it has flexed too essentially shorten the lead leg.

Correct.

My lead hip is coming down, around, and back.  (I think @iacas may even use such a description, or similar, in his OP?)

[iacas]

I think he means back in terms of away from the ball, not back as in away from the target.

So during the early downswing, the the left hip does go down (global), forward (toward the target), and back (away from the golf ball).

[SEMI_Duffer]

Precisely, @iacas  Usually I'm careful to clarify that.  My apologies.

[colin007]

I was confused by the description of pushing by flexing the leg

[colin007]

This is a beautiful video, you can actually see the fall happening

 

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT81nFnJo/

[JoshM]

Something that has helped me is starting slowly from the top. When I continue the slowness of my backswing for say six inches or so on the downswing, it helps my hand follow my body. Instead of a pause, I picture drawing a tiny inward circle as my tendency is over the top. If you slice, you might try circling out.