Stopping the slide

[bradpet]

Hello all. Just wondering if anyone knows any drills to change a slide into a turn. Recently, I've been hitting a lot of my irons thin & some fat. My teaching pro has diagnosed that I'm sliding. I'll be going back to him for another half hour lesson in about a week's time.

In the meantime, I just wonder if anyone knows any drills to promote hip turn on the backswing rather than a slide?

[ks8829]

when you turn your hips if you watch your knees and rear foot you can tell if you are you are sliding and if you are sliding and lifting up.

swing with a club behind your back
turn with the club behind and keep the weight on the inside of your rear foot and make sure that your knees are slightly bent and watch your rear knee that it remain flexed and not straighten up.

swing with your feet together
practice swing with your feet together and this drill will help you make a good body turn.

[traviswise]

+1

Swinging with feet together is the simplest training aid for this.

[powerfade]

Get an old shaft.
Stick it in the ground a couple inches left of your left hip.
Swing.

After you realize you're hitting the shaft consistently, try turning your hips on the forward swing so that you don't hit the shaft.

It's a weird feeling. It will not be comfortable. You will have to get used to it, but ultimately, you will understand what a hip turn is versus a slide.

BTW - your weight has to be on the left side through and after impact. If you are moving backwards to the right to avoid hitting the shaft...that's a reverse weight shift/reverse pivot. Don't do that.

[jambalaya]

Are you sliding forward or back or both? When you setup to the ball, your knees should have a certain amount of flex in them. In executing your backswing keep the flex in your back knee the same all the way to the top of your turn. In addition, do not let your back knee move toward the rear at all. Just let your torso rotate. You should feel a lot of tension on the inside of your right leg and a nice coil in your upper body.

Now, if you've executed a backswing that is on plane, the downswing should almost be automatic. Learn about swinging on plane and keeping the arms connected (in front of your chest) and the dowswing will work much easier. A lot of your problem is probably on the setup and backswing. Work that out and then get to the downswing problems.

[bradpet]

Thanks for the feedback so far guys. Very useful.

To answer Jambalaya , apparently I slide back & forward. In my first lesson with him, my teaching pro found that my head was staying fixed & didn't move backwards (or hardly at all) on my backswing. Therefore, my hips just slide back (on the backswing) & forward (on the downswing) under a rigid head. The pro has encouraged me to let my head move to the right a little bit on the backswing. He was keen to point out that most people (including me) wrongly think any lateral head movement (on the backswing) is bad. He said (except for the 'stack & tilters') that the perception of no lateral head movement is wrong. He said allowing the head to move to the right (on the backswing) will encourage a turn.

So, I have another lesson with him in a week & wanted to do some drills to assist in the meantime. I'm sure the suggestions will be helpful. Keep them coming.

It appears that I have a couple of 'challenges' to overcome because I've noticed that my rear leg isn't rigid enough on my backswing. Yes, I keep it flexed. Yes, I keep my right foot planted. But I've noticed it 'bows' a bit to the right on the back swing. I'm currently scratching my head about keeping my right leg rigid & not moving or 'bowing' to the right on the backswing.

[glebert]

It's not really a drill, but Hogan (in Five Lessons) said to brace your knees inward and keep the weight towards the inside of your feet at setup (I think). It is almost impossible to slide if you do this, and I used to slide alot.

[kfowler]

  glebert said:

It's not really a drill, but Hogan (in Five Lessons) said to brace your knees inward and keep the weight towards the inside of your feet at setup (I think). It is almost impossible to slide if you do this, and I used to slide alot.

I use this and it works for not sliding back. It does not help for sliding foward though. BTW, Hogan had a fair amount of forward lateral slide in his swing. Go figure.

[glebert]

  kfowler said:

BTW, Hogan had a fair amount of forward lateral slide in his swing. Go figure.

That is why I don't worry at all about sliding forward.

[jambalaya]

  bradpet said:

Thanks for the feedback so far guys. Very useful.

You'll have a lot of thoughts like this which you have to sort out in time. Just read as much as you can about the backswing until something makes it click in your head. One way to think about it is that you rotate about the back leg on the back swing and the forward leg on the downswing. Think of the back leg as your axis for backswing rotation. An axis is usually fixed with the other bits rotating around it. You probably don't want to think about restricting your swing but that is what you must do to get accurate consistent contact. It doesn't mean that you won't still hit the ball a long way. Heck, we don't take a running start to hit the ball because we couldn't control it consistently or even make decent contact. I am not saying you won't get other ideas on this aspect of the swing either. Some golfers like more hip turn in the backswing but they still keep the lateral movement to a minimum.

[bradpet]

  glebert said:

It's not really a drill, but Hogan (in Five Lessons) said to brace your knees inward and keep the weight towards the inside of your feet at setup (I think). It is almost impossible to slide if you do this, and I used to slide alot.

Thanks

glebert , I'll give that a try.

[powerfade]

  bradpet said:

I'm currently scratching my head about keeping my right leg rigid & not moving or 'bowing' to the right on the backswing.

In regards to the last sentence...as a PP mentioned, you want to maintain the knee bend you had at address all the way to the top of the backswing.

If you look down at your right knee at address, your kneecap is pointing to around 1 o'clock. As you turn back, maintaining the knee bend, allow your kneecap to move to the 2 o'clock position. Turning back against this firm right knee helps avoid a reverse-weight shift and gives you something to turn your right hip & shoulders around.

[bradpet]

Thanks powerfade , jambalaya & the others. Very useful comments.

[bradpet]

For those who might be interested, just discovered that my left leg was 'collapsing' on me on the backswing which caused me to 'dip' on my swing, resulting in inconsistent ball striking (perhaps consistently hitting the ball thin & fat).

The cause was my left foot being 90 degrees at address rather than turned out left at an angle. As soon as I turned my foot out, it stopped the left leg collapsing & also promoted hip turn on the backswing rather than a slide.

Such a simple sport!!!

[Sir Shanksalot]

I did the same in the begining of this year. I switched to a stack and tilt swing and lowered my handicap more than 5 points. For me it was a big weight shift and slide back and not recovering and hitting fat shots. It went from there to the shanks and I knew I needed a drastic change. Doing a lot better now.

[tm22721]

If you pre-torque your right foot/leg by screwing it clockwise into the ground at setup and through the backswing, you will be turning INTO your right leg (and the ground) instead of OVER the right leg. This not only stops any hip sliding but your right hip will rotate back and towards the target which automatically performs the weight shift without any lateral shift. All that is left to do is to rotate the left hip back on top of the left leg.

That is the easy part of a one plane swing. The hard part is maintaining the angles established at setup and at 9:00. If you do, the swing is effectively over at 9:00 and the rest is just 'turn back, turn through' while keeping your arms connected and synced to your body.

Angles at setup - spine inclination and tilt, left arm (straight)
Angles at 9:00 - spine, left arm, right leg, club shaft, wrist set

[thumper07]

  glebert said:

It's not really a drill, but Hogan (in Five Lessons) said to brace your knees inward and keep the weight towards the inside of your feet at setup (I think). It is almost impossible to slide if you do this, and I used to slide alot.

i can vouch for this as i am facing the same problems with sliding but doing this helps alot. -matt