hips getting to far ahead of hands, help please!

[King Cobra II]

I've been told by many good golfers on my team that the reason I'm so inconsistent (I hit a real nice shot followed by a shot diagonally right) is because my hips get way ahead of my hands. They say my down swing is very mechanical. My hips have a huge degree of rotation and then my hands come down. How can I fix this problem?

[bthroneburg]

I actually had this problem. I fixed it by hitting balls with my feet together with a 7 iron. Over and over and over. If you turn your hips in front of your hands in this drill you will fall over. It is still a part of my practice for about the first 5 or 10 minutes of range time. I feel it keeps my timing in order.

[grantc79]

I have this happen occasionally but it leads to me having a pull thats way left.

What I typically try to do is take practice swings in which my hips slide laterally from the back right corner of the ball toward the front left corner of the ball (basically for a rightie imagine you are sliding your closed left hip towards the tip of the range mat).

This will keep your hips closed longer and assuming the rest of your mechanics are in good shape give you a nice draw.

[wrx_junki]

I had this happen to me not too long ago because I was using my hips to start the downswing instead of the slight bump. I now let my hips bump and follow. Sorry to say but I didn't do any drills to correct it. Just made a conscious effort in not opening my hips.

[King Cobra II]

I had this happen to me not too long ago because I was using my hips to start the downswing instead of the slight bump. I now let my hips bump and follow. Sorry to say but I didn't do any drills to correct it. Just made a conscious effort in not opening my hips.

Whats the difference between a bump and a turn?

[wrx_junki]

A bump is only slight turn of the hips versus a full turn.

[grantc79]

Whats the difference between a bump and a turn?

Bump is a lateral shift of the hips towards the target, a turn involves the hips actually opening up and facing the target.

[TheDre]

I thought a lateral shift of the hips was a bad thing in a golf swing? This game is so confusing LOL!

[GolferDot]

I thought a lateral shift of the hips was a bad thing in a golf swing? This game is so confusing LOL!

LOL AMEN ......... so many swing theories, I still don't know if I am a rotary, lever, stack and tilter, one planer, two planer or what my swing is anymore.

but in saying that if your head moves away from the ball during your backswing then you need a slight lateral shift. One thing with weight shift is if it is a concious thought it is probably wrong in my experience, go throw a ball and tell me if you have to think about weight shift. Also in my experience trying to conciously control hip turn is bloody hard to do, I had a similar problem and just stopped flaring my left foot out to slow my hips down on the down swing.

[jambalaya]

Got to agree with golfdot that conscious to efforts turn or bump the hips as a regular part of your swing doesn't work, at least for me it just lead to more inconsistency. It would work at first and then became so much of a focus other parts of my swing broke down. What you say tells me is that your arms are too disconnected from the rest of your body. When your hips move and your shoulders turn the arms should come with them. You apparently lose connectivity in the backswing so you arms lag your body movement. Your first hip move should cause your arms to drop down without thinking about it.

The ol' one piece takeaway, keeping your armpits pinned close to your body, are parts of staying connected. I think working on your setup and takeaway may be a better approach then looking at individual hip and arm movements. Anybody agree?

[grantc79]

I thought a lateral shift of the hips was a bad thing in a golf swing? This game is so confusing LOL!

It isn't a bad thing, at least according to The Golfing Machine which is what I'm taught from, it just matters how much you do it.

The lateral bump should be relatively minor, as in like 2 or 3 inches max that you shift. If you start sliding forward like crazy then yes you aren't going to accomplish much.

[grantc79]

One thing with weight shift is if it is a concious thought it is probably wrong in my experience, go throw a ball and tell me if you have to think about weight shift.

My teacher always uses weird sayings like "teaching your hands/hips/wrists/whatever" which sounds ridiculous because there is no brain there but it really is true.

Another thing which goes hand in hand with this is the theory of the 4 levels of competence. 1: Subconscious incompetent: Don't do it and don't know you don't know it. 2: Conscious incompetent: Don't do it but know you don't do it and need to. 3: Conscious competent: Can do it but only when you really think about it. 4: Subconscious competent: Do it without even thinking about it because it is natural to you. At the end of the day its all just muscle memory and you have to train your body to do certain things. I was a fantastic shooter in basketball and I got there by shooting thousands upon thousands of jump shots with perfect form. If you want to be a fantastic ball striker you have to do the same thing. Break down what you are doing wrong and find a drill that makes you do it correctly and go spend time at the range. Don't worry about where the ball goes, worry about your hips flaring, wrists rolling, or whatever else it is.

[Rayy]

I starting to have this same problem with my hips and I'm starting to slice my ball. Something I normaly dont do it. It is getting me stress