Backswing question

[King Norre]

At the beginning of your backswing, when you just start moving your hands, arms and shoulders (keeping the triangle) do you also turn your hips yet? I've heard some people say it's better to try to resist your hips from turning for as long as possible. Others say you have to turn your hips immediately when starting your backswing. What do you guys think?

Thanks,

KN

[RC]

Many different types of swings are in this world...

I believe in resisting the hips from turning all the way to the top of the backswing. There is a little turn, but less is better for me. More shoulder - less hip turn, that is my opinion.

[JetFan1983]

The whole "resisting of the hips" thing has supposedly been misunderstood for a long time. If you're a guy with great flexibility, the resisting of the hips while still being able to make a full shoulder turn is the ideal way to create the most torque and power. But 99% of us aren't that guy, so resisting of the hips is a really bad idea. You want the hips to start turning on the backswing, probably at the time the club head reaches waist-high.

Canadian Golf Pro Shawn Clement breaks down this myth of resisting with the hips in this instructional video:


And in this lesson, you can learn how to practice allowing your hips to turn.
.

Check out Ben Hogan's Five Lessons book. In it, he instructs you to begin and end the swing in this way, starting with the part of the body that initiates the swing and how the rest of the body follows. The backswing:

HANDS--ARMS--SHOULDERS--HIPS

and then on the downswing, this sequence is it is reversed:

HIPS--SHOULDERS--ARMS--HANDS

Hope that helps!

[Zeph]

I don't resist, but I don't turn them either. They turn as a cause of the shoulders and torso turning.

Initiating the downswing with the hips is very important. Starting with the arms will often result in a swing coming over the top.

[soloredd]

I actually start my backswing by beginning to rotate my hips first then the torso, then shoulders; the arms just follow. Then I initiate the downswing the same way - hips, torso, shoulders then arms. For me this helps to reduce my hands coming through the ball too quickly. I only think of two things during my swing: rotating my butt to point toward the target by the top of the backswing and then swinging through the ball to finish at the end.

Who knows if this is correct or not - probably in most cases not. I have a homegrown swing but it lacks distance. There's probably some issues in there, I'm sure. I do use that feet together drill like Shawn Clement's video to correct my swing when it goes haywire. It's the best drill I've ever done to re-teach my body to feel how my swing should feel.

[Hey Bob]

Originally Posted by soloredd

I actually start my backswing by beginning to rotate my hips first then the torso, then shoulders; the arms just follow. Then I initiate the downswing the same way - hips, torso, shoulders then arms. For me this helps to reduce my hands coming through the ball too quickly. I only think of two things during my swing: rotating my butt to point toward the target by the top of the backswing and then swinging through the ball to finish at the end.

Who knows if this is correct or not - probably in most cases not. I have a homegrown swing but it lacks distance. There's probably some issues in there, I'm sure. I do use that feet together drill like Shawn Clement's video to correct my swing when it goes haywire. It's the best drill I've ever done to re-teach my body to feel how my swing should feel.

I'm playing around with these things, and I was searching for this!

Coming from other sports there's few oddities in this one. One being that there's so much talk about importance of the hip turn, that I do understand, but then you want to restrict it in the backswing!? In my opinion the whole "different backswing-downswing" thing is odd. But what do I know.

So anyway, I was playing around and the way to get the firing sequence correct on the downswing to me, was to think just like the guy above, to think through the hips.

Anymore input please, from anyone more experienced than me? :)

Cheers, B

[tshapiro]

The answer to this would be very dependant on one's concept of the swing so I can only answer for myself:

What is important to me is that I build a coil that is anchored with my left foot and torqued back with my left arm.  So, at the top, I have stretched all the muscles that go from my left foot, up through my left leg, across my core and up my left arm.  My right leg is an inert body part simply keeping my entire swing properly aligned.  With all of this, my right hip stays fairly planted while my left hip gets pulled around with my left arm (left hand) back swing.

// Keep in mind before reading the next part that I have read Hogan's book 20 times as well as Bobby Jones' and Jack Nicklaus' //

What I personally find most important about the hips is in the downswing... At the transition, the muscles that will pull the club forward begin to take over from the muscles that raised the club up to the top.  This takes a moment.  Once this happens, I begin using the muscles of my left leg and left arm to stretch and pull the club forward.  IF I TRY AND IMPLEMENT AN ARTIFICIAL HIP MOVEMENT THAT I READ IN A BOOK, ALL THAT HAPPENS IS I DISRUPT THE MUSCLE CONNECTION GOING FROM MY LEFT LEG TO MY LEFT ARM AND LOSE ALL MY ABILITY TO PULL STRONGLY WITH MY LEFT SIDE.  The only hip movement that I think of is my right hip.  In a totally passive manner (not at all driving the club) I rotate it forward to make room for my left arm which is pulling the club close to my right pocket on the downswing.

[Hey Bob]

Thanks for this! Another view.

I came to conclusion that there's so many schools about this that i shouldnt worry about it too much for now, get the basic movements under control, then let it rip! :)