Lateral shift of the hips on the downswing

[shortstop20]

I watch alot of the pro's swing videos and one thing that I've always noticed is that some players have a pretty good amount of lateral hip movement towards the target on the downswing. Meanwhile other players have very little.

What are the variables involved with this? Does a player with more lateral shift just need the ball more forward in their stance so that they can move towards the ball on the downswing? Or are there other things involved?

Or is it irrelevant as they keep their head directly above or behind the ball and do not move it in front of the ball?

[Joejoe26]

I watch alot of the pro's swing videos and one thing that I've always noticed is that some players have a pretty good amount of lateral hip movement towards the target on the downswing. Meanwhile other players have very little.

There is a slight hip bump towards the target but I must emphasize SLIGHT. I would say that players who have more lateral movement would have to quickly turn the hips in order to prevent from pushing the ball or getting stuck.

[shortstop20]

Tiger has a pretty pronounced shift of the hips towards the target, but then again his tendency is to get stuck and block the shot out to the right.

So as long as you've got a slight hip bump you're doing fine. That's pretty much what I wanted to know, wasn't sure if I was missing out on distance or something. I already get the club to the inside so I think a big lateral shift would be the wrong thing for me.

[Zeph]

I've been thinking about this lately. There is no doubt that Tiger and Ben Hogan both have a pretty big lateral shift with the hips, but still keeping the head behind the ball and reasonably still. The torso must of course follow the hips, but only the lower part. The upper part stays still and you create a reverse C, as you can see on this picture, used by iacas

here . To get the weight over to the left, some part of the body must move. The weight is moved to the back foot at the backswing because of the body turning, arms and club going out from the body. To get that weight over to the left side, you have to move some of the body over to the left. If you do a lateral shift with the entire body, your head will come too far ahead and chances of hitting a good shot will lessen. You'll also almost have to cast in order to hit the ball. They do this big lateral slide with the hips to get the weight onto the left foot so you can turn on through with the hips and create power. At the same time the head must stay behind the ball where it is. This will create a reverse C, but not at the finish. With all the weight moved onto the left foot, when the torso turns against the target, the weight is pulling you forward so you can stand tall after impact. As demonstrated on the picture below, this must not be confused with a reverse C finish position , which is when you end up with a lot of weight on the toe of the back foot at the finish. It's not a reverse pivot either, then you'll have the weight on the back foot through impact, your finish can still be tall. Looking at Tiger and Ben, I'd say that's a pretty big lateral movement. The key to this move is to keep the head still, or at least the movement kept at a minimum. Many players (myself included) struggle with the weight shift because they are moving the entire body over to the left and losing all the important positions you need to strike the ball well. Like Ben says:

To begin the downswing, turn your hips back to the left. There must be enough lateral motion forward to transfer the weight to the left foot.

[iacas]

If your hips have no problems turning, I think you should push forward with the hips as much as you can. Not a "slight" bump - as much as you can.

If you have problems turning, ignore that advice.

[Titleist Man]

I have a pretty big lateral movement but have NO problem turning my hips. I do have to move the ball forward in my stance. I have been told by EVERYONE that its too far forward but when i put it back i shank it. But i dont think there is anything wrong with this. Does anyone think there is anyhting wrong with this? But to answer your question the only thing you have to do is move it up and it also adds distance and accuracy for ME.

[trog2233]

I have quite a bit of lateral movement in my swing. I've tried to model my swing to Ben Hogans so maybe thats where i got it from.

[daveh]

Is lateral movement typically defined as the small amount of lateral movement before the hips start turning or the total amount of forward movement from the top of the backswing to impact?

It looks to me like Hogan moved laterally about an inch before the hip turn.

[MiniMoe]

Best lateral move in the game. He always said he never turned, but moved toward the target... the late grate Moe Norman.

[RC]

There is a no "one size fits all" answer to the lateral shift question because, as Icarus has pointed out in another way, unless someone can see your swing (from at least two directions) it is hard to know the camp you fit into.

Sometimes a person is naturally inclined to have a nice hip turning swing, and they need to drive hard to the left side and turn on the left leg. They typically do not have club squaring issues, but may be hookers. Other times, there are golfers who are upper body dominated and they need to develop a feel for what the proper hip clearing move can do for them -- sliding to the left side does not fix their backswing or hands and arms dominated downswing. They are decelerating anyway and will just push and pull shots. The natural hip clearing swingers are invariably people who played sports, or starting golfing at a young age (I hate to generalize like this, but...) They can make the mistake of hanging back and losing a delayed release, or spinning out and also hitting pushes and pulls. Club flipping, upper body swingers can try to adopt a lower body technique, but unless they change to a ground up swing with a good backswing, all that usually happens is a lot of fat and thin shots.

Players fit all along these two extremes, so some may need one thing and others something different. For anyone to read a prescription for fixing a swing, they must first understand their own swing pretty well. It would be like a patient taking a prescription drug at random without knowing the illness.

That is why the most sound advice you hear around here is to go see a qualified PGA teaching pro. My own view is that some high percent of golfers (maybe 3/4 of them, I don't know) do not have a good grip or backswing and posture, so trying either extreme will be flawed because you will have to be correcting other issues getting back to the ball. Golf is simple yet hard. Instruction is confusing, but necessary to progress, and no matter how long you have played and how many really good shots you have hit, everyone of us will still have flaws that creep into our swings. I don't think I will ever get it down as well as I want. As I have said before, "We all have to go to sleep, and whatever was working great yesterday, does not always work when we wake up." If it were not this way, golf would not be nearly as interesting and fun.

Harvey Pennick had it right... if you are doing something well, doing more of it is not the answer (or something like that.) What it means is if you are shifting weight well (for example,) over emphasizing and shifting even more is not the answer.)

[umpiremark]

RC ... ... That is one of the most thought out and concise answers to any golf question, I have ever heard. Golf is not a one size fits all and your separation of the "two camps" or two schools of thought seem to be pretty fair. Just wanted to say, great answer ...

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

[bentur123]

personally i find this th emost intresting move in the swing, i think its a move that isnt all that talked about and in my opion would improve many golfers games if they did it correctly. I think that if more players understood hwo to start the backswing in this was then sthe number of slicers would be halfed

[buddy6713]

I agree with you and would love to get feedback from this board about how to practice this move other than just tell yourself to shift your hips laterally to initiate the downswing.

This move does not come naturally to me, as I was taught to "swing in a barrel", which is not this move at all.

Anyone have a tried and tested way to teach how to practice this move?

[Nole77]

I found this video helpful:

[JackLee]

Why would you even want to think about it? Lower body movements should be subconscious.

Hey Erik, just thought I would post a little truth here after using my time to read through this nonsense.

[Zeph]

Why would you even want to think about it? Lower body movements should be subconscious.

What about the thousands of golfers out there that [b]don't[/b] do it subconsciously? How are they ever going to learn if they don' consciously work on it? Ideally, a golf swing should be completely subconscious. If you perform the perfect swing without thinking about anything, the body has learned how to do it right. But you don't get there without working on it.

[The_Pharaoh]

Originally Posted by JackLee

Why would you even want to think about it? Lower body movements should be subconscious.

Congratulations! You have just won the SandTrap.com's Dumbest Post of the Year award for 2011.

[MiniBlueDragon]

Originally Posted by JackLee

Why would you even want to think about it? Lower body movements should be subconscious.

Hey Erik, just thought I would post a little truth here after using my time to read through this nonsense.

Lower body movements become instinctive once you understand them but you still have to learn what those movements are to begin with and then practice them in a swing to understand the feeling and how it affects the swing.

Regarding the hip movement my mind takes things literally so if I think about it as a hip slide then my hips more or less slide straight and slide too far which causes my upper body to fold sideways over my rear hip and my hips then turn on an uncomfortable plane at the last minute.

If I think about rotating the hips I lose any lateral shift and end up swinging over the top.

I've found my head understands it more as a "rocker" on a rocking horse. The backswing is simply rotating around a central axis but keeping your rear butt cheek up against an imaginary wall:

The downswing and follow through is where the "rocker" feeling occurs for me. It feels like my right hip stays where it is and my pelvis rocks to the left, e.g:

(Images drawn by me and based on my feelings. YMMV)