Hips too fast?

[Jackslap]

32 y.o male
6 ft. 175 lbs.
shoot around 105-112

Hello everyone. I come here after much frustration with trying to get this dumb golf swing thing down. I've been fooling around with it for several years, with a 1 year break somewhere in the middle.

I have made much improvement, especially since I learned to grip the club right and to swing on the right plane. I started off swinging very much outside/in.

I have those things fixed now, but I still slice the ball fairly regularly and I've narrowed it down to the fact that my hips are well ahead of my hands at impact. They are nearly in the follow through position and my arms are not even at the ball yet.

I have tried to start the down swing by slowing the hip movement and waiting for the arms to catch up, but that only seems to be a band-aid that works occasionaly at best.

How am I messing up? If I hit it clean when swinging hard and my arms are magically positioned just right (hardly ever) the ball will fly like 250-260, but when I slow it down to let my hands catch up I can only get it like 190-200.

Is there something I'm missing? It seems like the pros have pretty clear hips at impact, so what is my malfunction?

I will video tape my swing and post it soon. Gotta borrow a better camera than the one I have.

[Jackslap]

So, I've done some more reading and I guess the term for what I am doing is "blocking"? I hit some balls tonight, and while trying not to "block" shots, I hit some killer hooks while trying to make my hands catch up to my hips.

I can't seem to find a middle ground, it's one extreme to the other...so frustrating.

[enduro]

As Ben Hogan says on page 91 of his book: "The faster the hips move, the better. They can't go too fast."

It probably isn't your hips that are the problem, unless your moving them laterally. The faster the hip rotation the faster the shoulders and arms and club will move. They're all connected, ya know.

[iacas]

It probably isn't your hips that are the problem, unless your moving them laterally. The faster the hip rotation the faster the shoulders and arms and club will move. They're all connected, ya know.

What's wrong with laterally moving the hips? Ben Hogan moved laterally as much as anyone.

Believe it or not, there are some (like me) who over-rotate the hips (both too much and too early) and really have to concentrate on pushing forward with the hips from the top of the backswing.

[DavidFehertysBike]

Pushing forward with the hips, then rotating, will also keep you behind the ball better as well. But the moves in the pictures above take alot of cordination to do. You almost have to sqaut down first, then rotate to the left. Im not trying to be deprecating, but it takes at least a moderate measure of athelticism to pull that move off. Its not for everyone.

A way to cheat at it is just a simple hip bump, instead of a slide. With the bump, you should feel pressure on your lead foot and on the instep of your trailing foot, and that should be all the weight shift that one needs. From there you left your upper body catch up, then when the hands and arms reach hip level, explode to the left and through the ball. Thats the general process that i go through. It feels very natuarl to me, as well.

[Jackslap]

From what you guys are saying, it sounds like I'm doing o.k. with the hips. It sounds like though, that I may need to speed the arms up instead of slowing the "swing" (arms portion) down. I really don't think that I'm moving too much laterally with the hips. I'll record my swing and put it up here.

On a good note, last night while I was hitting balls I was using a fairway wood and couldn't hit it worth crap. So I switched over to a 3 iron and was nailing them dead straight about 170. I was swinging harder though.

[MiniMoe]

if you look at the two pictures of Hogan and Tiger, Hogan is in the better position. Tiger's left knee is becoming straight. Hogan had a soft left knee. That helped him control the shots. Tiger straightens his left knee to generate power, but he loses control. You pick what you want, but I will always want a soft left knee at impact. Two things about that, I will never have knee problems (Tiger must have loved his surgery), and there is less tension on my back.