The Biggest Secret? Slide Your Hips

[Limpinswinger]

Originally Posted by JesseV

Is it the hips sliding first, or the knees initiating the forward movement of the hips?  Think about it.

I think it's simultaneous.

[ApocG10]

I was very, very lucky in that the hipslide is the one thing a good stand still slap shot has in common with a golf shot is the hip slide. It was already so ingrained in me from 25 years of hockey, that it was just natural.

[Ping]

After reading all of the post's, I thought I would share with you what seems to work for me with regard to "hip slide". I'm not very smart so I have to keep things simple...

As I address the ball with the driver..I PRE-SET my hips forward and keep them stationary during the take away and downswing. That one simple move of laterally "placing " my left hip over my left foot has helped swing/confidence tremendously.

Give it a try...

[lostine]

Originally Posted by Ping

After reading all of the post's, I thought I would share with you what seems to work for me with regard to "hip slide". I'm not very smart so I have to keep things simple...

As I address the ball with the driver..I PRE-SET my hips forward and keep them stationary during the take away and downswing. That one simple move of laterally "placing " my left hip over my left foot has helped swing/confidence tremendously.

Give it a try...

I've been working on the same thing recently with mostly positive results after being pointed to the Golf Evolution "Hitting the Driver" video by someone on these boards: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXuikUmHeEQ .

[alexander19]

Great thread! I recently have been trying to concentrate on my hip slide but had a few concerns. Although I am making good contact with most my swing I seem to be topping my driver out of all clubs when emphaizing the hip slide. Also I have a hit a few pull shots with my irons. Any advice ???

[GlasgowsGreen]

I came across this thread about a year ago when I had problems with an out to in swing path and not hitting down on the ball enough. I tried to implement a hip slide and erroneously thought I had achieved this.

One year later though I still have an out to in path and I’m not hitting down on the ball enough!

My pro has recommended that I;

1. Try to hit the ball out to right field
2. Do drills where I actively hold the wrist angle (e.g. pump drill).

I haven’t had much success this with this approach though and have even started shanking the ball!

Anyway, I looked out this great thread again and looked at some videos of my swing and it’s clear that I’m not sliding forward enough. I’m now going to focus on this and nothing else until I have ingrained the movement in my swing.

Out of all the swing advice out there this one just seems to make so much sense and the evidence is clear to see in the images of pro golfers that Eric posted. This is simply what the great players do.

[GlasgowsGreen]

[GlasgowsGreen]

Luke Donald practicing his hip slide on the range

[Kapanda]

Originally Posted by GlasgowsGreen

Luke Donald practicing his hip slide on the range

Awesome share!

[GaryH]

Iacas: " Amateurs tend to be either quite a bit open at impact or square to the line because they've pushed their butts toward the golf ball and are straightening up ."

I had a lesson last week at the famous Knightsbridge Golf School in London, England.  It was founded by legendary golf teacher Leslie King who taught there for many years.  It has since been run for a long time by his teaching protegies who strictly adhere to his philosophies and are the authors of three best-selling golf instruction books.  They have taught tens of thousands of golfers and state that 9 out of 10 golfers make the same errors.

• The first one is rolling the wrists during the takeaway which whips the clubhead way inside the hands and flattens the swing plane..........I was doing this.  (From there your backswing is already ruined and you end up hopelessly out of position at the top).
• The next is the one that i've quoted Iacas on.  The lower body is static through impact, the hips are square, and you're not turning your lower body through connected and syncronised (and nor have you released the clubface to square it).....like the 9 out of 10, the video revealed that I, of course, was here at impact, too!

So there you have it.  This is the swing that 9 out of 10 golfers bring with them to their lessons.  From a sample of many thousands of golfers over many decades of teaching golf.

By contrast, the vast majority of pros keep the clubhead outside the hands during the takeaway and then hinge it up without ruining the plane by flattening it with a wrist role.  And at impact from down the target line you can see both butt cheeks as they are turning through.

For anyone interested, the books are 'The Swing Factory', 'The Golf Delusion' and 'Golf's Golden Rule (what every pro does instintively.....and you don't)'.  Very interesting reads.

[Stevep21]

Can you slide too much? This seemed to be my problem before I had my last lesson, My hips would just keep travelling forward without rotating much, creating a massive C shape with my body, making me flippy and also giving me lower back pain on the right hand side. Now my pro has got me rotating more than sliding, getting my left knee straight quicker when I want to rotate quicker which in turn makes it feel like I do everything on the downswing quicker. Is it not just the right hip that keeps going forward, on that video of luke donald, from the time his club shaft is perpendicular to the ground it looks like his hip slide has finished, they hardly travel forward at all, only rotation. Am I understanding it wrong what hip slide is?

[mvmac]

Originally Posted by Stevep21

Can you slide too much? This seemed to be my problem before I had my last lesson, My hips would just keep travelling forward without rotating much, creating a massive C shape with my body, making me flippy and also giving me lower back pain on the right hand side. Now my pro has got me rotating more than sliding, getting my left knee straight quicker when I want to rotate quicker which in turn makes it feel like I do everything on the downswing quicker. Is it not just the right hip that keeps going forward, on that video of luke donald, from the time his club shaft is perpendicular to the ground it looks like his hip slide has finished, they hardly travel forward at all, only rotation. Am I understanding it wrong what hip slide is?

You can slide too much too early, this could lead to the torso "tipping" back and make it hard for the arms to get down fast enough on the downswing.  A good way to get the hips forward is to flex the left knee or add pressure into the ground with the left foot.  This gets the lead knee in a positon to extend at the right time, creating thrust and rotation for speed and solid contact.  Legs extending keeps up the rotation.  Good for your back.  Worst thing for the back is to have bent legs in the followthrough, Reverse C.  If the hips just "slide" or slide too early that left foot could roll forward and you can't use the ground.

[Firstbatch]

Great thread and thought I would add a look at one of professional golfs great hip sliders.  Often lumped into the category of "Top 10 Ugliest Pro Swings" he was one of the most accurate drivers of the golf ball on the Champions Tour for years and though his pro career did not start until he was 46...wow.....he has won a dozen times and racked up $13M in winnings.

A powerful delivery action and a master at driving his legs and hips down the target line.  Really like how he banks his right foot.  Great image for anyone working on "" The Biggest Secret"

Enjoy Allen Doyle.

Here is a good sequence.  The camera angle is off as the ball is not that far back but nonetheless you can see the masters move.

At 46 he started on the then Nike tour  and in 1995 he won three times.

Doyle became eligible to play on the Senior PGA Tour when he turned fifty in July 1998, and won four official money events in 1999 including the Senior PGA Championship . In 2001 he won his second senior major , the Senior Players Championship , and led the tour on the money list. In 2005 he claimed a third major at the U.S. Senior Open , coming behind from a nine stroke deficit with a 63 in the final round. He successfully defended his U.S. Senior Open title in 2006 becoming the oldest U.S. Senior Open Champion at 57 years,   I think basically owned most all of the Georgia State Am titles as well

[Blitz28179]

I noticed ive got a bad habit with bad/improper weight shift.Here is a recent video I took while at the range.Gonna to absorb all the info from this thread and see if i can get this hip slide working for me.

[Ajlepisto]

Originally Posted by Firstbatch

Great thread and thought I would add a look at one of professional golfs great hip sliders.  Often lumped into the category of "Top 10 Ugliest Pro Swings" he was one of the most accurate drivers of the golf ball on the Champions Tour for years and though his pro career did not start until he was 46...wow.....he has won a dozen times and racked up $13M in winnings.

A powerful delivery action and a master at driving his legs and hips down the target line.  Really like how he banks his right foot.  Great image for anyone working on "" The Biggest Secret"

Enjoy Allen Doyle.

Here is a good sequence.  The camera angle is off as the ball is not that far back but nonetheless you can see the masters move.

At 46 he started on the then Nike tour  and in 1995 he won three times.

Doyle became eligible to play on the Senior PGA Tour when he turned fifty in July 1998, and won four official money events in 1999 including the Senior PGA Championship. In 2001 he won his second senior major, the Senior Players Championship, and led the tour on the money list. In 2005 he claimed a third major at the U.S. Senior Open, coming behind from a nine stroke deficit with a 63 in the final round. He successfully defended his U.S. Senior Open title in 2006 becoming the oldest U.S. Senior Open Champion at 57 years,   I think basically owned most all of the Georgia State Am titles as well

I will never be self-conscious about my swing again.

LOL.

[iceman777]

All those years I took lessons and tried to TURN my hips , instead of thinking SLIDE or sway . Only after I recently embraced a lot of the stack and tilt did the bell ring . Every time I consciously tried to time a hip turn , I would overdo it and pull most shots way left, as I spun around .

[bplewis24]

Lately I've been theorizing that when I hit that pull hook with my long irons or driver/woods, it's because I'm turning more in the hips and not sliding enough.  Not sure if that's actually the culprit or not, but I've been working on it at the range and the results have been solid.  I actually hit the best 3-iron of my life last week.  I nearly did a fist-pump.

[GolfJunkie5225]

I love this conversation, just found it today, I'm pretty late but would like to ask a couple of questions.

1.) If the first downswing motion is to slide the hips, do you actually want to slide the hips toward the target or drive the knee toward the target? I'm thinking if you slide the hips as far as you can, eventually the left leg will straighten forcing the right hip to toward the target on its own without any conscience thought.

2.) Arm swing. Are the arms active or passive?