The Biggest Secret? Slide Your Hips

[Chas]

I think I get a fair bit of lateral motion (but don't have video to prove it mind you ....), but but but, I'm almost certain that I don't hold my head and upper body back through the contact zone properly the way that fellow demonstrated in the video clip (where he kept his head behind a vertical wooden post during a mock swing - Erik's post #244). That is a very powerful visual for me. I like the way he pointed out that failing to do this, i.e. letting your upper body move forward towards the target instead of holding it back even into the arm extension post-contact, is a major power drain. Gots to keep that upper body pivot point from drifting forward.

I used to do the right thing (after many many years of hard labor) with my topspin backhand passing shot in tennis (major weight shift forward but holding back the head and chest, and ending with a rising body position), which is where the power came from in that stroke e.g. to get past the would-be volleyer standing at the net. I need to get the same concept going in golf I guess.

Thanks for that bit of video. Now I have to find me a nice post or doorjam to practice with .... mind you, if my wife seems me she'll think I've finally completely lost it. Oh well, a small price to pay ....

[Dr. Griefo]

Thank you so much for this thread and all the pics. My backyard looks awful from all the divots but I shot my best game ever today. I was really struggling with my irons this year but hopefully they stay resolved. The pics of Nick Faldo and analysis really brought home the proper hip swing and where my head should be. THanks again!

[GolfBear]

So just another update on the revised swing with an emphasis on my hips:

There is no question, where the hips go, so go the the shoulders. The linkage is undeniable and now my over the top, pull hook swing is gone! :)

I got a chance to play today with my newly revamped swing. I bogeyed the first hole essentially because I was tight on the first tee and I pushed a shot into the trees on the right. On the second hole I carded a 7 on a par 3. The 2nd hole is essentially an island green and a ball experiment followed by a bad decision cost me 4 strokes. I hit an absolute arrow at the pin which looked like it was going to be a kick in birdie. Unfortunately I was trying some new balls (Srixon TriSpeeds because they were free) and the freaking things are like hot air balloons. Needless to say, the excessive height left me 1 foot short and that 1 foot was in the pond. Then I got cute and tried to hit a lob from the drop to an absurdly tight front pin.....plunk.

Ok, so I'm 5 over after 2 and thinking about giving up the game. 3rd hole I hit a SW from 80 yards to less than a foot. Now it's game on because I'm back in it mentally, so here's the rest of the round.

4th hole - bogey
5th hole - 8 iron to 2.5 feet, birdie
6th hole - 7 iron to 3 feet, lipped out birdie
7th hole - LW to 3 feet
8th hole - 7i to 4 feet, under read break - par
9th hole - nuked a GW over the green - bogey

NO HOOKS! I'm a happy happy guy. Listen to Iacas instruction about the hips, he's dead on!!!!

[Chas]

Watching a slo mo of Freddie Couples last weekend I couldn't help noticing how pronounced his hip bump is at the start of the down swing. Maybe I wouldn't have picked up on it were it not for this thread.

Soooooo, if I do like Feddie perhaps I'll get some of that rhythm as well ......

[Tiger Spuds]

Interested to know what you guys think of this video.They maintain that hip slide, in relation to spine angle, is a major factor in Tiger's waywardness off the tee.Basically they're saying that sliding the hips isn't nessesary, and in fact results in an increased front spine angle which decreases accuracy.I'm skeptical personally, but it's an interesting watch.

[Shanks A Million]

Interested to know what you guys think of this video.They maintain that hip slide, in relation to spine angle, is a major factor in Tiger's waywardness off the tee.Basically they're saying that sliding the hips isn't nessesary, and in fact results in an increased front spine angle which decreases accuracy.I'm skeptical personally, but it's an interesting watch

It's total BS. What they neglect to mention, is that every other pro does the same thing. Iron Byron is a machine, not a human. There's a little thing called reality that this video totally neglects. Tiger has also aged 10 years in their comparison, something they totally fail to mention. They also forget to mention that while Arnold Palmer won 8 majors, Tiger had already won 14 at age 32.

Without a proper hip slide, all you can do is come over the top, or get stuck. Palmer's swing is full of compensations, look at his helicopter followthrough. Tiger's got one major weakness, driving the ball, and because of that, people pick on him relentlessly. And now, as he's playing bad, people point to a dozen reasons, failing to realize that he's just gone through a humiliating, very public scandal, and his mind is likely far from clear. Think of how you feel when a girl breaks up with you, and multiply that by a billion.

[Stretch]

Yes, that's an impressive amount of stupidity to cram into one short clip. To deal with the most obvious point, their entire thesis rests on the assumption that striking the ball with a slightly open club face is a bad thing, which the golfer will attempt to compensate for using the hands, thereby causing inconsistency and inaccuracy. In fact, if you approach the ball from the inside, as most good golfers do, you need the club face to be open relative to your target line in order to produce a predictable push draw (or push fade for that matter if that's what you are playing for). I would happily bet my house that there are many, many more golfers spraying shots all over because they spin their hips out too fast and come over the top than there are golfers who suffer from pushing forward and extending too much!

[KEEPITSIMPLE]

sliding the hip does not produce an open club face. Only if you lean backward or have an upward movement. You all can try it. Actually from the setup position if you slide your hip perpendicular to the ground or slighly inside out and perpendicular to the ground, it gets your hands ahead of the ball and produce the proper impact position. I have done this like a million times.

[iacas]

The funniest thing about that video is that Tiger goes from 9 to 24 degrees - a 267% increase.

Arnold Palmer goes from 3 to 12 degrees. Now... I don't have a math degree (just degrees in medicinal chemistry and computer science), but that's more than 267%.

Anyway, the thing is bunk and is not why Tiger's inaccurate. You can't compare a simple rotary machine to the way a golfer hits a golf ball. Watch Fred Funk - he'll do a similar move. All (good) golfers do this.

[Shanks A Million]

The funniest thing about that video is that Tiger goes from 9 to 24 degrees -

Yeah, you would assume at least someone would have, at some point in the making of that video, been like, "Hey, Bob, you ever thought we maybe considered that a machine and a man are two different things?" I can't lift as much weight as a forklift, does that mean I'm too weak? I can't run as fast as an SR-71, does that mean I'm too slow? Machines are created by man to do what man

cannot do. Man cannot hit a golf ball the exact same way every single time, but he needed a way to do it for testing, so he created Iron Byron. Even so, that video shows Iron Byron leaning backwards. It makes it appear that Tiger is actually moving backwards, but he's doing no such thing. His hips are merely sliding forwards, but his upper center stays in place, just like Iron Byron. Because his hips have moved in relation to his feet and head, his spine must change angle. If Iron Byron had hips, it would need to clear them too I reckon.

[PuttPutt]

really great stuff.. Awesome!

[saevel25]

Look at tiger's head, the only move it does is go up and down and forward. It hardly moves backwards at all, if so its negligiable. Thats a rediculus video.

[ugottabjoshinme]

Well, I have started to figure out my hip slide, and not moving my upper body forward with them. I was struggling to find a swing thought to get my hips to move. I tried pushing my right knee in, moving my left knee down, focusing on moving my right hip past the ball, but none of that really triggered anything for me.

I started to focus on other swing positions like the top of the backswing and the finish, and hoping that being in the correct positions in those areas would force my hips to do what I wanted.

On the top of the backswing, I found that the deeper my hands are the easier it is for me to move my hips forward. If my hands, aren't deep enough I can feel my tendancy to pull the left shoulder down and come over the top. With my hands deep, it really is hard for me to move my left shoulder first so the hips have to be the first to move.

In my finish position, I tried to focus on maintaining my inclination to the ground. Having that finish position where you are leaning to the right with your butt tucked under is hard to get into when your upper body is also leaning forward.

I've started to see some results when focusing on these things instead of focusing on an actual movement of the hips. I'm making better contact and my fat shots are rarely happening.

[$2 Nassau]

I don't know about anyone else but if I'm going to get my weight onto my front foot my hips HAVE to slide forward to accomplish that. There's just no other way to get the weight moving forward unless I slide my hips towards the target...well I suppose I could throw my head and upper body towards the target while keeping my hips in place but we obviously don't want to do that.

After seeing my swing on vid I think the hip slide is there but I tend to forget that there's rotation involved too.

[Mexicanleprican]

Could someone explain the difference between hipslide and rotating the hips. I feel that when you really rotate the right hip through it automatically pulls the body towards the left foot

[delav]

Could someone explain the difference between hipslide and rotating the hips. I feel that when you really rotate the right hip through it automatically pulls the body towards the left foot

Take a look through the whole thread. If I were a gambling man, I'd bet the previous 30 pages of posts might shed some light on the issue ;)

[Mexicanleprican]

oh okay..so its just the result of turning your hips properly?

[$2 Nassau]

oh okay..so its just the result of turning your hips properly?

It could be...but you could also turn your hips without sliding them forward at all...and vice versa. it's possible.

The slide is just moving your hips forward toward the target. To simplify, think of your left hip getting closer to the target than it was at the address position.