Footwork in the Golf Swing

[iacas]

http://www.andrewricegolf.com/2010/0...-in-the-swing/

There's a great post from Andrew about footwork in the golf swing. Footwork is important for two reasons: a) since your foot is connected to your knee, and your knee is connected to your hips, your footwork is indicative of what the rest of your body is doing, how the weight is transferring, etc. b) your feet are the only connection you have to the ground, which you use for leverage to push off and jump/extend through the golf ball

As the club gets into the delivery position the outside of the back foot raises up off the ground – it banks in towards the target. The heel should not be coming off the ground at this point. The foot works in this fashion due to the forward, sliding/driving motion in the hips.

A pair of related videos (the first could easily fit into the "SECRET - SLIDE your hips thread"):

[Stretch]

Thread archaeology perhaps, but I spent this morning working mainly on my foot action and found -- as described above -- that simply focusing on rolling onto the inside of the right foot in the downswing, while keeping the heel relatively planted, had a massive effect on my lateral hip movement and eventual clearance. With the driver, particularly, I have rarely hit the ball better.

I keyed off this video, which I got from Nick Clearwater's YouTube channel and then slowed down a bit myself.

[colin007]

i need to make a thread thanking the sandtrap for exposing some of the fundamental truths (ball flight laws, pushing towards the target, etc...) that i never knew and that most will never know.

THANK YOU!

[iacas]

[saevel25]

Is this a common move in golf with great players?

Also what if your a person who has weak ankles. I have pulled ligiments in my left ankle about 4 times in the past 7 years. I also twisted my ankles countless times playing soccer when i was younger. Sometimes my ankles will just roll even if i am standing upright if the muscles down there don't support the ankles. I tweek my ankle last week doing this standing in the finished position after hitting a drive.

Because i see that position you have circled and my ankles are crying in fear. ;b

[brgolf]

My trouble I guess is my left foot fanning out and pointing towards the target while my right foot is more John Travolta than Tiger Woods. I need to get them under control that little bit more.

[Stretch]

Saevel, remember, that's a dynamic position. As the hips keep turning, the heel does lift off the ground. All he's done at that point is gently rolled onto the inside of the right foot. Nothing particularly rigorous about that.

I worked on it today starting with very easy wedges. And it felt very wrong at first. But the key seems to me to be that if you do commit to keeping the right heel down, you physically must go forward (probably more than normal for most of us) before rotating the hips. Anyway, as I said, once the feel kicked in I worked through the bag up to full driver swings without any particular perception of stress on either ankle. Will say that my left knee feels like it got a workout tonight, probably because I was posting up on that leg way more than usual. But that's also a good thing!