Ringer

This is almost impossible to do. People who slide "too far" have problems with hooks. They stay back too long and come way inside of the ball because their shoulders are closed by the time the club gets to impact. Tom Lehman is a great example of that. He fought hooks because he slid his lower body to the point where both of his knees stayed bent through his whole swing. Like I said earlier, where the hips go, so go the shoulders. If you slide (push your left hip toward the target too long) then your shoulders will also do the same. Slicers have a problem of their left hip pulling away from the ball, and then their lead shoulder also pulls away from the ball.

I am going to disagree with your pro. (Surprise surprise) Although I to believe there is an "ideal" length of backswing, 99% of the time the length of your backswing is not the issue. Instead it is likely to be something like loosing your spine tilt. If your upper body is angled back away from the target at the top of your backswing. It's a common mistake made by a LOT of professionals. They want to limit your motion instead of teaching you proper direction. So my advice would be focus on keeping your balance on the INSIDE of your back foot. Do not let it get on the outside of your foot. Proper balance combined with maintaining tilt away from the target will make it nearly impossible to turn too much. I want you to look at Tiger for just a moment at the top of his backswing. Look at how far he is rotated. His shoulders are turned an incredible amount as compared to the rest of his body. Does that mean he's "over swung"? Nope, not at all. The important thing is that he is stll BACK, leaning away from the target with his upper body while his lower body is still somewhat forward. That is what gives him spine tilt and as long as you have spine tilt, you cannot turn too far.

Yeah I did make that video. It didn't cover all of the reasons why I advocate the left thumb off to the side, but it does illustrate where the thumb should be. An even bigger reason for the thumb on the side of the shaft is because of where your thumb ends up at the top of the backswing. Just for example, put only your left hand on the club. Now put your thumb directly on top of the saft (the wrong way). Now rest the club on your right shoulder. Finally lift the club up off of your shoulder and push your hands out away from your body. This is where your left arm and hand should be at the top of your backswing. Notice that you instictively cupped your wrist. The reason is simple. If you try to flatten your wrist then you would not have your thumb in the right place to leverage the club and hold it up. Go ahead and try to flatten your wrist and you'll see that you will have to strain very hard to hold the club up. Now put the club back down on the ground and take your left hand grip. Put your thum off to the side of the grip (the right way). Now rest the club on your shoulder. Finally lift the club off your shoulder and push your hands away from your body. Here you will see that you instictively flattened your wrist. That is the true secret of a flat wrist. Not just how to create it, but why it REALLY is important. If you have a flat left wrist then you have a proper placement of your thumb. If you have a proper placement of your thumb then your left arm has more control over the club. If your left arm has more control over the club then it can add more speed and directionality to the swing. Without this proper placement of the thumb then we rely almost entirely on our right hand making all of the proper adjustments.

I'm really quite confused about something though mm6840... how can you agree with me here.. But then disagree with me here.... These two statements of mine are virtually the same, yet you agree with one and disagree with the other. For the record I have watched plenty of slow motion videos and two of my Tiger slow mo's are some of the most watched video's on youtube. The video you posted is not facing tiger straight on. Nor is it straight from the target. His hips are going to look far more open from that angle than pretty much any other angle a person can think of.

Unfortunately some of the advice posted as follow up is a bit off track. There are a lot of different opinions being thrown around as to how to achieve what he is saying, and there seems to be a lack of direction. It's good to have opinions, but sometimes people have formed them without really thinking them through. So I will do my best to set a few things straight. #1 - Iacas is absolutely right that the BEST way to achieve a proper hip turn is by PUSHING THE RIGHT KNEE forward. I give the specific direction of "Toward the toe of your front foot". #2 - Iacas is absolutely correct that most pro's only have slightly open hips when compared to that of most Am's. In almost every case of a slicer, you will see the left hip pull away from the ball during the forward swing. This is the absolute WORST move you can do. Yet it's mind boggling how many people give the advice to turn your hips more and move the left hip out of the way. #3 - Where your hips go, your shoulders go. Where your shoulders go, your hands go. Where the hands go, the clubhead goes. It's all linked. So which direction SHOULD your front hip move first? Straight back away from the ball or toward the target? Well if our goal is to make the clubhead move toward the target, it seems quite logical the first move is to get the front hip moving toward the target as well. Just for clarification though, the BEST way to do this is again by directing the BACK knee. It is the one with the most leverage. #4 - Your grip MUST change to accommodate the hip turn. If you are a "hip spinner" then you have undoubtedly altered your grip to be stronger. You have also taught yourself to "PULL THE CLUB" through impact rather than releasing it toward the target. So I'm sorry, but those of you advocating any sort of pull motion over a push motion, are simply not understanding something. Advocating a pull instinctively results in a twist around rather than a THROW OUT. #5 - Learn to finish. Not just in balance where you are standing up and with your belt facing the target, but completely in balance where your front foot is not rolled or spun out. If you can put a quarter on the toe of your front foot and keep it there without letting it fall off, you will learn how to balance. #6 - The lower body and upper body DO NOT work independently. Where the lower body goes directly affects where the upper body goes. That's like saying the chasie of the car travels in a different direction than the engine. If that's the case then you either don't have a car, or you've been in a serious accident. As a final comment for anyone who cares about such matters, I was taught in the beginning to be a left hand dominant swinger. I learned to hit thousands of balls with no right hand on the club. I understand the "Pull" mentality all too well since it served me wonderfully for so many years. But once you start the process of seeking out TRUTH over advice, you will begin to see that the left side is not dominant, nor is the right side. They are part of the apparatus that swings the club. Just like one would not say the left rope controls the swing on a swingset, while the right rope is trailing. Both of them together make up the swing, and both of them move syncronously.

Your left thumb should be slightly on the right side of the shaft. The side away from the first knuckle of your index finger.

Iacas, very good. It's absolutely right. I have a fundamental disagreement with 95% of instruction on hip turn, and here you've nailed one of the reasons I came to my conclusions. The front hip must establish itself over the heel of your front foot. Then your back hip must establish itself over the toe of your front foot. This is the ONLY way a person can BALANCE themselves on their finish. So, pushing the right knee toward the toe of your front foot is key to this hip action as you have pointed out. I describe the hip action as more of a dual door hinge. Imagine your back hip is a door hinge on the backswing. Your front hip rotates around that door hinge when you make your turn. Then to make your forward swing, you need to switch the rolls of your hips. Now the front hip needs to become the hinge while the back hip rotates around it. Before your front hip can do that, it must establish a new position. The best place for your front hip to go is over the heel of your front foot. This is the furthest toward the target it can go without you loosing balance and affecting your ability to move the rest of your body. Once this DIRECTION is done correctly, the speed can be however fast you want. In fact, the faster it is done, the better. This is why I cringe everytime someone says the solution to their slice is to "slow their hips down". The solution is actually to learn the direction you want them to go. Then get there as fast as you want.

Believe it or not, the best way I have seen to fixing your release is to fix your finish. Try finishing so that the butt end of the club points at the target and your elbows are out in front of your chest.

2 years later and the debate still hasn't been put to rest. He is right that there are more factors than just path and face. In fact, center of gravity should be the #1 cause for path IMO, but it's just easier to point to the face alignment. This is why off center hits (toed and heeled) have different results. The club has a center of gravity which is called the sweet spot. When we strike the ball in the center of the clubs gravity then the clubface will not deflect. When we strike the ball on the toe of the club, then the club deflects so that the clubface opens slightly. When we strike the ball on the heel of the club then the club deflects so that the clubface closes slightly. Now, it's easy to say "The clubface was closed and so the ball will go left." But the actual reason for the ball going left could easily be said that the clubs center of gravity struck the outside half of the golf ball. The opposite would be said for a ball struck on the inner half and causing the ball to go right. This is, of course, for a right handed player. As for spin, the amount of compression will determin how FAST the ball spins as well as the waywardness of the clubs center of gravity from the ball's center of gravity. Afterall, if you put a basketball on the ground, then try to kick the outside half of it there will be some side spin. Obviously there is no "clubface" on your foot. So instead it's more accurate to say the center of gravity of your foot struck the outside half of the ball causing it to spin to the left as well as travel to the left. This may seem all so minor and inconsiquential... but in fact I find it causes many people to make incorrect diagnosis and changes in their golf swing. For many who slice, they have progressively started to aim more and more to the left. They think they are compensating for what they know to be a slice that will come. However, they don't change the clubface. Instead they still aim it in the direction of the target. The result is a BIGGER slice than they anticipated and it still ends up in danger. Instead the correct action would be to aim more to the RIGHT. Ever heard of the idea to aim AT the danger? Well that's why the advice is sometimes right.

I have to disagree with Shawn on this one. I don't like that hip action at all as it make your hips twist instead of bump and turn. Twisting your hips is a major cause of off plane swings. Instead, think of your right hip as a door hinge. You want it to stay right where it is while your left hip rotates around it. Like a swinging door. It rotates, but does not leave its position. Then on the forward swing, the left hip goes back to it's original position. Once it does that, it should stay right where it is as the right hip starts to rotate around the left hip now. So the hips reverse rolls once the left hip re-establishes it's original position. I put together a video on this a while back.

More like have the back of your left hand facing the target at setup. But make sure your left thumb is slightly to the side of the shaft and not on top. Keep some seperation between your left knuckle and thumb.

Before anything else can be said, your grip promotes your fade and an inability to release the club. As long as you keep that strong left hand grip, you will always be a twister and not a swinger.

Do you know the difference between a strong grip and a neutral one? It is easy to confuse what I am saying with a strong grip. I do not want people to have a strong grip because it promotes all sorts of compensations including a "chicken wing" finish. I a little afraid you may have misinterpretted my suggestion for a stronger grip. Perhaps this will help make it clearer.

1) How would you describe your release? Letting go. 2) Would you say that guys who naturally cut the ball are blockers with strong grips? Yup, and a twist of the body. It feels powerful because a lot of people think power comes from twisting hard and fast. The quicker you twist, the stronger a grip you need to keep it somewhat straight... but there is still going to be some side spin. Problem is a lot of instructors tell their students to strengthen their grips in order to eliminate a slice. That just teaches people to not release.

It's amazing how long ago I posted this and people are still gleaming from it to improve their swings. I came accross this little nugget almost by accident. I was developing a blister at the base of my left thumb where there is a little flap of skin that can get between the base of your thumb and grip. I sought out a few instructors and asked them why I kept getting this grip. One of them told me to go to a stronger grip, but I was not happy with that idea. I'm a RELEASE guy, not a blocker. BUT it got me thinking as to why making my grip stronger would fix it. I realized it was because of the pressure my left thumb was trying to apply pressure to the club at the top of the swing to hold it up in the air. Then during the transition it would rub very hard on that flap of skin causing my blister. I realized that a better placement of the thumb would allow me to hold up the club better at the top. After that more things fell into place about how it made it easier to release the club and how the thumb could apply more pressure through the forward swing. Anyway, again I'm very happy you have all found success with this little gem.

I push off my right foot to get my right hip over my left toe technically. But all I really think about is getting to my finish.

Oh you know what, you are so right. Because I misspelled a word my comments are completely irrelevent. Thanks for pointing out the error of my ways. BTW, that's why there's a new set of physics being described called non-linear physics. It's trying to quantify things like force and vector without using the liner mathmatics. You probably just haven't heard about it.

It depends on the angle of the plane, it most certainly can cross the line. Whether or not it should depends on what you intend to do.

I find that most errors that occur during the swing are a result of the setup. I would probably say you are setting up with weight on your toes... but that's a guess based on the average of what I see with most of my students.

There is no analogy in what I said so either there's a disagreement what "analogy" means or you're just trying to argue because you don't understand what I'm saying. If you TRUELY knew your physics you would know that linear terminology does not apply to non-linear physics unless you want to use the false impression of rotating frames of reference.

Good lord what happened to this thread?? The swing is CIRCULAR. To try and define it using linear terminology is foolhearty because everyone will be right in their own mind. Make a swing people, not a hit.

Their current theory is that the ball starts in the direction of the path and cuts or draws based on the clubface. It can be found in the PGA teaching manual and countless writings by Gary Wiren. I believe the reason they are reluctant to change probably has something to do with their close relation to Gary.

Let me tell you something that will probably help clarify things for you. But before I do, let me tell you it's a hotly contested issue. Although the PGA of America disagree's with what I'm about to say, I have confirmed it with both Callaway and Ping labratory technicians and engineers. The ball STARTS mostly in the direction of the face. The ball TURNS based on the path of the club during contact relative to the face. So in other words, if you are setting up with the clubface AT the target, and swinging on a path that is to the left of the target then the result will be a ball that starts out mostly at the target and fades to the right of the target. This means that the further LEFT you swing, the further RIGHT the ball will turn! Now, there's a goldmine out there for your game if you pay attention. Pay attention to your finish. Work on finishing in different ways. Tinker tinker tinker.... you'll find that working the ball is very easy when you have a specific finish in mind.

I don't find changing swing planes helps much. Doing other things which effect the swing plane help though. Things like staying balanced and relaxed. Swinging the club instead of attempting to leverage it... and having the proper setup with a good finish.

It amazes me how little people actually observe what they're doing and evaluate it for what it's worth. We tend to get so locked up in how the ball flies that we don't even pay attention to what we did in order to make it happen. This will help you evaluate your results much more plainly.