Hip Action for Swingers

[Jimmy A.]

I think I have been using too much upper body in my swing for pretty much my entire golfing life. Maybe not too much upper body, but too little lower body? Anyway, recently I started having a little bit of trouble not flipping the club again and adding with the hands and arms. Granted, nothing like it used to be, but I was just starting to really mash the ball, so it was disappointing when that damn flip showed up again. I went back and watched the "Confessions" video again, then went out and hit some balls in the school yard. Once again, I was mashing the ball. Now, what I noticed was, as long as I felt like the hips were really pulling everything, and my left arm kept swiveling, I couldn't help but hit the ball well. I also noticed, early on, that the few that I hit bad were when my hips weren't as active and seemed somewhat overpowered by my upper body.

My question in all of this is, am I on the right track here? I think that the reason my hips might feel like they're really pulling everything through is because they have been relatively inactive for so long. Now that I'm actually using them, it feels like most of the muscular effort in my swing is coming from the legs and hips.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

in active hips can cause flippiness...happens to me from time to time.

Swing a few clubs together (heavy club) and focus on using your hips. Not over doing them, just using them.

 

[birdie_man]

Make sure you're mashing the ball with a bent right wrist through impact. Focus on the right wrist- keeping it bent. For me, it helps to get that crispness back.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

quote:Originally posted by birdie_man

Make sure you're mashing the ball with a bent right wrist through impact. Focus on the right wrist- keeping it bent. For me, it helps to get that crispness back.

Very true, but if you're hips stop pivoting you will lose that right wrist bend. It happens to me a lot, ask brian, i have lazy hips. But when i remember to "let them activate" as i call it, BOOM!

 

[Jimmy A.]

I have another question along these lines. In Brian's "Flipper" video, he bends the right wrist back, rolls the left arm a little, and calls those "impact hands". From there, he just rotates into impact. My question is this: From that "impact hands" position, where I do nothing but take my address position, then bend my right wrist and rotate my left, if I just rotate my hips it brings the hands right to the aiming point (and, consequently, also brings the clubhead/face into impact). Is THIS what "hip throwout action" is?

 

[Erik_K]

If there was a 4th imperative, it might be the importance of hip action. I had a lesson with Ted Fort (yodasluke at lynn blake's site) and he said the improper, or early, rotation of the hips make it hard to do anything right let alone sustain lag, compress the ball, draw a straight plane, etc.

For ME, I need think like my hips are sliding to right field some (I am a swinger). That right hip needs to stay out of the way and when it does EVERYTHING falls into place. When my hips are cleared, the wrist angles are maintained well into the downswing, I hit the ball from the inside,etc.

When the hip is not cleared, I standup and throw the club head away. I have to in order to hit the ball.