Hip Turn

28 03 2010

Have you ever hit balls at the range next to someone who made an awesome sound when they hit the ball?  That sound is compression.  It makes other players turn and watch because obviously this is a great ball striker.  The player has made his divot past the ball and transferred the energy efficiently from the clubhead to the ball.  Distance control is one of the keys to scoring.  Great golfers don’t always hit the ball accurately but they often hit the ball pin high which means they are making solid contact.   Proper hip action on the backswing plays a major role in compressing the ball.

A common swing thought is to transfer your weight to your right side on the backswing.  Unfortunately, most players sway their hips back to do this causing fat and thin contact.  The key is to allow your hips to truly turn, not sway.  Think of your belt buckle as the center of your hips. If your hips turn around this center, your right hip will actually move towards the target during the backswing.  This does not mean you are reverse pivoting as your spine angle should not tilt towards the target during this movement.  In order to make sure of this, make sure your head is still or even moves a little away from the target during the backswing.

The focus of this video is the hip turn on the backswing but compression will only occur if you move your hips correctly on the follow through.  The downswing should start with a slight bump of the left hip towards the target.  You will hit the ball even longer if you can get this bump to happen before your upper body completes its backswing turn.  This will set up the proper kinematic sequence for the downswing.  Like any sport where you hit a ball with a stick, the movement starts from the ground up.  Proper hip motion on the backswing will help you set up this efficient downswing sequence.  If you do, you may just be that guy on the range who causes heads to turn.


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Consistently Good Alignment

23 03 2010

I want to be more consistent!” I hear this from so many of my students. Consistency is almost impossible in the game of golf. Even Tiger can shoot 62 one day and 72 the next. Is that consistent? The bottom line is that we are human, and our bodies are different every day. We do our best to swing consistently, but it does not always happen. That is what makes the short game so important, as it helps us make up for full-swing mistakes.

The one place I think a golfer can be consistent is what he does before he hits a ball. The way I look at it, poor aim and alignment is a mental error while hooking or slicing is a physical error.

You should practice alignment like you would practice your swing. If you go to a tour event, you will see all kinds of alignment aids on the ground on the practice tee. Tour players are so good that they can make their balls go to the target even with poor aim and alignment. Unfortunately, they have to alter their swings to make this happen, which eventually leads to poor swing mechanics. Setting up correctly matches up with good swing mechanics, and now you are well on your way to better golf.

It is important to realize that on the golf course, we tend to aim and align ourselves based on our ball flight tendencies. If you are a right-handed golfer who hooks the ball, you will tend to aim right. If you are right-handed golfer who slices the ball, you will tend to aim left.  In short, correct aim and alignment does not guarantee good swing mechanics, but it helps! My recommendation is to spend some of your practice time with an alignment aid so it becomes more second nature on the golf course.

The players with the best alignment tend to be the straight hitters. Annika Sorenstam and Fred Funk tend to be good aimers. They also tend to hit a very straight golf ball. Spend some time with your teacher learning how to swing on plane and square up your clubface at impact. Hitting it straight will lead you to better aim and alignment as well.  I’ll never guarantee consistency, but I’ll guarantee that improved aim and alignment will lead to better golf.


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Swing myths

9 03 2010

How many times have you heard keep your head down? Don’t do it! What I am saying may sound like heresy but all you have to do is look at tour players and see that they release their heads on their follow through.  What do Annika Sorenstam, David Duval and Robert Allenby have in common? They all release their heads before impact. They are actually looking at the target before they hit the ball. They are not even close to keeping their heads down. They do maintain their spine angles but releasing their heads makes their bodies explosive through the hitting zone. I am not saying you have to exaggerate as much as these players but realize that every tour player is looking at the target on the follow through. If you cannot see your ball flight immediately, your head is down too long.

How many times have you heard swing slower? If you swing slower, your ball will go shorter! I have been teaching for 15 years and almost every student has asked me for more distance. You cannot hit it farther by swinging slower. If you have a technical fault in your swing, slowing down is not going to fix it. Fix the mistake and then speed up your swing to get distance. Don’t confuse slow with smooth. Ernie Els and Vijay Singh are smooth swingers but they are not slow.

How many times have you heard to hit down on the ball? This advice may be the reason 90% of golfers slice the ball. While good ball strikers do compress the ball, it is a function of having a forward leaning shaft and their weight shifting correctly through impact which creates a divot that is past the ball. If you look at the spine angle of a tour player from the face-on point of view, you will see that every one of them has a spine angle leaning backward away from the target. This is the same spine angle you would create if you were going to throw something up in the air. Golfers misinterpret hitting down on the ball by swinging down steeply which creates deep divots, pulls and slices. Try swinging up on the ball and you will become a drawer of the golf ball.

Before taking any swing advice from friends or golf professionals for that matter, always ask the following question. Will this advice help my ball flight and impact? If so, go for it but beware of swing myths!


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Categories : ball flight, full swing, game improvement, golf, golf instruction, mental game