How to use your hips properly has been debated for many years. In the last twenty years many instructors have favored trying to keep the right hip still or what was called stable and then rotate around that position. The best players actually rotate the trail or right hip away from the ball early in the back swing. It was said that one of Hogan’s “secrets” was to take his trail hip and move it away from the target line as quickly as possible to start the back swing. The video below shows some of the greatest of all time and how they use their lower body.
One of techniques most great players employ and most poor players do not is keeping the hips back during the swing. If you look at Ben Hogan from the target line and put a line on the back of his rear as you can see in the video below, to start the swing you would notice something interesting. His right hip moves away from the ball at the start of the swing and at no time during the swing does either of his hips move closer to the ball. Hogan did this more than most but you will see that the best ball strikers do not move their hips towards the target line ever but at least until after the ball is struck.
Most amateurs move towards the target line – ball from the top of the swing. Next time you go to the range try to keep your hips away from the ball. The best way to do this is to pre-set the trail hip away from the target line. We will cover this in more detail in a future post. Remember that during the swing your belt buckle should not move closer to the ball during the swing.
Enjoy the video…..
Jim Hartnett, PGA
