rotation of the hips

[Andy24]

Good evening folks! Some of you might know me from earlier posts, but I can say to all of you I just started playing this summer. I used to slice so bad it was ridicilous (even with the PW), yes you read it right....even with the PW. But now I hit mostly straight shots, and an occasional draw with most of my clubs.

What I have noticed, however, is that my hips have a minimal amount of movement when I swing. I am a lefty, so if I line up my feet and clubface with the target line, my shots go straight, but they go about 10 degrees to my left. However, if I line up my feet slightly right (opening my stance), the shot usually goes straight down the middle.
Is this a swing flaw, or is it OK to just go with the open stance?

Lately I have made a big effort to think about my hips when I swing, and I have noticed that when I move them (to me what feels exessively) I hit the ball straight down the middle without opening my stance. Is it possible that too little hip movement can cause the ball to slice, but not an open clubface? Is it that I cut across the ball when my hips are still, and I square up my clubface better when I rotate my hips more?

I'm a pretty good baseball player, and I believe that is why my hips are sort of silent, because in baseball I don't need to rotate them that much to accomodate my swing.

Any thoughts on this matter would be very helpful!

PS. I shot a 49 on 9 holes for the first time last week!!!!

[BC MIST]

PS. I shot a 49 on 9 holes for the first time last week!!!!

Congratulations. Considering that the average golfer scores around 100, even after years of playing, to break 50 in your first year is a significant accomplishment.

As a good baseball player you know that both the distance you hit the baseball and where you hit it, is primarilly controlled by your upper body, hands/arms. Homerun hitters delay the straightening of the wrists until just before impact. To help them do this the lower body, hips, are moved to a stable position, that then allows the hands and arms to do their thing.

IMO, the golf swing is the same. The motion and position of the hips moving forward at the start of the downswing stablizes the body into a position so that the arms/hands/shoulders can release the built up power into the ball at the correct instance. In all throwing like motions, the lower body will start its motion forward, just before the backward motion of the upper body is complete. (Conservation of Angular Momentum) With a lot of conscious or excessive motion of the hips you will actually put your upper body out of position and you will have to make compensations to achieve good contact. This excessive lower body motion is what Tiger Woods is struggling with now. His lower body is moving too fast for his upper body and to avoid hooking he has to hold on for dear life with his hands, and frequently blocks the ball to the right.

Of greater importance is the position of your shoulders at address. If they are excessively open, lining right of target line in your case, as you start your downswing, they will tend to want to return too quickly to that open position, and you will slice. I have seen golfers with a squarely aligned lower body but with shoulders wide open, and hit 50 yard slices. Therefore, get your shoulders lined up a squarely as possible, with your hips as square as possible, too, and you will increase the probability of the ball going straight. The greatest determinant of your ball flight comes from what you do before you swing and not while you are swinging. Good setup and alignment is just so important.

If you look at pictures of Tour professionals at impact today compared to 25 years ago you will see that many more of them have their back foot flat or close to being flat on the ground at impact. This position reduces the excessive motion of the hips/lower body, that robs golfers of both distance and accuracy.

As in baseball, most of your power in golf comes from the upper body, but the stable position of the lower body allows this upper body power to be delivered at the correct time and position, for the greatest distance and accuracy to be achieved.

If you could measure how far you right hip actually moved from the top of the backswing to impact and the time it takes to get to that position, you would find that the hips are actually moving very slowly, even though it appears that they move faster. Again it is not the speed of the hips that is important, it is where you put them.