Downswing Hip Movement
An interesting question that I have been running into lately is: “Do I turn my hips hard on my downswing to create more speed?” Many people feel and truly believe that beginning the downswing you should turn your hips as hard and as fast as you can, and the faster you can turn them the more power you will have. Now, I will be the first one to say that this is clearly what it looks like on TV. But, if you actually break down the swings of all the greatest players of all time, this is NOT what clearly is happening. In fact if you try to turn your hips as fast as you can on the downswing there will be way more problems than good things that will come out of it. This will more than likely destroy your golf swing and cause you to hit it more off line and shorter than you ever have! That does NOT sound like much fun! This is what should be happening…
After moving to the top of your golf swing, the first move towards the ball should be a reconnection to the pivot by way of a hip bump, slide, or whatever is politically correct. “The LAWs of the Golf Swing” by Mike Adams, TJ Tomasi, and Jim Suttie talks about this move in great detail. The more vertical your swing, the more exaggerated of a hip bump you will need for the reconnection of your hands and club to your pivot. The more flat your swing is, the less of a hip bump you will need to reconnect your hands to your pivot. So basically you have to find the correct combination to suit your swing!
“Golfers who have read Hogan’s advice to clear the hips as fast as possible on the downswing, as a way of generating power, have been thrown way off course. They spin their hips around so abruptly that they get way out ahead of the ball and mishit the shot. The slow hand-arm-club releasers block the ball, while the fast releasers hook the ball.” Johnny Myers, Golf Magazine Top 100 Instructor. My advice would be if you are being taught to clear your hips fast as to generate power, run the other way!
Ben Hogan put great emphasis on hip action in “Five Lessons”. He explained how he would turn his hips from the top of his backswing hard and fast. Being the number one selling golf instruction book of all time, maybe that is why people believe that is what is right! In the book “The Hogan Way” it says, “As far as what Hogan mentions in Five lessons, he left out the most important point: that he shifted his hips laterally toward the target before rotating them to the left in a counterclockwise direction.”
If you have any more questions about this topic and want to find out how to implement this in your golf swing do not hesitate to call me!













