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THE HIPS
Your hip is the largest joint in your body. It's a ball and socket joint formed by the large bone in your upper leg [the femur] that plugs into its socket in the pelvic girdle. It can produce six ranges of motion while still supporting the weight of the body.
In your golf posture bend forward from the hips not the waist. When you bend from your waist you hunch your back and de-activate your centers of rotation. Your hip joints lock up forcing your hips to move laterally, producing a slide instead of a turn. By bending from your hips, your arms will hang, tension free, directly below your shoulders. It will also create room for your arms to swing, and establish your swing plane.
Notice that when you assume the correct position, your abdomen is retracted upward and inward causing your fanny to protrude. Remember that with your spine angled correctly the weight of your head and shoulders pulls you forward toward the ball during your swing and it is your protruding backside that provides the counterweight to keep you in balance. To get the feeling of the position imagine that you're about to sit on an above-the-waist, three legged stool. The traditional image of a regular height stool causes too much knee bend with a squatting appearance.
Mechanics Of The Hip Switch
There is just enough truth to the statement that your spine is the axis of your swing, to cause some problems. True enough, the upper part of your body turns with your spine when you swing a golf club, but it is by no means the only axis that you pivot around and by thinking that it is, you’ll invariably ruin your weight transfer.
In fact, the golf swing is a three-axis affair composed of the spine, around which your upper body moves and your left and right hip joints, around which, each in their turn, your entire body rotates.
A major difference that separates the good player from the wanna-be, is that the good player is “in” the correct hip socket at the correct time during the swing. Being “in” means to have established that hip joint as the center of rotation by shifting your weight into it and then turning your body around it.
To give yourself the best chance to hit a good golf shot, you need to be in your trail hip joint during your backswing and your front hip joint during your downswing. This will allow the energy in your clubhead at impact to flow through the ball and toward the target, rather than down into the ground or up into the sky, as it often does when you are stranded in the wrong hip during.
To get the feeling place a board that’s strong enough to support your weight over an old golf shaft or .....
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