Does Trail Hip Load or Turning Create More Power in the Golf Swing?

⛳ Amateur golfers often sway their entire body away from the target during the backswing, which can lead to fat and thin shots.

🦵 The best golfers only move their hips a small distance away from the target early in the backswing, then shift their pelvis towards the target for the rest of the swing.

🏌️‍♂️ Practicing by exaggerating hip movement towards the target without a ball can help improve ball-first contact and overall strike quality.

00:00:00 - We're going to talk a little bit today about how to move your lower body. So, a big thing that you hear in a lot of uh golf instruction and things that you might even just read about is just how the best golfers in the world tend to use their trail leg and just load into their trail side to create more power. So, we're going to talk about how we can measure that and just a way that you can practice this if you think this is part of your problem.

00:00:28 - So, let's talk about just the movement pattern first so that you understand kind of what needs to happen here. So, uh we're talking about two different types of movements. We've got turning, which is the rotational piece. And we've got swing, which is the lateral movement. So, the turning one we've talked about a ton. The more that you rotate your hips, the more that you rotate your shoulders, obviously that's going to help you swing more into out, get the power component uh for your for

00:00:48 - your swing. But the swaying one is often one that I think gets overlooked. A common misconception out there is that a lot of golfers think they need to move not only their hips and their shoulders uh just too far behind the golf ball. So they sway away from the target too much. What the best players in the world do is they only move their hips.3 in away from the target from their address position to when the shaft is parallel to the ground. So that's a really really small

00:01:11 - amount of movement. And then from that point on their center of their pelvis is actually moving towards the target the entirety of the rest of the swing. So, they're only moving away for this really, really short amount of time early on in the back swing. Where this can cause a lot of problems for the amateur golfer is I see this all the time. Golfers make a back swing and they move their entire body away from the target as their arms and club travel to the top of the swing. So, not only does

00:01:35 - it make this uh for for those golfers harder for them to turn, but it also tends to move their strike location or their low point further behind the golf ball. So, if you struggle with fat shots, if you struggle with thin shots, this is really something to pay attention to and this might be causing your problem. So, a really easy way to fix this, we can dive into some of the numbers here and take a look at how we could how we could solve this problem. So, if you think this is part of your

00:01:57 - problem, here's an easy way to fix this. I would start out by exaggerating this movement and then starting to work uh it into an actual swing. So, to begin with, what you want to do, do this without a golf ball to start. Take your setup position and before you even make a back swing, I want you to move your hips towards the target. So, you're basically pushing your belt buckle and your trail hip forward towards wherever you're hitting. And then just keep it there.

00:02:18 - You're going to make some swings where you don't move your hips away from the target at all. You actually just push them forward. Make a back swing. Swing down. Basically, keep your hips, if anything, moving more towards the target. So, that would be the first place to start. Do this without a ball. Introduce a golf ball. Chips them out there. Once you feel like you've got that down, then the next step is to integrate that movement into an actual swing. So, same thing, start without a

00:02:39 - golf ball. Instead of bumping your hips forward to start, keep your hips where they normally would be. And as you make a back swing, you're going to try to create that same movement of actually moving the center of your hips more towards the target. If you do this right, what it should help you with is create ball first contact, a divot that comes after the golf ball. And this should go a long way to solving those heavy shots where you're hitting behind it. So, this is really the final step.

00:03:02 - Take your normal setup, make a back swing, hips towards the target, chip one out there. You can hear the strike. That was super super solid. This would be a great way to solve that problem if that's something you struggle with. So using your hips sway as a way to manage your low point and create more power. Super super efficient. That's what the best golfers in the world do. Try this one out the next time you hit some golf balls.