Use Your Hips to Maximize Your Drives
Oct 5th, 2011 by Mark Jackson
Although many of us have heard the phrase “Drive for show, Putt for dough”, we still want that monster drive! It feels “oh so good” to crush one right down the center of the fairway.
The problem is that a good, powerful golf swing is not as much about how hard you swing — but how perfectly timed your swing is.
Try this.
Pay attention to how high you bring your club back on your back swing. Ideally the shaft of your club should be parallel to the ground. Any more than parallel dramatically increases the chances of a poor shot. Less than parallel is OK, but you want to be right around there.
The best way to check this is to simply step up to take a swing at the ball at normal speed, and simply stop at the top. Now you can pivot your head up to look.
Is your leading arm straight?
Are your wrists bent good enough to make the club shaft parallel to the ground?
Once you at that point, you are cocked and ready to fire. At this point most of your weight should be on the inside of your back foot. Remember to keep your back elbow close to your body (this isn’t a baseball swing).
To initiate your swing, it all starts in your hips. Your hips are the trigger. Once you’re in this cocked and loaded position and are ready to fire, shift your hips quickly to move the weight from your back foot to your forward foot. Shift your hips SIDEWAYS toward your target. Don’t rotate, shift sideways. Once you strike the ball, then you’ll rotate through.
By shifting your hips first, you’ll create a cascading effect which will unleash up power. The extra “Crushing” power comes from the hips, not from the arms.
Try shifting your hips a couple of times without bringing the clubface down. Can you feel how this motion wants to complete? It almost begs you to bring down the club face.
Now practice a couple of swings all the way to completion. A good golf swing feels natural when done correctly.
Keep your head down all the way through the ball, and finish with a high follow-through. You can’t forget the follow through. Don’t be shy about bending your arms completely over your leading shoulder. When everything connects as it should, it’s a great pose to watch your beautiful shot from.
