Josh’s Tips & Tricks: Avoid Hip Slide

Intro

Hello golfers. Welcome to this weeks tips & tricks. This week we are going to look at a swing movement very close to my heart. I have always been a slider with my hips so this drill is one that I have practiced very frequently. When your hips slide too laterally from side to side and don’t rotate you can have varied ball striking and directional misses so getting it right is very important.

Hip Slide

A hip slide can causes changes in the spinal angle and therefore the angle of attack. This can cause fat and thin strikes as well as directional misses. The directional miss can be either a block right or a hook left for a right handed golfer. If any of these symptoms sound familiar you could be sliding your hips rather than rotating.

Take a look at the following video for an example of a hip slide and then a way that we can fix it.

Fix the Slide

An easy way to know if you are sliding is to film yourself and put a line vertically through the outside of the lead foot. If your knees slide past the line through the downswing you’re sliding. Another way is to put a blocker just outside the left foot. This can be an alignment stick, a bag, or anything else that comes to about waist height. When you have a blocker in place try to transfer weight and rotate the hips but avoid the blocker outside of the lead foot.

The idea is to rotate the body and naturally transfer weight through to the lead foot without sliding the knees and hips towards the target. A common fault when fixing this is to hang back and lean away from the target, this can often make the problem worse. Try to imagine that the body is rotating within a box during the swing. Naturally the weight should move away from the target and back towards the target with rotation through the hips and shoulders.

Summary

If you’re unaware how your hips are moving during the golf swing it is something that needs addressing. Rotating instead of sliding or swaying is the key to good ball striking and good clubface control.

If any of the symptoms sound familiar to you then get in touch or BOOK A LESSON HERE

Like I said at the start this is something that I have been battling for years and is not an easy habit to break. I have played some of my best golf when I’ve been aware of the slide and you could benefit too.

If you have any questions you know where I am!

See you soon,

Josh