As a golfer with two really bad knees, a semi-paralyzed left arm and shoulder, and a stiff since childhood, I am always looking for new ways to swing a golf club with more power and control.
Power without control is a useless commodity.
If you look around on golfteacher.com, you will find that I have indeed over the years (since 1995), found many ways to move my body parts to efficiently swing a golf club.
The hips as they are used in the golf swing have always been a source discussion in any real approach to find power and efficiency.
Most “in the know” players and teachers will tell you the left hip is the real power source when you swing a golf club. A fast left hip coupled with rel rotation of the torso, a good pivot, and firing legs will result in a faster arm swing against a strong and solid left side.
Get the left hip moving with speed in conjunction with a connected body movement and you are sure to become a driving range Adonis.
I hit balls and swing a club every day during the winter. Hit balls off the ice and snow and frozen ground. As a PGA trained guy, I like to teach body movement first as opposed to arms, hands, and wrists. I love watching classic golf swings, whether they are old time players or new time modern players.
Most if not all have a few important things in common along the the classical explanation of functional powerful golf swings. Ben Hogan is a god.
But you know what, maybe Hogan is a golf god. But the only thing that really matters is your consistent patterns of ball flight, and the movement of you body that enables you to swing the golf club club with ease and efficiency.
I have discovered that focusing on my right hip before starting my arms down in the downswing actually increases my effectiveness of swing movement and helps to find some added strength in controlling the club in addition to adding power to my swing.
If I focus on turning my right hip toward the target first, it actually feels like the right hip grabs my arms and golf club, and pushes both in a full release at and through impact. Resulting in a more effortless move through impact and a tremendously more consistent ball flight as regards trajectory, shape, and direction.
You still have to turn and pivot, but the order of firing body parts in unison with each other feels remarkably different than the classical meothod of golf swing operation.
What is most important here is that firing the right hip first as described above saves on pain and discomfort, and lost effort during and after my swing. I have developed a certain smoothness as I turn through the ball, as opposed to a labored, tired, aggressiveness.
I feel a calm powerful control as I swing the club head through impact into follow through. What is most important is that my ball flight mirrors this feeling.
The ball appears consistently in my ball flight window. It feels good and right. And I find a certain happiness and satisfaction as I watch to golf ball fly through the air toward its eventual target.
In other words, this right hip movement just allow my golf swing to happen. I don’t have to work at it so hard.
