The Function Of The Golf Hip Turn (Video) - by Pete Styles
The Function Of The Golf Hip Turn (Video) - by Pete Styles

I'll spend a bit of time talking about how the hip turn is important to us, but I think it’s also important to address why the hip turn is important to us and should a golfer be focusing on that. Really it’s quite important to focus on your hip action and the hip action is not just a product of what your shoulders do or what your hands and arms do. I think some golfers feel that as long as they swing their arms at the ball, their hips will turn quite naturally anyway and they focus on swinging the hands and arms and the hips kind of follow. But that really negates the importance of why we can use the hips and how we can use the hips to generate timing and power. So timing and power are two quite important things in the golf swing, certainly from the top of the backswing when you're very loaded up, if we use the hips accurately and correctly we can generate a huge amount of timing and power. The power being the main thing, and the hip turns are driving the hips down spinning the belt buckle towards the target, really creates a lot of lag in the club head, brings that club head down quickly through to the ball. And that can often be the difference between the golfer that gets the ball out there and the golfer that really gets the ball out there, is whether they're using their hips correctly.

The timing is also quite important because from the top of the backswing I can use my wrists, I can use my arms, I can use my shoulders, all independently. But if I use my hips, I tend to find that if I use my hips everything will come down together, it’s very difficult to turn the hips this way and leave the hands and the arms up here. So generally golfers that start their downswing with their left hip moving, will generally time the ball better than golfers that use another area of their body to start their downswing. One last focal point for yourself with regards to your hip action would be to try and get onto your left side correctly and actually snap the left side correctly. So we’d like to see the point of impact if we’re setting up to the ball, that’s a set up position and impact position is here, and you can notice how my hips really turn the lot there. That was set up, that would be impact, the left hip would drag back out of the way, the left leg would snap back straight and I’ll be striking down on the golf ball with a turn and a snapped position. So your impact position is quite important in regards to your hips, hips should be open, left side should be heavy, left side should be straight and on top of the ball. So good hip turn in the downswing creates good power, good timing, and a good snap left leg for extra consistency in your game. 2015-10-15

I'll spend a bit of time talking about how the hip turn is important to us, but I think it’s also important to address why the hip turn is important to us and should a golfer be focusing on that. Really it’s quite important to focus on your hip action and the hip action is not just a product of what your shoulders do or what your hands and arms do. I think some golfers feel that as long as they swing their arms at the ball, their hips will turn quite naturally anyway and they focus on swinging the hands and arms and the hips kind of follow. But that really negates the importance of why we can use the hips and how we can use the hips to generate timing and power. So timing and power are two quite important things in the golf swing, certainly from the top of the backswing when you're very loaded up, if we use the hips accurately and correctly we can generate a huge amount of timing and power. The power being the main thing, and the hip turns are driving the hips down spinning the belt buckle towards the target, really creates a lot of lag in the club head, brings that club head down quickly through to the ball. And that can often be the difference between the golfer that gets the ball out there and the golfer that really gets the ball out there, is whether they're using their hips correctly.

The timing is also quite important because from the top of the backswing I can use my wrists, I can use my arms, I can use my shoulders, all independently. But if I use my hips, I tend to find that if I use my hips everything will come down together, it’s very difficult to turn the hips this way and leave the hands and the arms up here. So generally golfers that start their downswing with their left hip moving, will generally time the ball better than golfers that use another area of their body to start their downswing. One last focal point for yourself with regards to your hip action would be to try and get onto your left side correctly and actually snap the left side correctly. So we’d like to see the point of impact if we’re setting up to the ball, that’s a set up position and impact position is here, and you can notice how my hips really turn the lot there. That was set up, that would be impact, the left hip would drag back out of the way, the left leg would snap back straight and I’ll be striking down on the golf ball with a turn and a snapped position. So your impact position is quite important in regards to your hips, hips should be open, left side should be heavy, left side should be straight and on top of the ball. So good hip turn in the downswing creates good power, good timing, and a good snap left leg for extra consistency in your game.