The title of my book is "BREAKTHROUGH IN GOLF - BUILDING A WININING SWING WITH THE HIP TO HIP METHOD"
However, despite preaching body rotation, I personally was having a difficult time making my my hips move the right way, and turning them fully at age 67, by focusing on my hips.
I re-read Bobby Jone's book. He said he would load up and turn your hips on his backswing by shifting his weight to his RIGHT HEEL. And on the downswing, he cleared his hips out at impact by aggressively shifting his weight to his LEFT HEEL. This simple move forces your hips to turn back and forth fully and effectively most of the time.
Equally effective, and the one which works best for me is simply thinking of rotating my BELLY BUTTON back and forth through the swing. By turning your belly button past the ball on the downswing and around your left heel, you get the body torso out of the way for the arc of the clubhead to bottom out at the ball for a release of the clubhead right down the line. Young players move aggressively and almost automatically with their lower body.
It is pure geometry. The clubhead must bottom out right past the ball to get solid ball compression, and the arc of the clubhead path must not only have the clubface facing down the target line at the split second of impact, but the arc of the club and clubhead must be traveling right down the line as the geometric circle bottoms out. And it can only happen if the lower body has turned past the ball at impact. There is no other way to get there! You can try it by flipping your hands and that will occasionally work, but that is very, very erratic timing from one day to the next. Hand flipping is not a reliable method to build a consistent golf swing.
A third method that can work is on the downswing thrusting your left hip out behind yourself at a 45 degree angle away from the ball. It actually causes the hips to turn out of the way for the clear arc delivery down the line. But that feel is hard to maintain as a swing key thought. But, in any event:
You have to open your torso up to the target at impact before your hands get to the impact zone.
This is a matter of degrees, so it is critical the torso and hips turn out of the way at impact.
It truly is the secret to a great golf swing. It is simple to say how to apply, but hard to replicate. But ONE OF THE ABOVE METHODS SHOULD WORK FOR YOU! And it does take practice. In Golf, there are no shortcuts.
Try this and and enjoy how you compress the ball at impact and take your ball striking up a notch!
Curtis Elliott
