Clear the hips or squeeze the glutes

Golfbeat · October 17, 2015

In my latest efforts to get better and more consistent I have been focusing more on the movement of the lower body in the follow though. When you watch pros and other good golfers you see that their hips have a slight incline towards the target line in the finish and their thighs and knees are closely together. Also their hips are thrusted forward and their upper body/chest is up and back (superman pose).

I am starting to get in this position more often now by squeezing the glutes together and it seems to create more power and stability in the follow through. Anybody else using this rather than the thought of clearing the hips.

Hopefully nobody sees a need to reply in a way that has nothing to do with golf :)

starsail85 · October 17, 2015

Interested to hear responses , thrusting the hips doesn't seem to be a good thing in my book but they all do it around impact and into the through swing

Petunia Sprinkle · October 17, 2015

What do you mean by 'more power and stability in the follow through'? I ask because, at that point, the ball's gone, so why care? And yes, I think the follow through is the result of the whole swing, but if a swing's going wrong, I'd rather look at clues before the ball is struck and the ball flight.

bph7 · October 17, 2015

Where do you get the idea to clear the hips in the first place? Just seems like standard conventional wisdom that no one knows how to apply. If you are hitting better with the other thought, go for it, don't worry about not clearing the hips as a thought it's ambiguous mumbo jumbo anyway.

Golfbeat · October 17, 2015

[quote name='Petunia Sprinkle' timestamp='1445121207' post='12470348']
What do you mean by 'more power and stability in the follow through'? I ask because, at that point, the ball's gone, so why care? And yes, I think the follow through is the result of the whole swing, but if a swing's going wrong, I'd rather look at clues before the ball is struck and the ball flight.
[/quote]

I am sure that it is against conventional wisdom but I think that what happens after impact is just as important as before impact. A lot has been said about the importance of intent in the swing and I think that you need to have a very clear intent of where you want the swing to go after impact. Probably that's what they mean when they say that you have to hit through the ball.

Millbrook · October 18, 2015

Could it be that in order to get X you have to do Y.

In this case X being the finish you describe and Y being secondary tilt and a better impact position.

Can't speak from experience on this one but making a suggestion to see if it fits.

ej002 · October 18, 2015

Feel is not real. I think many people over rotate / spin out in an effort to have a rotational swing. It sounds like you are figuring that out.

Golfbeat · October 18, 2015

[quote name='Millbrook' timestamp='1445165822' post='12471882']
Could it be that in order to get X you have to do Y.

In this case X being the finish you describe and Y being secondary tilt and a better impact position.

Can't speak from experience on this one but making a suggestion to see if it fits.
[/quote]

Could be. The Zipper Away move is what I am working on but getting from the Zipper Away move into the finish needs to be resolved for me as well. The buttock squeeze seems to work best. As a late starter in golf, having used predominantly the hands as opposed to young children who have been working with their bodies more, I need to "artificially" learn these moves. The proof is all the swing videos and pictures of the average member on this Forum with less desirable body positions. I have been following some of them for quite a while and I don't think that these positions can be changed by swinging the arms differently.