Hip Bump and Slide

[jambalaya]

I found myself recently doing the chicken wing thing. I had not had problems with this unitl very recently. It only started when I made a change in where I grip the club at address in relation to my body. I had been previously bringing both hands together in the middle of my stance around the zipper line. But I read where one needs to let the left hand hang naturally near the left thigh and bring the right hand forward to that point.

What this seems to have exposed is that I am sliding my hips too far laterally keeping the club head travelling down the line too long before my hips turn. So my finish was straight up rather than up and to the left. The club head was not always returning to square and releasing which resulted in pushes and slices especially from the driver.

I thought that if one drives the hips forward they will turn automatically. In other words they can only slide so far before they have to turn. But I was definitely turning too late. In my swing I let my hip and shoulder turn dictate where my arms go. I try to leave the arms relaxed and fly around my body as dictated by the hip and shoulder turn. So I surmised that if I get my hips opening up and turning sooner, the arms will follow. So, I limited the "bump" to just getting the weight on the left side before I turned the hips. This had the desired result of getting the club head moving in an arc towards the left but I had some snap hooks with which to deal. I also felt like I had to bump the hips before I started the downswing for it to work properly.

I feel a little mechanical with this move now. Can someone help with some thoughts to make this feel more natural? What are the flaws in my thoughts regarding this problem?

[edshaw]

Re: Hip Bump and Slide

My opinion is that if you succeed in
setting a bit of a downward slant to
the plane of rotation of the hips, one,
and you set a slant to the other
body plane, the shoulders, two,
then you don't have to make a
conscious effort to slide the hips
or limit that slide, either.
Just initiate the downswing with
the forward rotation of the hips,
which have hopefully contributed
in some way to the backswing.
All that forward momentum of the
downswing will act towards sliding
the hips forward, but you need not
encourage it. In fact, many teachers
in the past urged hitting into a firm left
side. That was a fairly common thought
and a pretty good one, really, at one time.