But I still need more drills, more exercises, I need to give these guys more incentive to make the change even though it will take time and energy. And I need to make sure I use TGM to do it in the simplist, most effiecient way.
How about this drill?
I think this comes from a famous instructor (Butch Harmon maybe).
Have the junior use his left wrist/hand to "hook" his bent right elbow at address. Make to and fro Basic Motions to help the junior see and feel the relationship of right forearm to the pivot through impact to follow through.
Correct me if I am wrong. THe right shoulder accelerates during start down. The arms exelerate during the downstroke. The hands accelerate during release and the clubhead acclerates during impact interval.
The whole point of the hips is to allow the right forearm to get into a pitch condition and to keep the right forearm on plane.
So "high school" hips are create by attempting to use the hips as an accelerator rather than a stabilizer.
Both Hogan and Nicklaus explicitly state that hip rotation helps accelerate the downplane Right Shoulder motion. Hogan said it "creates speed" and therefore doesn't just accomodate it.
Both Hogan and Nicklaus explicitly state that hip rotation helps accelerate the downplane Right Shoulder motion. Hogan said it "creates speed" and therefore doesn't just accomodate it.
Regardless, I still don't like spinning my hips in an attempt to create speed. And you have to agree it looks ridiculous when you see players trying to. You can pick them out of a lineup rather easily, or just watch the ballflights because they're the ones hitting big hooks as their misses.
Whether this is getting into my personal opinion or not...it's quite possible. But in the experience I've had, spinning your hips is not conducive to "mind in your hands" among other things. In the last couple years, I used to play with people every day who'd do. I could tell on the first tee that by the time the back nine rolled around they were going to be hitting some erratic drives. And they usually were. Their combination hip spin/wrist flip wasn't going to hold up for an entire round.
VJ, I agree with what you just said above based on what I've seen in my experience. Maybe there is a "right" way to spin your hips, but I can count on one hand the number of people I've seen who can make it work.
I was on the range last night with one other guy. A High School kids who is number 1 in the district. I've watched him develop since he was waist high to me. As I turned to watch him swing, I noticed his feet were severely pigeon toed as he swung.
I asked him if that was his "anti-hip turn" therapy. He said his pro has him doing that as a drill to quiet them down so he has time to drop his arms back to shoulder high before cranking the hips.
"I can count on one hand the number of people I've seen who can make it work."
How many tour players have you seen? That's a lot of fingers for one hand.
Quite a few. Notwithstanding Tiger, (since nobody knows what he's doing) are you telling me you see Retief, Ernie, Toms, Vijay, etc. all madly spinning their hips?
There's a guy by the name of Mark Wilson playing the tour right now. His former instructor was a huge proponent of the hip spin. He would have Mark literally work on standing there and seeing how fast he could spin his hips. Spin the hips, let the club fall behind you, swing on a flat plane, and somehow not hit it fat WHILE aligning the clubface for impact.
I've know a couple other students of this instructor (teenagers) and the amount of hip action they have is crazy. Stop at the top, hip bump, then SPIN! Throwaway city. You couldn't imagine the problems they have trying to get that out of their strokes even with proper instruction. It's so ingrained into their habit system that even they can't quiet them down. You literally need to attach their feet to the ground so they can't spin and push up. Needless to say many students of this school of thought move on when they realize it's effect on their games.
I think a lot of the problem, especially with teenagers, is too much flexibility. The problem occurs becasue there is too little linkage and their upper body elements "float" until all the flexibility slack (rib cage - to - hips, shoulders - to - rib cage) is exhausted. The hips can move very fast until this extra mass is engaged. It is best to show them how to take the shoulder slack out with a nice RFP and maintain linkage between upper and lower body by firming up the abs. The firmer abs will also flatten the lower back and prevent injury from the all-too-common junior reverse C.
It can be quite subtle, and I'm not advocating a whirling dervish move. I know what you're talking about because my club is the home for a local HS team. Most are out of control and overdo it. But, I would rather see that than a top down stroke.
Great points - they need to work on creating the proper tension so the chain reaction can happen without excess motion. But even then, as you say, they are so flexible that there will still be more motion than you see in older players.
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