Pivot Part 2

In the back swing, think of your back. It connects your hips, torso, and shoulders. It allows you to make a one-piece motion when you shift your weight, and tilt your shoulders to get to the top of your back swing. Your back has the large muscles that allow you to raise the club with minimal force from your arms, which have smaller muscles.

Pivot and weight shift happen and work together. In one motion, you need to:

• Shift your weight with your hips and back directly over your right hip and foot, not beyond them. This is a slight lateral motion from left to right. If your hips or head go anywhere outside your right foot, it’s considered a sway, and it wasn’t a slight motion, you went too far.
• Tilt your back (which is still flat), so that the right shoulder points up and the left shoulder points down. Your flat back will actually now be behind the ball.
• Don’t come out of your posture by raising your head when you move into your back swing. Your head moves horizontally as your shoulders are tilting.
• Your hips and back move together. Rotate your left hip down, forward, and to the right, so that it moves with your back.
• Don’t over rotate your hips, or twist them too much. If you don’t force it, it’s likely to come naturally. If you keep your back flat, when you tilt your shoulders, your hips and shoulders will move together.

All these things need to happen at the same time. They really can’t be separated because they work together. I’ve listed them here separately for sake of clarity. That’s the back swing, now on to the forward swing.

Forward Swing

• Your hips start the forward swing. Your left hip shifts all your weight directly over your left foot. This produces a whip-like effect, where your hips are pulling your shoulders, which pull your arms, and finally the club. As a result, the club head is moving much more rapidly than your hips, arms, or hands.
• Your shoulders follow your hips, and your arms follow your shoulders. Follow means they come behind. Never push with your hands or arms. The arms must come behind the hips and shoulders to reach their maximum velocity. Maximum club head velocity is good, very good. Because this is where you get distance.
• At impact your back and legs look like a letter “K.” The left side of your body is straight, and the right side is angled in.
• After impact, your hips will continue to rotate toward the target, your shoulders and arms will follow. About 95 percent of your weight will be on the left side of your body now. Your hips, belly button, shoulders, and eyes are facing the target.

Link to the next chapter, The Head: Fact verses Fiction