Hanging back on rear leg
 

I'd appreciate your ideas as to the causes and cure for this malady. Horribly fat shots are the result. I know that I'm supposed to be on my front leg at impact and into the finish, but sometimes I find myself standing only on my *rear* leg. Ugh.

teach

Next time you are on the range try placing the ball way forwards of where you would normally hit it from - outside your left foot even.

You will struggle to make any form of reasonable contact without first getting well over on to your left side.

The objective here is just to gain, and ingrain, the feeling for pivoting right through impact and on to a full finish; where the ball goes is irrelevant.

You may well find that you cannot dwell on your right side if you think in terms of nudging the ball forwards with your right hip.

Go left young man.
 

Check your Hip Action.

For me, Hip Action at top is a Slide left (weight shift, axis tilt, Hula Hula) with a delayed hip turn (a cleared right hip) and a centered head. I find that when I turn my hips before I slide my hips left, I can never get fully left. You can turn the hips quite freely with your weight over the back leg or you can turn them with the weight over the front leg but you cant turn them with the weight centered, very much anyways. I think some aspect of the "Fire and Fall Back" move is overly active hip spinning requiring the weight to be centered over one leg, in this regard the back leg. As if the Hips choose the closest leg to the center of gravity and then instruct the brain to shift back to it so they can turn, turn, turn over it. Pivot to hands. Overly active Hip Turning.

I now actively clear or turn my right hip out of the way in startup or before but thats about it for active hip turning. The rest just sort of happens, I cant stop it really. Assuming I slide left with a delayed hip turn. As a drill you can hit range balls with your weight entirely left, feet only slightly spread apart, the right foot on its toes and drawn way back (clearing the right hip). You'll find contact to be quite powerful and note the absence of active hip turn through the shot. The totally cleared right hip allowing a nice inside out Delivery Path.

I also find that I develop a bad habit of not getting fully left when hitting off of mats. An injury prevention thing perhaps, to take away some of the collision of club and astro turf, floor etc. As if I unconsciously take away some of the Down and thereby lose some of three dimensional impact geometry. If you're coming off of a winters worth of mat work, make sure your divots are as they should be. If not, go left young man and go all the way Down and Out on the plane ride towards Low Point.

As a side note Im fascinated by how TGM can ascribe a cause and effect relationship to our unconscious compensations.

Hope this helps. Some of this is just my personal experience not TGM, so apply the usual caveats and sign the disclaimer before applying.

ob

where's your weight at set up? are you seting up with too much axis tilt?

Thank you for your replies. Mats definitely aren't helping matters and I will watch my set-up. I will work on it and on the suggestions.

teach

Head over Knees
 

teach,

Make sure you have not become ballcentric. A tell tale sign of this is a head that is uncentered and most likely over your right knee. This tends to move your low point back, and makes tilting the axis coming down an improbability...as Bucket suggests you have mega-tilt already, hence the fall and fire deal. I can feast on the geometry of the circle alone, but there is so much more!

+1

I'd hazard a guess you're coming over the top too, hitting the outside aft instead of the inside aft of the ball.

Check out VJ Trolio Click

And Hogan himself. Click

Just ran across this quote from one of Yoda's posts:

"Weight Shift is strictly a HIP MOTION. Substituting a Head Motion and/or a Knee Motion will make Swaying inevitable."

-- Homer Kelley (7-14)

Sorry to keep prattling on by myself here...:laughing9 but how about some drill suggestions for those of us who have trouble getting to the left side properly?

At what point in the swing should the majority of weight be on the left heel? How about for swingers vs. hitters?

What do you guys think of VJ's hip action/weight shift in the video above?

Hey Andy

I'd get VJ's book if you dont have it already.

When you get left depends on the shot at hand. When chipping you should start with the weight left for instance. As for the heal, typically the weight goes to the ball of the left foot first before it goes to the heal dynamically on full shots. If you look at Yoda's swing on this site he gets left really early when hitting a mid iron say. Before he gets to top even, while on the backswing, Hogan style.

The McDonald drills have really helped my brother deal with his weight shift issues. You can use the search function on this site to look them up.

I also really like the Hogan, Knudson right foot slide move where you drag your right foot (Knudson dragged it further than Hogan) as the weight gathers on your left side. Basically you cant have weight on the right foot if you are in the process of dragging it. Severe back foot hitters actually drag their left foot back at Finish.

Another thing to consider is a drill where you pre set your weight left at address with your right hip set back to allow an inside path of the hands and then take a three quarter, super light swing with a mid iron. Like you were trying to hit about 30 yards short of normal. Dont want to hurt yourself so take it easy. You can release the hip on the down swing as per usual. It will give you a feel for how things should be on the downswing. Below is a photo of Hogan in a lower body position you should try to emulate at address for this drill and in the downswing. I got so excited with the compressions and results when using this drill I tried to take it to the course and really wrenched my back so be careful. That right hip back in Startdown is fantastic. It really promotes the proper inside out Delivery Path of the Hands. If you tend to hit off the back foot you probably have an outside in path. The geometry of impact must be served as well as the pure physics of weight shift after all. The two work together. Trace the straight line base line dont cover it etc. You'll know your on the right path when your divots are pointing straight at the target, which is probably where the ball is going too by the way.

Startdown waggles are good too. From Top, bump left with the hips (right hip cleared or held back) to get into the Hogan like position. Let the hip bump to the left bring the right shoulder down etc. Hit the search function and do this as part of your practice swing. Jeff Hull has incorporated it into his routine really nicely if you have his video.

Knowledge is helpful too. The magazines are filled with rotation thoughts but you must know this first. The hips slide to shift the weight before they turn. This was a key concept for me anyways. The cleared right hip goes nicely with this thought.

I bet there are lots of good drills other guys know of too. Lets hear them all. Hope this helps.

Here is a link to a Hogan right foot drag video. Wish I knew how to post some latter day George Knudson swings that I have, he really dragged it, making getting left automatic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0H7PJ0ZGys

http://www.lynnblakegolf.com/forum/a...d=124138415 0