Tiger Woods Hip Move Drill: Pain Free Powerful Golf

I added the Tiger Woods Hip Move Drill to the Golf Practice Planner today because it will train you to move your hips like Tiger, and help take the pressure off your spine for pain-free and powerful golf.

Name
Tiger Woods Hip Move Drill

Category
Long Game Practice Drills

Difficulty
3 out of 10

Time
15 minutes

Props
Any golf club. Golf ball. Golf Practice Planner.

Overview
The Tiger Woods Hip Move Drill will train you to move your hips like Tiger, and help take the pressure off your spine for pain-free golf. This was Tiger’s new swing thought which helped him win the 2019 Masters.

Steps

Step 1: Watch
Watch the video below.

Step 2: The Tiger Interview
In 2019 Tiger was interviewed for GolfTV. Here’s what he said about his recent swing change (how he’s loading his hips to take the pressure off his back).

 “I’m trying to get my right hip deeper on the backswing, which helps put the club more out in front of me, and then also keep the left hip deeper on the downswing. A lot of the time when I’m feeling tight I don’t get deep enough, loaded onto my right hip (on the backswing), and I start standing up which puts a lot of stress on my back. If I don’t feel like I can turn, I can’t get back into my hip.” – Tiger Woods

Step 3: Sam Sneed Hip Move
Tiger Woods is essentially trying to swing more like Sam Snead. See how deep Sam’s hips are in the backswing!

Your mantra should be something like this:

“Stop restricting my hips. Allow them to go deep.” – Your Swing Mantra

You want to feel on the backswing that your right hip (right glute) has gone lower to the ground. You’ll know that you’ve done it correctly if you feel powerful. It’s a monster power move!

As the right hip goes lower on the backswing, the right side of your bottom (right glute) will feel tighter. If, however, your right hip moves upwards on the backswing you aren’t storing anywhere near as much power.

Step 4: Through Swing Footwork Like Sam
On the through swing come onto the big toe of your right foot and heel of your left foot, like Sam Snead (see image below). This does the second part of Tiger’s new swing – getting the left hip deeper on the downswing.

By the time you get to impact have the right heel slightly off the ground. More importantly, at impact, you also want to have the left big toe up off the ground.

So many of the best players in the world, if you look at them at impact (with iron shots), you’ll see the left toe up off the ground. The good news is that when you focus on your “fancy footwork”, you don’t have to think about hip turn at all! The hip turn comes naturally from good footwork.

Step 5: Smart Practice
Do practice swings looking at your feet, trying to emulate the images of Sam Snead’s deep hips on the backswing. Begin with short shots and work up to longer shots.