Exploring Rhythmic Hip Turns In Golf

I had a round of golf with a couple of girls the other day and ended up coming off the course chuckling to myself over our focus upon the optimal hip turn and weight transference through the swing. All three of us had individually been paying extra attention to this important part of the golf swing, but realized during the course of our game that we were all "working" on the exact same aspect of our golf.

That's actually quite rare. Most of us end up paying extra attention to one or other little element of the swing, but rarely do you find everyone in the party working on the exact same bit. Now, I don't like the idea of "working" on anything to do with golf. Golf is a game. I play golf for fun. I love golf, I'm curious about it and I like to explore the endless possibilities of what you can do with a golf club and a golf ball.

And so during my own exploration of swinging the club I had found that if I set up to the ball with more weight already placed upon the forward leg the process of gaining optimal hip turn and weight transference became far more natural for me. This being a key element in hitting the ball sweeter, longer and straighter I was keen to keep exploring the potential possibilities.

The other girls had come to be "working" upon this same element via their own routes, be it self exploration, reading golf books, during the course of a lesson, listening to golf tips or simply watching professional golf on the television. So here we all were wiggling our hips about and having a load of fun on the golf course, and hitting the ball a whole lot better, I have to say!

I found myself thinking about Timothy Gallwey's suggestion of counting 1,2,3 as you swing the club so as to keep your rhythm. Then I thought about a time when I took ballroom dancing classes and the teacher kept saying 1,2,3 and then again 1,2,3, and so on. One girl suggested that there is probably a fun Pilates exercise that can help ingrain the optimal move and I am sure she is correct in this assumption. Salsa dancing may be helpful. Who knows? It's all a worthwhile and fun exploration.

There are two things that really stand out from this in my mind for someone who wants to hit the ball sweeter, longer and straighter (the Holy Grail of most golfers) and these are this: -

• First, if you see this process as a job or as something you need to work on you won't be in the best frame of mind to really learn anything great. You'll be all tightly mechanical instead of loose and exploratory. You just won't have as much fun and won't get to explore the full potential of this aspect of your game.

• Second, just by watching a person with a good hip turn and weight transference you can more easily pick up this helpful trait. We are incredibly good at watching and copying. We are hard-wired to do this naturally.

Bearing in mind this latter point, you can even use your imagination to help you with your weight transference and hip turns. You can imagine it whilst brushing your teeth or eating your breakfast. You can see and feel it in your mind's eye and your imagination paves the way to your reality. This is a truly easy way in which you can "work" on your golf game.

So much of golf is played out first in your imagination. You select every shot from the basis of a visual image of the shape and trajectory most likely to succeed in getting the ball where you want it to go. Good putters always see the ball first in their minds eye running smoothly into the cup. Good golf is in fact played 90% in your mind.

Roseanna Leaton, avid golfer and specialist in golf hypnosis mp3s and author of the GolferWithin golf mind training system.

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