The way your lower body moves in the golf swing is important – really important.
Golf Digest Best Young Teacher Michael Dutro explains why:
“If I put you on a bench press, you could maybe bench press 100 pounds 20 times. If I put 100 pounds on a leg press, you could maybe do it 200 times,” he says. “Your legs are much stronger than your arms, and your legs are going to exert more force onto the ground than your hands exert onto the club. That’s why we generally feel the golf swing from the ground up, because that’s the way the energy kind of transfers throughout the golf swing.”
The problem is that amateur golfers don’t use their lower body effectively, so they can’t utilise its full strength when pushing, pulling and twisting against the ground as they swing.
Most golfers know they need to shift and load to their trail side on the backswing, but they often struggle to do this correctly:
• Many golfers slide their hips too far away from the target. The dreaded hip slide, which causes them to hit too far behind the ball.
• Others simply turn their hips without transferring their weight. The dreaded reverse pivot.
• A powerful, loaded turn is one where you feel your body turn around the outside of your trail leg.
If you’re interested in the science, Dutro explains that means shifting onto a small bone in your trail foot called your cuboid. Pressuring that area of your foot then allows you to turn your fibula more, which amounts to a deeper turn into your powerful trail hip muscle.
And good news! Dutro says there’s an easy feel you can use to activate the muscles you want. He calls it the cigarette drill.
The science-based feel
The idea is basically to feel your foot screw into the ground without actually moving your foot.
To do this, Dutro says:
• Lift your right heel off the ground, but keep the front part of your foot planted.
• Pretend there’s a cigarette butt under the part of your right foot that is still on the ground.
• Try to twist your right foot, like you were twisting the cigarette into the ground to put it out, but without actually moving your right foot.
• Once you twist until you can’t rotate your right knee anymore, return your heel back to the ground and turn into your leg.
“I want you to put out a cigarette with your right foot. Put all your weight on your right foot with your heel up,” Dutro explains. “Twist that cigarette out all the same, until you feel like you can’t rotate your right knee anymore clockwise, but don’t let your foot spin.”
Do it right, and you should feel like you’re turning into a wall on the outside of your right leg. As Pete Cowen describes: like a “spiral staircase”.
That’s what loading and coiling your lower body feels like. You’re going to like what happens next.
