The fix for Hips sliding instead of turning

Fixing hips that slide instead of turning

What is actually happening

The lower body moves laterally toward the target without rotating. The low point travels forward with it while the path stays right of target and the face is left behind, which is the combination that produces a block one swing and a hook the next.

Target line
Club path
Clubface

Hips turn, path back on line

The fix

Coming down, your hips move toward the target without turning. By impact the lead hip has pushed out past the lead foot and the belt buckle is still facing the ball. Some shift toward the target belongs in every good downswing. The fault is the shift with no rotation behind it. This page assumes a right-handed golfer, so lead means left; left-handers mirror every direction.

A slide changes three things at once, which is why its misses look unrelated. The low point travels forward with the body, so the club keeps working down into the turf after the ball and the divots come out deep and long. The body stops turning, so the club's path stays pointing right of the target through impact. And the face, which a turning body would have carried back to square, is left pointing right. Where the face points sets the start line, for the most part, so the ball starts right. With the face square to that rightward path there is no curve, and the ball stays right: the block. When the hands flip the face shut late to save the shot, the face ends up closed to a path still moving right, and that gap bends the ball left. If the face is still aimed slightly right of target, the ball starts right and hooks back across; shut it further and it starts left and keeps going. The swing is the same; the timing of the hands picks the miss.

Keep it separate from its neighbours. A sway is a sideways move away from the target in the backswing. A slide is the move toward the target coming down, and a sway often causes one, because a body that drifted back has to lunge to reach the ball. A reverse pivot moves the weight back onto the trail foot through impact, and hanging back leaves it there. A slider has the opposite problem: the weight gets forward, often too far, but the hips never turn over it. An in-to-out path can also come from aim or ball position with hips that turn perfectly well; the slide is one specific reason for it.

Your finish gives it away. Hold it for a count of three and look down. A turned finish has the hips stacked over the lead foot and the buckle facing the target. A slide leaves the hips pushed out past the lead foot with the buckle still facing the ball, and often needs a stumble or a step toward the target to stay upright. For a direct check, push an alignment stick into the ground a few inches outside your lead hip at address and make slow swings. A hip that turns moves back and away from the stick. A hip that slides bumps it before the buckle has turned. Filmed face-on at hip height, impact shows the lead hip outside the lead foot. On the course, look for divots pointing right of the target and two misses that both start right, one staying there and one hooking back.

The change happens in the first move down from the top. Let the pressure move into the lead foot, then turn the lead hip back, away from the ball and behind you, instead of pushing it further toward the target. The lead leg straightens as the hip turns over it, which gives the lower body a post to rotate around rather than a direction to slide in. Once the hips turn, the chest follows, the path works back toward the target line, and the body squares the face instead of the hands rescuing it.

The instinctive fix for the block is to roll the hands over harder through impact. That squares the face on some swings, but the slide is still there and the path still points right, so the result is more hooks. The fix for the hook, holding the face open, brings the block straight back. The other instinct, trying to stay behind the ball, stops the weight getting forward at all and swaps deep divots for the fat shots of hanging back. Keep the shift toward the target, and add the turn to it.

Drills

Work through them in order. Each one says what it needs before you start.

Stick outside the lead hip
Push an alignment stick into the ground a few inches outside your lead hip at address, standing upright. Without a ball, make slow swings and stop where impact would be. The lead hip should turn back and away from the stick; a bump before the buckle has turned is the slide. Make ten slow rehearsals in a row without touching it, then hit half shots with a mid-iron with the stick still there. Move to full swings once ten half shots in a row clear the stick and each finish can be held for a count of three.
Needs An alignment stick, an umbrella, or a golf bag stood on end
Club across the hips
Take your stance without a ball and hold a club across the front of your hips, pressed against your belt, grip end toward the target. At address it runs parallel to the target line. Turn slowly to the top, then move down to where impact would be and stop. Glance down: the grip end should now point left of the target, showing the hips have opened. Then check in a mirror, or on a phone clip filmed face-on, that your lead hip sits over the lead foot rather than past it. Do ten rehearsals, hit five half shots trying to copy the same movement, then repeat the set. Move on when every rehearsal passes both checks without adjustment.
Needs A mirror or a phone
Turned finish, straight divots
Lay an alignment stick on the ground just beyond the ball, parallel to your target line. Hit half shots with a mid-iron and hold every finish for a count of three: buckle facing the target, weight stacked over the lead foot, trail foot up on its toe. A shot that needs a step or a stumble to stay upright does not count, whatever the ball did. After ten, stand behind the divots. Success is eight held finishes out of ten and divots that run along the stick rather than right of it. Build to three-quarter swings and then full swings at the same standard.
Needs An alignment stick or a spare club

Browse every drill on the site

Practice plan and log

Practise this fix, day by day

Keep a dated log of every session against this fix, so in a few weeks you can read back whether the change has taken instead of trying to remember.

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Or turn this fix into a practice plan

With a free account, the drills above become a 14-day plan: the setup checks and the first drill for three days, then the next drill, a rest day every fourth day, and a re-test on the last day that sends you back through the questions. Each day is a short list to tick off at the range, with reminders by email or in your calendar if you want them.

How the 14 days run

Day 1Ten balls as a baseline, then the setup checks and the first drill
Days 2 to 3The first drill again, one checkpoint and one feel a day
Day 4Rest, as are days 8 and 12
Days 5 to 11The next drills in turn, each warmed up by the one before
Day 13Every drill once, then every checkpoint
Day 14Re-test: the baseline again and the questions for your symptom

Checkpoints

What to look for to know whether the change has taken.

At the finish your hips are stacked over the lead foot with the belt buckle facing the target, not pushed past the foot with the buckle facing the ball.
In slow swings, an alignment stick a few inches outside your lead hip at address is never bumped.
Filmed face-on at hip height, the lead hip at impact sits over the lead foot rather than outside it.
Divots point at the target instead of right of it, and they are no longer long, deep scars in front of the ball.
Shots start nearer the target line, and the block and the hook stop trading places.

Feels

A feel is not a description of what the club does. It is whatever gets your body to do it, and a correct change usually feels exaggerated long before it looks correct.

The moment the pressure reaches the lead foot, your lead back pocket turns away behind you.
The lead leg is a post, and the hips swivel around it.
You finish facing the target with nothing left to push past.

Symptoms that lead here

Each of these can resolve to this cause. If the page above does not match what you are seeing, start from the symptom instead and let the questions narrow it.

If this is not it: causes that produce the same shots

What this rests on

40+ TrackMan Parameters ExplainedTrackMan, accessed 2026
How to Use Face to Path Data to Improve Your GolfFlightScope, accessed 2026
The Influence of Face Angle and Club Path on the Resultant Launch Angle of a Golf BallPaul Wood, Erik Henrikson, Chris Broadie, 2018
The Physics of GolfTheodore P. Jorgensen, University of Nebraska, 1999, second edition; Springer reprint 2013

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