Video Tip: Train to Hinge & Unhinge
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In this tip, Steve Dresser of the renowned Steve Dresser Golf Academy at True Blue Golf Club in Pawleys Island, S.C. discusses the “hinge/unhinge” training method, and how it can help improve your balance, allow for a freer arm swing and reinforce a proper swing plane.
Steve Dresser:
We’re going to go a little bit old school on you now. In this day and age of people trying so hard to get in the perfect body rotation, I think some of us have forgotten what the hands, arms, and wrists are supposed to do in the golf swing.
Every once in a while, and I remember doing this a lot as a little kid, we were told to put our feet together, knees really close, even the arms very close to the body and just work on what’s calling hinging and unhinging. Hinging … unhinging. It helps your balance. It helps to get a lot freer arm swing. Most people end up creating more club head speed when they do this because they do have that free swinging arm action where the club actually makes a nice whoosh when it swings through.
This also helps you understand swing plane a little bit better. When you take the club back, we’ve got club head, hands, ball all on the same line, and that’s really, really important. Not only do you want that here, you want to mirror that on the other side. Once again, club head, hands, and ball are all on the same line.
Believe it or not, I’m almost doing a full swing there. The only thing missing really is a bit of upper body rotation going back and then the full body rotation coming through, but a lot of people shock themselves at how well they can strike the ball with basically no stance and just that little bit of hinge, unhinge. There’s an 8-iron that probably just went pretty close to 150 yards and it sure ain’t because I’ve got big guns poking out of my arms here!