Golf Tips for not Sliding the Back Leg

Professional and low-handicap players know the importance of swinging a golf club in a circle around their fixed spine angle. Many amateurs make the mistake of sliding the back leg and hip throughout the swing. This creates an unwanted lateral movement that leads to poorly stuck golf shots. The following tips are designed to help a right-handed golfer eliminate the unwanted sliding movement in the golf swing. Left-handed players need to reverse the instructions.

  1. Drills

    • Practice swinging with the right side of your body against a wall, a golf stand bag or broken shaft in the ground. This should help ingrain the feeling of hips turning in the swing. The hips should not move laterally at any point in the golf swing. In fact, the hips will rotate to the right during the back-swing and uncoil in the forward swing.

    Weight Shift

    • Maintain the weight on the inside of your right leg throughout your back-swing. If the weight reaches the outside of the right leg and foot you have started to slide in the back-swing. This forces a golfer to create extra movements in the swing to compensate for the lower body sliding at the start of the back-swing.

    Correct Setup Position

    • Check your posture in your setup position. In the address position, you should create what is known as your "spine angle" by bending forward at your waist. The proper setup allows a slight bend in the knees while bending forward at the waist to create an athletic stance. Standing too upright can lead to a lateral shift in the hips throughout the back-swing. Taking a more athletic stance will promote the hips to rotate and not shift.

    Feel Hips Rotating Correctly

    • Square your right foot to your target line. The target line is an imaginary line that runs through the golf ball to your target. This should produce a 90-degree angle with your right foot pointing straight. Positioning your right foot greater than 90 degrees can promote a sliding movement in the backswing. Practice turning your right foot in to create less than a 90-degree angle. This will restrict hip and lower body movement, allowing you to feel a rotation rather than a sliding movement in the swing.