Right Knee Straightens to Allow Hip Turn

A simple exaggeration (in knee flex) to demonstrate that in order for the hips to work on their inclined plane and to rotate the right knee MUST straighten (not lock, but decrease flex). Many people still believe you should maintain the same right knee flex on the backswing, but it's virtually impossible to turn the hips at all while maintaining the same flex in the right knee.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• golf
• swing
• drill
• right knee
• straighten

[earthshine2k]

Well, you may not maintain ALL of your knee flex as you move to the top, but just don't confuse 'straightening' the back leg with 'locking' the back knee. Lock the back knee, and good luck getting back down on plane. Look at Jack Nicklaus' right knee at the top of his back swing, and tell me you can't turn the hips while maintaining your flex in the back knee.

[iacas]

@earthshine2k To be clear, I recommend "lessening the flex" in the knee to allow the hips to turn on their inclined plane. I do not advocate "locking out" or "fully straightening" the knee. Lessen the flex to turn the hips. It's virtually impossible to turn the hips and not change the knee flex. I'd link to an image but YouTube doesn't like that.

[earthshine2k]

@iacas oh, I totally agree w/ you, but if you use words like 'right knee STRAIGHTENS' to allow hip turn, then you have a bunch of guys locking out the right knee like Tim Clark and Raymond Floyd. If I had read your description instead of just the title, I'd have kept my mouth shut. My bad.

[iacas]

@earthshine2k Yes, "straightens" can be taken to mean "becomes perfectly straight" but I still think it can also mean "becomes straighter" or "becomes less flexed." When someone says "straighten that as much as you can" it implies it can't be made fully straight, for example.

Thanks for clarifying, viewing, and commenting. Cheers!

[WishkazofTreachery]

This is the most unnatural thing I have ever felt. I can't even do this properly, I over rotate like John Daly bad.

[iacas]

@WishkazofTreachery This video just demonstrates that you can't rotate your hips *at all* while maintaining flex. As the thing says above, too, my knee flex is exaggerated in these videos to make it clear(er).

[thegolfevolution]

@Banger1978 Your left arm breaks (bends?) at the top simply because your right arm (elbow) over-bends. Simply stop your backswing earlier - feel like your right arm doesn't bend much at all (it'll still bend) and feel like the club never gets past roughly VERTICAL. Exaggerate the feels - it'll work out.

[Banger1978]

@iacas I've been trying to fight my knee from straightening because it results to my left arm breaking at the top of my swing. It's not extremely detrimental to my swing because I'm still able to hit longer and straighter then most golfers out there, but I would like to be able to fix this fault because I know my swing will be so much better if I do. Please take the time to look at my swing and comment

[WishkazofTreachery]

Ah true I never even realized that. It looks like your doing squat hits at first.