Ben Hogan's Hip Turn is THE BEST KEPT SECRET of the Golf Swing

Hey there, Segundo golfers, Tom Segundo here, and guess what? Today, you're going to unlock the secret to a great golf swing, and it all lies with Ben Hogan's hips. Check out this Ben Hogan photo right here. Everything we're going to talk about is going to relate to this position right here and how it's going to produce magical ball striking and a repeatable, awesome golf swing for you. Let's get started. The Ben Hogan hip turn is one of the most underrated pieces of his golf swing, and it is the secret to an automatic, repeatable, and powerful golf swing. We're going to take a look at his top of backswing position right here, and we're going to talk about this. A few things come to mind when you see this top of backswing position. First, you'll notice that the left knee is lower than the right knee. This tells us there is weight on the front side of the top of the backswing. The second thing you will see is that the right knee is straightened, not maintaining a whole lot of flex. This tells us that the hips have turned. Two big things right here that go contrary to everything you've learned in conventional golf instruction up to this point in your life. The first thing being the weight is forward at the top of the backswing. You've probably been taught this a bunch to shift your weight into the trail side. In actuality, the player is trying to stay centered over the golf ball, and what this does with that hip turn is puts weight on the front side. The second thing you see is that the right leg doesn't stay flexed. You've been taught for years to keep the trail leg flexed, and all that does is prevent your hips from turning. We see Ben Hogan clearly turning his hips here because the trail leg has straightened. This goes contrary to a lot of things you've learned, and this is why you're still struggling. But if you can change your ways to Ben Hogan's way, you are going to rip the crap out of the golf ball and have a lot more fun. The Ben Hogan way is simply this. Keep weight on the front side throughout the golf swing. Allow the trail leg to straighten. What this creates is a position at the top of the backswing that looks like this. Now in the Ben Hogan world, he talks a little bit about a shift into the trail leg. So you see this little drag in the beginning of his swing, but by the time he gets to the top, you see a shift to here. The weight is forward. This little drag is a preference. You don't have to do that. So you actually see a little shift, but by the time he gets to the top, those hips are turning and he's got most of his weight on his front side. Left knee is down towards my left foot, right knee is up, and it has straightened, allowing my hips to turn a lot, storing up some serious power. Ben Hogan talks about this being extremely important to making your golf swing automatic because if you can get your hips in this position at the top, and by this position I mean you can get your tailbone moving toward the target, and that's what's going on by the way. The tailbone's moving toward the target between four and seven inches, maybe more for some players, while keeping your head in place. That's hip turn. And by the way, when I'm there, the weight has to be forward. I can't turn my hips around a backside, it's impossible. So you have to have weight forward to accomplish this. Ben Hogan has his weight forward. Weight plates have told us that Hogan was 60 to 70 percent on his front leg at the top of his backswing. I'll be showing you more about that later in the episode. When we get into this position at the top, Ben Hogan describes this as being the automatic starter of the downswing, and it makes perfect sense. Put yourself in this position for me. Set the weight forward, turn your hips. He talks about pointing your belt buckle at your trail foot, your right foot. When you do that, your tailbone moves toward the target, and weight automatically goes onto your front side. It has to, because your tailbone's moving toward the target. So if you do that, think about the downswing for a second, how easy it's a start. It has to start from the ground up. You automatically wound it. It's very difficult to not start it from the ground up. So he talks about this being automatic, meaning that it's going to start on its own. It's going to, you don't have to think about it. If I can get my hips into this position, my downswing will be automatic, and it will be from the inside. Really powerful. I mean, I can feel like I can rip it from there for days. If you want to have an excellent, repeatable sound golf swing, you need to start here. Place weight over your front side, almost like a post. The whole right side, the trail side, is going to open up and react around it. That's the whole concept here. You're trying to stay centered. You're trying to stay over the golf ball. We're not shifting and swaying, because when I shift, my point of contact, which is number one fundamental, always moves around. So if I shift to the right, my point of contact moves to the right. If I shift to the left and the golf swing too much, point of contact moves to the left. You got to stay over the ball. The whole point is to keep your head and your shoulders centered like this. And when I do that, naturally the hips want to move toward the target. The weight wants to be forward. It's just magic. It's magic, I tell you. Actually, it's more than that. It's just awesome. All right, I've got the coolest device in history right here, the V1 Sports Pressure Mat. It's going to show me where my weight is going in the golf swing. You can see there's a right foot and a left foot. And if I shift my weight, you will see that that circle on the screen starts moving. That circle is the center of where my weight is. When we look at Ben Hogan's golf swing, we're going to start with the hip turn. So he talks about pointing his right foot straight on, not flared out, because he likes to restrict his hip turn somewhat. But he talks about the belt buckle pointing at the right foot. And so this little hip turn motion automatically straightens my trail leg somewhat, and that motion pushes my hips toward the target a little bit. So you're seeing a transfer of weight from a centered position, which is about 50-50 right here, to 56-44. So weight's moving slightly more forward at the top. This is simply because my butt has mass, and when I move my butt, which is big, toward the target, it has more mass on this side. So that weight moving forward is not me loading the front side, it's simply a response to my hips turning. There's just more weight here. That's the way it is. When we look at Ben Hogan's backswing and how he gets to the top in that magical position I talked about here, you see the weight automatically go more forward at the top, 60-70%. That's the weight plate number I was telling you about. Yes, Hogan has a slight shift of weight into the trail side in the beginning of his backswing. That is a preference. You don't have to do that. But by the time he gets to the top, that's where we see the hips start unlocking themselves, getting into the 70-30 position. This is the position he says that it's automatic from. If you can get your hips turning like this, it sets a chain reaction for you to start the downswing at the lower body instead of doing the classic over-the-top upper body thing. You can feel it too. If you get your hips here, you've got nothing but to start the downswing at the lower half. It just wants to go that way. I hit a shot here normal, my way, and we'll try out some Ben Hogan's just to show you where my weight's going. My setup right now, surprisingly 50-50, so I need a little bit more weight forward. Sweet technology. That was really striped. You're seeing that my weight is 95-5 at the end, and for the most part, the weight's going forward throughout the golf swing. This is because of the hips turning. I'm staying centered. I'm not shifting, I'm staying centered. This is so magical for you because you need to do the same in your swing. You need to keep everything centered, really. Your weight will go forward because the hips are turning, and this will unlock the golf swing. It's beautiful. Let's recenter it. Okay, good. 44-56. That's an eye-opener. Let's get 55-45. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Feel versus real, right? Hit the ball. Wow. The reason I tend to favor my trail side is because of my old habits from my two-plane days. I used to set up like this, so every once in a while, it creeps back in. Now, Ben Hogan style, drag the handle, load the front side, hit the ball. It's basically the same thing I'm doing. It's just I'm not doing the step of the drag in the beginning, and he does have a driver doing that. It's a little bit different with the irons, but you can still see it's the same idea. We're now going to take a deeper look at Ben Hogan's golf swing using the V1 Sports app. I use this app all the time to analyze my swing and my students' swings. I highly recommend that you get it. Check out the download link in the comments section and the description below. It will help you track and see if your hips are working properly in the golf swing. I'm also going to show you how to track your hips in the golf swing the proper way. We're going to start from the down the line view. As we know with Ben Hogan's setup, he tends to set up with a closed stance, so that's where he's actually aimed. As he takes the club back, pay attention to this trail leg. We're looking at hip turn. He talks about keeping his leg flexed in the golf swing. I'm here to show you that as he takes it back, this right knee, this trail knee, is going to constantly change flex because the hips are being allowed to turn. By halfway back, he's already lost his flex that he established how to dress. This is a common problem. I see all the time amateurs keeping this flex too long, so you never are turning your hips. You're missing out on this hip turn power. As you keep taking the club back, you'll see how he continues to straighten that trail leg. There's a tremendous amount of hip turn here all the way to the top of the backswing. The right leg continuously straightens to allow the hips to turn. The belt buckle is pointing at the camera. That is a 45 degree hip turn, no doubt about it. The only way you can get your knees working like this, meaning the knees operate on a slightly downward angle and the hips turn this much, is by keeping the weight over the front side. It is very difficult for you to get any hip turn if you keep weight on the right side of the trail side in the golf swing. From this angle, you can see Ben Hogan's hips gradually move toward the target after the first part of his backswing. The hips start swiveling at this point, and we see a lean toward the target right here. That is where his hips have reached their maximum turning point. He's got most of his weight forward here. He has not started his downswing yet because the downswing begins when the club starts changing direction. The club is still going back here. Downswing begins right here. To think that he's starting his downswing moving the weight forward, it's actually an illusion. He's still getting the weight forward at the top of his backswing. Knees are angled down to indicate that there is weight on the front side, and the hips swivel toward the target to the top of the backswing here. You can see that movement toward the target. He's doing that because, one, he's got his weight forward so his hips are turning a ton, and two, because he tends to have that little shift to the right side in the first part of his backswing, he needs to offset that by moving his weight more forward at the top. That's how we're seeing this more pronounced move toward the target, but he has not started his downswing until here. That's the start of the downswing. The weight is more forward at the top of the backswing than what he had at address. This is the best view for analyzing your hip turn, taking a rear view of your golf swing. What I like to do is draw a dot on the tailbone, and we track where the tailbone moves throughout the golf swing. If you do this correctly, the tailbone moves more forward toward the target in the backswing, like all the best players of all time. This is substantial forward tailbone movement. We're not talking one inch or two inches. We're talking five inches, seven inches of forward movement. For you to get in this position, which by the way, that's the top of his backswing because the club's still going back. It still hasn't changed direction yet. That's the downswing right here. Downswing start here. This is the top of his backswing. For you to be in this position, you have to have your weight forward. No buts about it, pun intended. Another great look. This is the view you should take of your swing. Drawing a line on the tailbone. Now the camera man here was a little shaky, but just showing you the top of his backswing here. Look at the amount of weight that is forward here. You can only do this if your weight is forward, if the trail leg is allowed to straighten, front knee's bent, hips are allowed to turn. The hips turning creates more weight forward. That's why this view tells you everything about the golf swing. You need this look at the top of your backswing. I want you all going out there with your V1 Sports mobile apps, and I want you taking rear views of your golf swing so you can get into Ben Hogan's magical hip turn position. Now we're taking a deeper look at how Ben Hogan's legs work in the golf swing. The first thing you need to pay attention to is the lead knee going down, the trail knee going up. Or in his case, it goes in a little bit. But this can only happen if the hips are allowed to turn. So that hip turn creates this positioning of the legs. The straightening of the trail leg, and then the bending down toward the ground of the lead leg. To get this type of top of backswing position, you need to do two things. The first thing is get a pair of these kicks called athlons. They are specifically designed for golfers to stay centered over the golf ball and get more distance. When I got these shoes, I picked up about 10 to 20 yards, and it's really easy for me to stay centered over the golf ball. The second thing you need to focus on is keeping your weight on the front side throughout the golf swing. If you want your hips to turn like Ben Hogan's, you need the weight to stay forward on this post throughout. Your entire trail side here will open up and turn if the lead leg is allowed to be a post, and the trail leg is allowed to straighten around it. This is contrary to conventional instruction in that conventional says to shift into the trail side, which restricts hip turn, whereas weight on the front side, and what I'm showing you here, allows for the free pivoting of the knees. You want this, and the only way you can do it is by keeping the weight forward throughout the golf swing. That's really powerful right there. Now that you've seen how Ben Hogan is actually turning his hips, and for him to turn his hips, he needs to keep his weight forward, because keeping the weight forward is the key to turning the hips. You can open up the whole trail side by keeping the weight forward. This goes against everything you've learned in conventional golf instruction, and it's a shame, because reality is the weight has to be forward for my hips to work like that. Another reality is that the tailbone of the best players in the world always moves toward the target in the back swing. For your tailbone to be forward at the top of your back swing, and move more forward from that point, means that the weight has to be forward. This isn't something to get mad about. It's just something to accept as the reality. This is the magical window to opening up your golf swing. It's no surprise that the worst golfers, the worst ball strikers on the planet, shift their tailbone off the ball in the back swing to the right, if you're a right-handed player, and then in the downswing, they keep their tailbone back, like this, whereas the best players do the opposite. The tailbone moves toward the target in the back swing, and then more toward the target in the downswing. If you want to start unlocking the best golf of your life, you need to start getting that tailbone toward the target in the back swing, and going more toward the target on the downswing. Ben Hogan has shown us this, and for you to go to the next level, you need to imitate Ben Hogan. It is the secret of the golf swing. The hips are the key to unlocking your best golf swing. If you enjoyed this video, like it, comment below if it helped you become a better golfer, and if you are looking for a way to play your best golf right now, check out my website segudo.golf. I've got a complete golf swing learning program designed to take you step-by-step into your best golf swing, best game right now, and up above, you're going to find two lovely selections for you. Subscribe to my channel, and I'll look forward to seeing you in a future episode. Thanks for watching.