Sang-Moon Bae Hips For Lag

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In this new video, I'll show you how Sang-Moon Bae uses his hips for a ton of lag in his golf swing. I'll also show you how to use your arms way less in your downswing sequence so that you can stop working so hard and put more speed in your swing than ever before.

  • Use the hips to start the downswing sequence. 
  • Keep the arms relaxed and allow the rotation of the torso to move the hands and arms out in front of the body
  • Pull the lead hip away from the target, stall the hips and release the club for max speed at impact. 


This week, Sang-Moon Bae gets his second win on the PGA Tour at the Frys Open. I'm gonna show you how he uses his lower body to sequence up his downswing, and he gets a lot more lag by using the hips. You're gonna be able to put this to use and have more speed than you ever had before.

                I think one of the more common mistakes that we see among all the amateur golfers (whether you're a 2 handicap, a 10 handicap, a 30 handicap), is that we're just trying to do way too much with the hands and the arms way too early on in the golf swing, and that in turn runs into a mess of sequencing problems, and doesn't allow you to be able to pull the proper power and move it up the kinetic chain and then fine tune it through the release.

                So, essentially what we're trying to do is we want to get things really started in the downward move with the lower half unwinding. We want to make sure that it's sitting left. We want to start to unwind those hips and then eventually what we're gonna be doing is we're gonna be decelerating or stalling em' and moving the power up the chain and then delivering it through the release. You know, tour players keep the golf club moving very, very slowly throughout the takeaway, throughout the backswing, and then 3 feet prior to the golf ball it speeds up nearly 60% to where they're delivering max speed at impact. That's one of the more common things that you'll see amongst all tour players is that then, in the modern day golf swing is that they really learned how to stall their body properly and make a lot of efficient speed down their by releasing it at the right time.

                And so, this week we're gonna be focusing on Sang-Moon's golf swing and how he sequences his downswing beautifully. He's got really kind of a textbook downswing transition. So, that's gonna be our focus point.

                So, we're gonna get both players up to the top here, both down the line and face on. You're gonna see from a down the line perspective, he's got about 95 degrees of right arm flexion right here. Good loaded up right side. He's made a very wide turn with his shoulders from a face on perspective. But one of the really big common things is, that players will try to do is they'll try to pull their arms down in front of them, before they get seated left. Now, the hands and arms will move out in front of you if you rotate your torso and you're properly seated left. So if you shift your hips left, and you were to try to hold your hands and arms up in the vertical plane, up in this really tall position, and then you were to start to try to pull your left hip away from the target, you would notice that the hands and arms are now moving out in front of you, and they're being pulled down closer into the hitting area.

                So I challenge you guys to all try that. So you know, without a golf club, go ahead and you know, go through the elevation and the right arm flexion. Get yourself into a good position at the top and then shift left and then start to pull your left hip away from the target with your lead side obliques and notice what the hands and arms do. You can't ... it's impossible to leave them up in that put position if you're doing this thing.

                If you're doing this properly, you would see that you don't have to do much with the hands and the arms, you don't have to have to pull them down. And what that's doing is it's allowing things to really kind of unload and keeping the arms in a passive state. So more or less, if you watch here from a down the line perspective, you're gonna see he starts to sit left so you can see those hips really start to unwind. They're already at square. And then he's gonna start to pull that left hip open.

                Now you can see here that he's been able to maintain that original angle that he had at the top part of his golf swing. So you can see he's still got 90 degrees or so of right arm flexion and he's actually got probably one more frame and he still has a good amount of right arm flexion here, so you can see. He's got right around 90 degrees still at this point, maybe a little less than that. But this is the point where the hips are starting to stall, and he's starting to release the golf club. So same kind of thing from a face on perspective. You're gonna see a good sitting move left from the hips here. You're gonna see a good sit. You can see those hips starting to unwind. He's not doing anything with the hands and the arms, he's still being able to maintain the angle that he originally had up in the top part of the golf swing there, and he's gonna continue to pull that left hip out of the way. So you can see that left hip starting to pull out of the way.

                And now from this particular perspective, from a face on, if you watch the pockets on his pants here, okay? You can see that they come to a virtual stalling point here. So you can see there is very little rotation at all. Now he's releasing that angle and extending through the hitting area. So that's exactly what we're looking for. We don't want the hands and the arms doing much of anything until we get down to the release point. Yeah, gravity's gonna help him a little bit and then you know, the torso rotation, that's gonna help him move him down in there. And then you just go ahead and release it and you'll be at max speed right where it counts, and that's at impact.

                A lot of people that are trying to pull the arms down and trying to focus primarily on the arms to maintain a lot of lag, are really kind of training their sequence in an opposite manner. They're training the arms first and then the lower body and that can create a lot of timing mistakes in the golf swing. And what we're really trying to do is, we're trying to extract a lot of the timing variables in the golf swing and make it a very consistent style move.

                So you know, kind of expanding on that is if we're trying to really get the ... the arms can go really fast and if we're trying to really pull them down, they can outrace the lower half really easily, and that can run into a lot of ball striking issues where you can either hit things fat, the club can come in really steep, you know you can outrace the lower body to a point where you start hitting a lot of fat or thin shots. So you've gotta make sure that you're really trying to keep the arms still or trying to keep them put. Make sure that you're sitting left, driving that left heel in the ground to make sure that you're stabilizing with those left glute muscles, and then using that left oblique to start to pull that hip away from the target. That'll help get the hands and arms down into the hitting area where you go ahead and just release it and you'll rip the cover off the golf ball.

                So that's what Sang-Moon does so well as you'll see a lot of the tour players out there, they do have a really good downswing sequence and then they have a great release.

                So there's a couple of good videos on the website I want you guys to check out that's gonna really kind of go further into some of the details. There's a video that Chuck did that's called "The Hip Speed and Hand Speed" video. That's in the "Advanced Downswing" section. It's where Chuck actually visited the TaylorMade Institute and he was able to get a lot of great data. It's a fantastic video so I encourage you guys all to check that out. And there's also a transition drill over there in that same section and then the "Role of the Right Foot" that's gonna teach you how the right foot can act as a breaking mechanism to the hips so you can stall those properly and then release it.

                And as always, you know when we do these tour analysis, you're gonna hear us talk a little bit ... a lot about five minutes to a perfect release because that's one of the really common areas that some of the best players, all the best players in the world share is that they have good control of the club face and they have proper release in the hitting area. So always check those videos out.

                Let's get your downswing sequence by getting that lower body really working. Make sure you try to keep those hands and arms very quiet until you're ready to release it and you'll get out there and blow it past your friends.

                All right guys. I wish you all the best. Let's get out there and play some great golf and we will talk to you soon. 

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Frank
Are there any drills you recommend to get the left hip more active at the right time?
October 18, 2017
64x64
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Frank. I would take a look at Starting the Downswing Before Completing the Backswing, Step 2 and You Hit the Golf Ball with Your Legs.
October 19, 2017
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Randy
R.J. or Craig, to build on Greg's comment below, I'm looking to better understand this feeling as I think this video could really help me. I am losing the tush line consistently which is causing lots of issues. However, I feel like when I watch Chuck's videos (in 2D, which is probably part of the challenge) it looks like he bumps his hips to the left. However, when I focus on what he's SAYING, it seems like the feeling of the transition / sitting into the left side should feel almost like you're going backwards and to the left. In the Sitting Into the Left Side video, he talks about not really rotating the hips over as you sit in and push the lead heel into the ground. So, when I think of sitting down on a chair or something, I guess that makes sense as my glutes would indeed go kind of backward to sit. Is this the right way to think about the feeling? Otherwise, it seems like I think I start rotating too fast or bumping to the left which causes lots of issues. Thanks in advance for any thoughts or comments. Hoping that 2017 is the year I can finally put all of these things together for a better swing and better scores!
January 25, 2017
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Randy. When you sit into the lead side the lead knee externally rotating and little oblique pull will square the hips (Squat to Square). You can think about it like sitting into a chair, but there will be a little lateral motion forward combined with a little rotation. What I would do is put your butt up against the top/backside edge of a chair. Work on (Step 2 - Core Rotation) with the butt along the edge. As you shift, the butt should stay against it and when posting make sure the lead cheek pushes the edge away as the trail leaves slightly.
January 25, 2017
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Andrew
When starting the downswing, my arms tend to come away from my body. This can shallow out my swing plane too much. How do we get the arms to come down naturally? Or are they pulled down vertically? Please explain this downswing process.
March 2, 2016
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hello Andrew. Take a look at the LADD Video and Frisbee Drill for information on pull with the lead arm. If you are spinning the body and the arms are getting trapped behind shallowing out the plane too much. You will probably require a little more pull to get the arms back in front without spinning the shoulders.
March 2, 2016
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Greg
Hi RJ, Thanks for the tip in the backswing that helped a lot. Now that you got me up there I have a question on getting back down with lag. In the backswing I have my weight solidly into the right glute, at this point I can do a slight lateral bump to get the weight to the left side or I can do a slight bump with a slight hip twist. The later causes my shoulders to open slightly. I feel the answer is bump then twist the hips. That motion causes the arms to drop straight down and gives a better feeling of tossing the frisbee into the ground with the left arm. I still struggle with that lag feeling so any tips would be appreciated. Thanks!
April 17, 2015
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R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Greg, you don't want to necessarily bump the hip over as that may cause you to push from the trail side, which will get you past neutral joint alignment on the lead side. Instead, you want to feel like you're pulling your lead hip over your lead ankle and really sit into your lead side glute. This action will pull your arms down and then pull them around by turning the lead side hip back behind you. Post up the leg then fire the release. If you watch the weight shift part 3 - to the left video, it should better describe these actions to you. R.J.
April 19, 2015
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matt
Thanks for sending me to this RJ...I used to be a Hip Spinner and overdid slowing them down to the point where my hands are now moving too fast. Is the feeling of the hips more of a turning around, then abruptly stopping? I find with the squat move, I squat down and stop abruptly, but am not getting my hips to turn open as much as SMBae.
November 2, 2014
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R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Matt, You're welcome. You're probably focusing too much on the squat move. If you focus on pulling your hips through the swing with the muscles in the trunk on the left side to the 35-45 degree open position and then straighten the left leg and activate the glutes to stall your hips in that open position while you're pretending that your arms and shoulders are staying in that top of the backswing position (note: they'll be naturally pulled down by the rotation of the core muscles) then you'll be in the perfect position with your hips and shoulders to release the club into the impact position. Just keep in mind that in order for this to work, your backswing needs to be perfect with the RST model. If you're getting your arms too deep in the depth plane in your backswing, then swinging like this with your hips, you will get you stuck in the downswing. R.J.
November 2, 2014
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matt
Yea, my backswing is pretty darn RST perfect, that's why I'm getting frustrated as I struggle down. If anything, I'm less elevated than most, and probably less forearm rotation on the backswing (Can get steep back).
November 2, 2014
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R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Matt, Then it sounds like focusing on what I told you in the previous message and what you learned in the Sang Moon Bae video, you'll have an awesome downswing in no time R.J.
November 2, 2014
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Allan
I agree with Bill, this is one of the best videos so far, I tried this out today and was hitting every ball crisp and straight with no effort, thanks guy's this site is awesome.
October 20, 2014
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R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
Thanks Allan! I agree as well, Chris did a great job with this video. R.J.
October 20, 2014
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work4golf
when would you start "throwing the ball" in the RIGHT hand?. Thanks.
October 19, 2014
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R.J. (Certified RST Instructor)
As the hands pass the right thigh
October 20, 2014
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Bill
This video helps to make more sense of the sequencing of the downswing than I have ever seen before. Thanks Tyler!
October 16, 2014
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Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Hey Bill. I will pass the good word to Chris. I'm glad you enjoyed the video and things are starting to come together for you!
October 16, 2014

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