If you follow the forums, you already know that Chuck partnered with TaylorMade Performance Labs at Grand Cypress in Orlando to investigate specific elements of the golf swing that directly influence ball-striking quality and distance.
Travis, the facility director, has been conducting original research into the mechanical relationships within the golf swing sequence — particularly the variables that cascade through the entire motion and determine how efficiently a player delivers the club to the ball.
One of the central questions driving the study was this: what is the true relationship between hip rotation speed, hand speed, and clubhead speed in golf?
Chuck had a personal stake in this question. Years earlier, during a fitting at a TaylorMade Performance Lab in Georgia, the technicians told him that his hips and hands moved significantly faster than the average PGA Tour professional.
"Why wouldn't that be a great thing?" he wondered at the time. That curiosity ultimately led him to a deeper understanding of golf swing sequencing — and why raw speed alone does not translate into power.
Does Hip Speed = Club Head Speed in Golf?
Most golfers have no idea how fast their hips actually rotate during the downswing, or whether maximizing that rotational velocity even matters for generating clubhead speed.
Does greater hip speed automatically produce greater clubhead speed in golf?
If you spin your hips as fast as physically possible, will you actually hit the ball farther? Ultimately, clubhead speed — and therefore distance — is the bottom line. It is the measurable payoff every golfer is chasing in the golf swing.
When we traveled to TaylorMade to test this question with precision lab equipment, the results revealed something genuinely surprising about the role of hip rotation in generating speed.
The experiment measured two distinct swing types:
- We recorded clubhead speed on a normal swing where Chuck rotated his hips as fast as possible through the ball
- Then we measured clubhead speed again, on a swing where he deliberately tried to keep his hips as still as possible and swing using only his arms, hands, and upper body
Obviously you cannot freeze the hips entirely, but Chuck made a conscious effort to minimize hip rotation in the downswing and rely primarily on the upper body to deliver the club.
Some of you likely swing with very quiet hips already, while others habitually spin the hips out as aggressively as possible. Chuck tested both extremes and generated a full data set for each approach.
What Did the Data Show?
When Chuck rotated his hips at maximum velocity, he did generate slightly more clubhead speed — but the margin was far smaller than most golfers would expect.
The increase was approximately 3% more than when he tried to keep his hips completely quiet through the downswing.
A three percent reduction is measurable, but it is far from catastrophic — and the tradeoffs were revealing.
The significant benefit was that Chuck was able to strike the ball far more consistently when he stabilized his hips through the downswing. If you want to see how your own swing sequence measures up, try a free AI swing analysis to get objective data on your mechanics.
Without aggressively firing his hips, he gained substantially more control over his hitting zone and impact position — at the cost of just a couple of miles per hour in clubhead speed.
That speed reduction would have translated to roughly 6-10 yards of carry distance, assuming equally solid contact on both swings.
However, he could not achieve that same quality of contact while flinging his hips at maximum effort — the aggressive rotation introduced too much variability at impact.
Added Benefit
Perhaps more important than any performance statistic, Chuck discovered that keeping his hips quieter was significantly easier on his hips and lower back.
A surprising number of golfers have undergone hip replacements, or deal with chronic pain from the cumulative effects of decades of aggressive rotational forces in the golf swing.
The hip joint is a critical link in the kinematic chain, yet spinning the hips at maximum speed is undeniably a source of mechanical strain on the body over time.
You may not notice the wear if you are younger or have never experienced hip issues, but as you age the cumulative damage from aggressive hip rotation will likely make itself known.
If you fire your hips at full speed on every downswing, that repeated stress will eventually catch up with you — often in the form of back pain, hip impingement, or worse.
The lower back also absorbs tremendous force. When you spin your hips at peak velocity, the pelvis accelerates much faster than the upper body can follow, creating shearing forces across the spine that accumulate over thousands of swings.
The Rotary Swing Tour methodology works to prevent these long-term injuries by teaching you how to use your body safely and efficiently — and how proper sequencing in the golf swing actually produces more power with less physical strain.
Research Conclusions
When Chuck tried to keep his hips as still as possible, his rotational speed measured approximately 170 degrees per second. When he moved them at maximum effort, the reading jumped to 370 degrees per second — slightly more than double the quiet-hip measurement.
In practical terms, deliberately stabilizing his hips reduced his peak rotational velocity by roughly half.
Cutting hip speed in half cost him only a few miles per hour in clubhead speed, but simultaneously allowed him to strike the ball more solidly and with greater repeatability.
The critical takeaway from this research is that you will not lose significant speed by stabilizing your hips rather than firing them at maximum effort through the downswing.
That finding proves that hip rotation alone is not the primary factor determining clubhead speed in golf.
If you suffer from back or hip problems, not being able to spin your hips at high velocity is not necessarily a limitation for your golf swing.
You will not sacrifice meaningful distance, provided your golf swing sequence is fundamentally correct.
Learning how to sequence your golf swing correctly is the single most important factor for generating effortless power!
Let's Take a Look at the Pros
The next phase of our research compared Chuck's laboratory data with identical analyses performed on Tour professionals' swings.
The correlations we found were both striking and instructive for amateur golf instruction.
To begin with, every single professional we measured decelerated their hips coming into impact — without exception — and the sample included powerful ball-strikers such as Hank Haney, Sergio Garcia, and Justin Rose.
We used their swing data as benchmarks representing different golf swing styles and movement patterns, spanning a range of above-average clubhead speeds.
All three professionals averaged higher clubhead speed than the overall PGA Tour average.
Remarkably, golf swing sequence — not raw rotational velocity — was the single biggest differentiator across every professional's swing we analyzed.
Their peak hip rotation speed was not necessarily any faster or slower than Chuck's maximum effort numbers.
The decisive factor was timing: they initiated hip rotation earlier in the transition, creating a more dynamic downswing by getting the hips moving first and then allowing them to decelerate naturally as energy transferred up the chain. A free AI golf lesson can help you feel this timing difference in your own swing.
Does that mean you should deliberately try to turn your hips earlier in the downswing and then consciously decelerate them?
The answer is both yes and no.
You do not need to intentionally slam the brakes on your hip rotation — conscious deceleration is not the goal.
What actually happens is a transfer of kinetic energy up the kinematic chain, and it is that energy transfer that naturally decelerates the hips as momentum moves into the torso, arms, and ultimately the clubhead.
The Golf Swing Sequence is Key
The fundamental advantage that elite players like Hank Haney and Sergio Garcia share is that proper golf swing sequencing allows them to maintain significantly more lag in the golf swing deep into the downswing.
The single quantifiable factor that allowed each professional to produce superior clubhead speed was that their hips fired first, measurably earlier in the transition from backswing to downswing.
As a direct result, their hip speed — measured in degrees of rotation per second — peaked much earlier in the downswing than what we observe in most amateur golfers.
The higher the handicap, the more pronounced this timing gap becomes — and the more clubhead speed is left on the table.
As elite players initiate the downswing, their hip rotation reaches peak velocity very early in the transition.
Their maximum rotational speed is comparable to what Chuck achieved when deliberately firing his hips at full effort — roughly 340-370 degrees per second — but the pros reach that speed much earlier in the downward sequence rather than at or near impact.
After that peak velocity is reached, the rest of the body begins to accelerate because when you initiate the downswing with your hips first, you do not need to generate much independent effort with your arms.
It may not feel that way in real time because, from a sequencing standpoint, the arms must work back in front of the body — they have to catch up to the lower body rotation that has already occurred.
That is precisely why many golfers experience the Throw the Ball Drill as a direct release straight from the top of the backswing.
When you achieve a proper transition and get your hips moving early, the arms need to start working sooner to stay synchronized, so in real time the sensation may be that the release happens straight from the top.
In reality, the release probably does not occur until later in the downswing. It is a classic "feel versus real" phenomenon because everything unfolds at such high speed during the golf swing.
Tour Pros Transition Earlier
As they approach the top of the backswing, Tour professionals all begin their transition earlier than amateurs — often before the backswing is even complete. You have likely observed this in slow-motion footage, and the laboratory data confirms it conclusively.
They execute an early weight shift and hip rotation, their rotational velocity peaks early in the transition, then their hips decelerate to roughly half that peak speed while everything else in the kinematic chain accelerates through the release.
As the hips decelerate, they pass rotational energy up the kinematic chain to the torso, shoulders, arms, and hands — ultimately accelerating the clubhead to its maximum velocity precisely at impact.
That is the fundamental key to the golf swing.
The key to generating effortless power is initiating the weight shift and hip rotation during the transition, peaking that velocity early in the swing rather than trying to spin through the hitting zone. Once the hips have rotated as far as they are going to go, energy cascades up the rest of the kinematic chain and ultimately reaches the clubhead at the moment it matters most.
It All Starts at the Top
Most amateurs struggle with the transition — that is widely understood, and it remains one of the most difficult movements to execute correctly in all of golf instruction.
The root problem is that most recreational golfers arrive in such compromised positions at the top of the backswing that an effective transition becomes nearly impossible from the start.
That is exactly why we dedicate significant practice time to the Bucket Drill and similar foundational lessons.
These drills teach you how to achieve the proper position at the top, which then enables a dynamic, early transition — initiating the downswing before the backswing is even fully completed — so you can establish the correct golf swing sequence and reach peak velocities at precisely the right moment in the chain. You can get personalized feedback on your own transition timing with a free AI swing analysis.
Another critical benefit of focusing on weight shift and early hip rotation is that you naturally develop more lag — because you are not actively doing anything with the club during the initial downswing. The club is essentially being pulled down by the rotational momentum of the lower body.
That is the real reason Tour professionals carry so much lag deep into the downswing.
Every golfer perceives the sensation slightly differently, but the net effect should be that your arms are not generating significant independent effort until the hips have completed the weight shift and rotation — then everything releases simultaneously through the bottom of the arc.
That is the key to lag. It is all about sequencing, and proper sequencing is the master key to effortless power in the golf swing.
We will continue to research hip rotation speed, rotational dynamics through impact, and other biomechanical aspects of the golf swing as our partnership with TaylorMade Performance Labs evolves.
For now, the most actionable takeaway is understanding the transition: it must happen earlier and peak earlier in the downswing, rather than building speed through the hitting area.
The hips must decelerate before impact, which can only occur if hip rotation begins sooner in the overall golf swing sequence.
That is the foundation of effortless power. As we complete additional research, we will show you precisely how to drill these positions so you can hit the ball farther with less physical effort — protecting your body while unlocking the clubhead speed your swing is capable of producing.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
TaylorMade Performance Labs
TaylorMade Performance Labs study data
Hip spinning can cause back pain
Sergio Garcia decelerates his hips coming into impact.
Hank Kuehne decelerates his hips coming into impact.
Justin Rose's sequencing helps him maintain more lag.
If you fire the hips first, you don't have to do much with the arms
Everything catches up
Hips fire first
Lag is created when the arms wait until weight shifts and everything rotates
