If you are a habitual hip spinner and have all that secondary axis tilt we discussed in the "Hip Spinners" video, the next step for you is to work on your shoulder and spine alignments at impact.
Hip spinners are always coming out of the shot. They hit a lot of thin shots and really struggle with the longer clubs, especially fairway woods off the deck. They simply do not hit the longer clubs solidly.
They develop so much tilt that the lead shoulder tends to pull up and out of the swing, getting the hands too far in front of the ball. As a result, they cannot strike down on the ball effectively, so they end up hitting a lot of really thin shots.
Once you have gone through the Belt Buckle Drill, you are getting yourself stacked into impact position over the lead leg and your hips feel like they are staying shut. The next thing you want to work on is axis tilt and level shoulders at impact.
Axis Tilt at Impact
Let us start with axis tilt at impact. Many golfers develop significantly more tilt than they need for a stock shot.
If you are hitting a driver and you want to launch it as high as possible because you are trying to maximize distance, that is fine. Get all the tilt you need.
But unless you are a long-drive professional, you do not need to hit it as far as you possibly can every single time. You need to hit it solidly, down the middle, every time. That is what the driver is really all about if your goal is to score well.
If you are just out there trying to have fun and hit it farther than your buddies, that is a completely different situation. Go back to the Bomber Driver Series and enjoy yourself.
On the other hand, if you are trying to score as low as possible — hitting the ball solidly every time, consistently straight and under control — you are going to want to eliminate all that excess tilt and the high lead shoulder in the downswing. To see how your axis tilt and impact position compare to elite standards, try a free AI swing analysis.
How Much Axis Tilt is Enough?
The first step is to determine exactly how much axis tilt you need at impact. Many golfers genuinely do not know how much they need. This simple drill will answer that question definitively.
Take your stance and hold a club up to your center line, from your sternum to your belt buckle, as shown in the photo. Then simply tilt your spine back, away from the target, until the club touches your leg. If you come down into impact with open hips, that is all the tilt you need.
It does not have to be exact, but unless you are doing other things wrong in your swing, that is plenty of tilt to get you shallow enough coming into impact and keep you behind the ball.
This exercise is an excellent, simple way to evaluate your form. If you get into your usual impact position and hold up a club, you may find that the club head falls way outside your leg — indicating that you are getting too much tilt. You do not need that much, and it is probably going to damage your hip if you continue.
You want to be stacked over the lead side and get just enough tilt. If you are a hip spinner, your spine is going to feel very vertical when you are in the correct position.
That is critically important. If you are used to being tilted way back at impact, which many golfers are, getting the correct amount of axis tilt is going to make you feel like you are vertical or even leaning toward the target.
Use a video camera to verify that you are doing this correctly. Use the exercise above to find out how much tilt you need, then set yourself in that impact position. You will probably feel very tall — even vertical — at impact.
Your head will still be behind the ball, but you will actually be in a stacked position where you can compress the ball much more effectively.
Level Shoulders at Impact
If you are a hip spinner, you not only want your spine to feel very upright, but also for your shoulders to feel very level.
This drill in particular will feel even more extreme. You want to feel like your lead shoulder stays lower than your trail shoulder all the way into impact.
What does that mean exactly?
As you can see in the photo, at the top of the swing the lead shoulder is lower than the trail shoulder. As you start down, you want to maintain that relationship.
You should feel that your chest and hips stay shut, as in the Hip Spinner Drill. As you come down and start pulling your arms down to get back in front of your body, you want to feel that the lead shoulder is still below the trail shoulder as you come into impact position.
Of course this is an exaggeration — a drill to help you learn what it feels like to stop coming up and out of the swing.
As a hip spinner, you are used to opening up your chest and pulling your shoulder up and out. As the shoulder comes up, it causes you to lean back too much and get your arms stuck behind you, leading to more blocked shots.
As you come down and shift into the lead side, you want to feel that your lead shoulder is lower than your trail shoulder. Continue to pull with the lead arm, fire the trail arm, and get into an impact position where you are stacked over the lead side.
Your spine should feel vertical or even that it is leaning toward the target. You will have a lot of weight on your lead side and your shoulders will feel level at impact.
Because your trail hand is lower on the club than your lead hand, your lead shoulder will not actually be lower than your trail shoulder. But that is what it needs to feel like if you are a hip spinner.
How Will This Help?
This drill is critical because it teaches you what it feels like to keep your shoulders and hips shut, shift into the lead side, pull the arm down, and keep that shoulder in the shot rather than pulling up and out of it every time and never releasing the club until the ball is already gone.
If you are a hip spinner and you combine this with the Tee Drill of hitting down on the driver and getting more on top of the ball, then add in the Belt Buckle Drill and now the Keep Your Spine Vertical and Level Shoulders Drills, you will start to compress the ball like you never have before.
If you have always hit the ball a little too high, these drills will help you understand the effect that spine angle has on swing plane and path.
If you lean too far forward (not enough axis tilt), you will tend to come over the top and swing out-to-in. If, like many of our better players, you lean too far back (too much tilt), you will come from the inside and hit a lot of blocks and thin shots with the fairway woods.
These drills will help get everything much more neutral so you can start hitting the ball significantly more solidly. For real-time coaching on your impact alignments and shoulder positions, try a free AI golf lesson.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
Secondary axis tilt
Tilt until the club touches your leg
Too much axis tilt
The right end of the club is higher
The left shoulder stays below the right
Shoulders feel level
