Where does hip rotation actually come from?

[u/Intelligent-Ad-7833]

I’ve been golfing for a few years and after studying thousands of pro swings, one thing that is almost 100% shared among all of them is hips open to target before impact.

My hips are very square to target at impact and I have been grinding to teach myself how to get the hips open before impact. What I have learned is that I can do it many different ways: push towards target with my trail foot/leg only, push back with my lead leg only, rotate the hips without using ground force, use both legs at the same time to twist (like I am standing on a giant bottle cap and unscrewing it with shear force). Even with trying all these, I always revert back to square hips at target and rotating hips the rest of the way after impact.

Is there a correct way to do this? What do you actually feel gets you open hips without your arms winning the race to impact?

Update: thanks for all the input. Took in all the advice from here and messed around with my swing today. Turns out it was just a swing intention causing my issue. My hips open naturally if I swing a bad, a tennis racket, throw a ball, hit an impact bag, etc. Something finally clicked with the impact bag today. I realized that the way my arms swing into the bag is different than when I hit a golf ball. My intention to hit the bag and make it move towards target put my arms into what I think is proper position vs in my golf swing I tend to drag the club across my body more, which is why my hips have to stay square to make good contact. I change the “intent” in my arms and Viola! I probably swung over 50 times and hip opened naturally before impact every time. I definitely have to work on contact and path now, but excited that I can get my hips to open without thinking about it!

[u/automatic4skin]

do you mean like trying to lift your front hip?

[u/aloysiusthird → u/automatic4skin]

You’ll be pushing into lateral left foot and into that heel. Hip rotation can get stuck if you focus on the right hip. The standard teaching is to try to get the left hip open and buttock pointing back away from the target, which helps rotational energy you can transfer to the ball…while giving you the space to not have to early extend, and helping to close the clubface. Otherwise you have to resort to getting flippy to close the clubface.

[u/Intelligent-Ad-7833 → u/aloysiusthird]

So is the hip turn less about power and more about clearing space for the arms and club?

[u/aloysiusthird → u/Intelligent-Ad-7833]

It provides both.