TL;DR: My GOLFTEC analysis revealed I was losing 10+ yards because my hips stalled instead of rotating. The fix: the "belt buckle to target" drill. Simple concept, instant results.
Related: GOLFTEC analysis | Rapsodo MLM1
Here's the thing nobody tells you about swing speed: you can muscle every shot with everything you've got, and still be leaving yards on the table.
I know because I've been doing exactly that. For months. Maybe years.
This week at GOLFTEC, my coach spotted something I'd been completely blind to. One of those moments where you want to be grateful and annoyed at the same time. Grateful because — finally, a fix. Annoyed because — how did I not see this?
My Arms Were Doing All the Work
Let me set the scene. I'm mid-lesson, hitting 7-irons, feeling pretty decent about my swing. Not great, but decent. The kind of "decent" where a 21-handicapper starts to think maybe he's figured something out.
Then my coach pulls up the video.
He pointed at my downswing and asked me to watch my hips. So I watched. And watched again. And honestly? I didn't see the problem at first. My hips were turning. Sort of. They were... present.
But here's what he showed me: right at the moment of impact, my hips were basically stalling out. They'd start the downswing, get about halfway through the rotation, and then just... stop. Like a car running out of gas on the highway. My arms were left to do the rest of the work on their own, dragging the club through the hitting zone with nothing but upper body strength.
I was arm-swinging. The whole time.
The Fix: Whip Those Hips
My coach broke it down simply. The hips are the engine of the golf swing. They're supposed to fire hard and fast through impact — not cruise, not coast, not casually rotate when they feel like it. He wanted me to feel like I was whipping my hips around right as the club reached the ball.
Not before. Not after. Right at impact.
He had me do a few practice swings in slow motion, exaggerating the hip rotation. It felt weird. It felt like my lower body was way ahead of my arms. I told him it felt like I was going to spin myself into the ground.
He said good. That means you're doing it right.
10 Extra Yards. Immediately.
I stepped up to the next 7-iron expecting to top it into the net. Instead, I flushed it. The launch monitor showed numbers I don't normally see with that club. I hit a few more. Same thing. The ball was jumping off the face.
Ten more yards. Just like that.
I didn't swing harder. I didn't change my grip or my stance or my backswing. I just let my hips do what they were supposed to be doing all along — driving through the shot instead of going along for the ride.
My coach explained that faster hip rotation creates a whip effect through the kinetic chain. The hips pull the torso, the torso pulls the arms, the arms pull the club. When the hips stall, the chain breaks. You lose all that stored energy and you're basically throwing the club at the ball with your arms. That's why I was topping out on distance no matter how hard I swung.
How Had I Missed This?
That's the part that got me. I've been taking lessons. I've been watching my swing on video. I've been reading, practicing, grinding. And this whole time, my hips were just sitting there doing the bare minimum.
I think the problem is that hip rotation doesn't feel wrong when you're not doing it. It's not like a slice where the ball screams right and you know something's off. The ball still goes forward. You still make contact. You just don't get the distance you should, and you chalk it up to "I'm a high handicapper, that's just how far I hit it."
Turns out, no. That's how far I hit it when half my body isn't participating.
What I'm Working On Now
My coach gave me a simple feel drill to take to the range. Set up to the ball, start the backswing, and on the way down, focus on one thing: snap the belt buckle toward the target before the club gets to the ball. Don't think about arms, hands, or the club at all. Just the belt buckle.
It's going to take reps to make this feel natural. Right now it still feels exaggerated, like I'm overdoing it. But the launch monitor doesn't lie. More hip speed equals more club head speed equals the ball going farther with less effort.
I'm taking this to the course as soon as the snow melts. Will it hold up under pressure, with a real scorecard and real consequences? That's always the question. Range swings and lesson bay swings have a way of evaporating the moment you step on the first tee.
But for the first time in a while, I'm genuinely excited to find out.
The Takeaway for Fellow High Handicappers
If you're a 20+ handicapper and you feel like you've hit a ceiling on distance — especially with your irons — get your hip rotation checked. Seriously. You might be arm-swinging and not even know it.
A few things to watch for:
Your finish position tells the story. If your belt buckle isn't pointing at the target (or past it) when you finish your swing, your hips probably aren't rotating enough. You should feel like your weight is fully on your front foot with your hips completely turned through.
Distance that doesn't match your effort is another red flag. If you're swinging hard and still only hitting your 7-iron 140 when you feel like it should be going 150+, the power might be leaking out through stalled hips.
One caveat: I'm not a swing coach. I'm a 21-handicapper who just found ten free yards hiding in his hips. Your swing issues might be completely different. But if anything I described sounds familiar — the arm-heavy swing, the distance ceiling, the feeling of swinging hard with not much to show for it — it's worth asking your instructor to take a look.
Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs are the simplest ones. And the most frustrating part is that they were right there the whole time.
– Jason