Why Your Hips Matter in the Golf Swing Speed Equation

A common question in golf instruction is whether your hips really matter for speed. You may have seen demonstrations where a player hits shots from their knees and still produces surprisingly high clubhead speed. At first glance, that can make it seem like the lower body contributes very little and that the hips are only worth a few extra miles per hour. But that conclusion misses an important detail: swinging from your knees does not truly remove the hips from the motion. To understand how speed is created, you need to look at how the body transfers motion through the chain—not just whether a player is standing or kneeling.

Why the “off your knees” demonstration is misleading

The kneeling drill has some value, but it is often interpreted the wrong way. If you can still swing fast from your knees, that does not prove your hips are unimportant. It only proves that you can still generate speed without using your feet, ankles, and much of your lower leg action.

When you kneel, you do lose some movement from the ground up. You no longer have the same ability to use:

ankle rotation
knee movement
pressure shifts through the feet
ground force in the same way you would standing

But your hips are still free to move. Your pelvis can still rotate, even if it is somewhat restricted compared to a normal standing swing. That means the hips are still very much part of the speed equation.

So if a player normally swings at 110 to 115 mph and can still reach the low 100s from their knees, the correct takeaway is not that the hips barely matter. The better takeaway is that the body is still able to rotate and transfer speed through the torso, arms, and club—even without full lower-leg support.

To remove a joint, you have to fix the segment above it

This is the key concept. If you want to claim that a body part has been “taken out” of the swing, you need to actually restrict the structure that allows it to move.

With the hips, that means controlling the pelvis. The hip joints connect the femurs to the pelvis. If the pelvis is still free to rotate and shift, then the hips are still in play.

Think of it this way: a hinge is only out of action if the doorframe or the door itself is fixed enough that the hinge cannot function. If the frame can still move, the hinge is still contributing to the motion.

That is why kneeling does not truly isolate the swing away from the hips. Even though the motion below the hips is reduced, the pelvis still has freedom, and the hips still help organize rotation and transfer energy upward.

What would actually reduce hip involvement?

If you really wanted to minimize the hips, you would need to put the pelvis in a much more fixed condition. A seated position does this far better than a kneeling one.

For example:

Sitting directly on your sit bones
Using a chair to support the pelvis
Reducing foot interaction with the ground
Limiting pelvic rotation as much as possible

In that setup, the hips are barely contributing compared to a normal swing. Now you are much closer to testing what the arms and upper body can do without meaningful help from the pelvis and hips.

And that is a very different challenge. It would be far harder for a player with 115 mph speed to stay anywhere near that number if the pelvis were truly stabilized and the hips were genuinely taken out of the motion.

The hips do not create speed alone

There is another side to this discussion that matters just as much. Even though the hips are important, simply spinning them harder does not automatically create more clubhead speed.

This is where a lot of golfers get confused.

You can rotate your hips aggressively and still hit weak shots if the rest of the chain does not respond correctly. The golf swing is not a contest to see how fast you can turn your pelvis. It is a coordinated motion where the body moves the arms, and the arms move the club.

Your hips are one part of the system. They help create and organize motion, but they only contribute effectively if that motion is passed along properly.

Speed is transferred, not manufactured in one place

The best way to think about speed is as a sequence of transfer. Energy moves from one segment to the next:

The body organizes pressure and rotation
The pelvis and torso help transport that motion
The arms respond to the body’s movement
The hands and club deliver the final speed

If any link in that chain is poor, speed leaks out.

So yes, the hips matter. But they matter as part of a connected system. If your arms are disconnected from your pivot, the hips can turn as hard as you want and the club still will not move efficiently. On the other hand, if your body and arms are synchronized, even a reduced lower-body setup can still produce decent speed—which is exactly why the kneeling drill can be deceptive when interpreted too literally.

What the kneeling drill actually teaches

The kneeling drill is not useless. In fact, it can be a helpful training tool. The problem is not the drill itself—it is the conclusion some golfers draw from it.

Used correctly, the drill can teach you that:

You do not need to overdrive your legs to create speed
The arms must respond to body motion in a coordinated way
Balance and sequencing matter more than brute force
Good contact and decent speed are still possible with reduced lower-body action

That is valuable. Many players use their lower body too aggressively, too early, or in the wrong direction. They chase speed by firing the hips without understanding how the club is supposed to be delivered. A kneeling swing can expose that mistake because it strips away some of the lower-body excess and forces you to feel a more connected motion.

But that is very different from saying the hips are unimportant. The drill teaches moderation and connection, not irrelevance of the pelvis.

Why this matters for your swing

If you misunderstand the role of the hips, you can easily train the wrong thing.

Some golfers hear that the hips do not matter much and stop learning how to use the body properly. They become all arms and hands, trying to manufacture speed from the top down. That usually leads to inconsistency, poor contact, and a swing that has very little ceiling for power.

Other golfers go the opposite direction. They hear that the lower body drives the swing and start spinning their hips as hard as possible. That often leaves the arms behind, steepens the shaft, and creates a motion that looks athletic but does not actually produce efficient speed.

The better model is this:

Your body provides the motion, and your arms and hands must receive and deliver it.

That idea keeps you from overvaluing or undervaluing the hips. They are not the whole story, but they are absolutely part of the story.

A useful analogy

Imagine cracking a whip. The handle starts the motion, but the tip only moves fast if each segment passes energy along in the right order. If one section is too stiff, too loose, or mistimed, the whip loses its snap.

The golf swing works similarly. Your hips and pelvis are not the clubhead, but they are part of the chain that helps the clubhead accelerate. Remove or restrict one part of the chain, and speed can still happen—but usually less of it, and only if the remaining segments work very efficiently.

How to think about the hips in the speed equation

A better way to frame the issue is not “How many miles per hour do the hips add?” That sounds precise, but it oversimplifies a complex motion.

Instead, ask:

How well do my hips and pelvis help organize the swing?
Does my body motion help my arms move the club, or does it disrupt them?
Can I transfer speed from the ground and torso into the club without losing sequence?

Those questions are more useful because they focus on function rather than isolated contribution.

In a real golf swing, body segments do not work independently. You are not assigning a separate speed number to your feet, hips, torso, arms, and hands. You are blending them into one motion. The hips matter because they are one of the major bridges between the ground and the upper body.

How to apply this understanding in practice

When you practice, use this concept to improve coordination rather than chase a simplistic idea about lower-body power.

1. Use kneeling swings for connection, not proof

If you hit balls from your knees, use the drill to feel how the torso and arms work together. Let it teach you balance and sequencing. Do not use it as evidence that the hips are irrelevant.

2. Notice whether your hips help or hurt your arm swing

Pay attention to whether your lower-body motion is supporting the club or outracing it. If your hips spin open and your arms get stuck behind you, that is not efficient speed. You want the body to move the arms in a way the arms can actually respond to.

3. Train body-to-arm transfer

Focus on drills where the body motion carries the arms through, rather than drills where the arms act independently. This helps you develop the real source of speed: coordinated transfer.

4. Experiment with seated or restricted-motion swings

If you want to understand what your hips truly contribute, try very small swings from a seated position. You will quickly feel the difference between reduced lower-body support and a normal athletic motion. That contrast can teach you a lot about how much the pelvis helps organize speed.

5. Keep the big picture in mind

Do not ask whether the hips matter in isolation. Ask whether your whole system is working together. In a good swing, the hips are neither the hero nor the bystander. They are one important part of a chain that allows the club to move fast and strike the ball solidly.

If you understand that, you will practice more intelligently. You will stop trying to either eliminate the hips or overuse them, and instead learn how to let your body move the club through a connected, efficient motion.