Should You Be Shifting Your Hips Like Brooks Koepka?

Brooks Koepka is one of the best players of this generation, winning 20 times, including 5 majors, and as recently as last week at LIV Golf Singapore. He has quite an unorthodox golf swing and an interesting one for PGA Professional Jack Backhouse to dive into this Brooks Koepka golf swing analysis to see how he matches things up and his the ball so well.

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Set-Up

The first thing to note is how strong Koepka’s right hand is on the grip. This position is going to close the face significantly and have some ramifications later on in the golf swing, and it is interesting to note. He also has quite a lot of knee flex in his set up, which can restrict the amount of hip and shoulder turn is possible.

Brooks stands to the golf ball very relaxed. He is a mammoth human and is going to bludgeon the golf ball down the hole, so a nice, relaxed set-up is a great place to do this.

He has talked recently about managing his ball position. When it slips too far back in his stance, he can’t play the fade he trusts, so he constantly has to watch it. Even the pros are not above working on something as simple as the set-up!

Backswing

Brooks takes the club away with basically zero clubface rotation, giving it a very closed look. He doesn’t achieve a full turn in the backswing, so he ends up with very high hands, not a deep position, with his hands over the midfoot.

This isn’t a very typical position to see from a tour player as they normally have a full turn, but either Brooks has some physical limitations that won’t let him, or he likes how easy it is to hit a fade from that steeper position.

Remember, Brooks has enough clubhead speed and power to not require the added extra that a full turn would provide.

At the top of the swing, he has a slightly bowed left wrist and a closed club face.

Downswing

This is where we start to see the matchups or compensations that make Koepka’s golf swing so impressive.

Koepka doesn’t turn a lot on the way back, so he doesn’t turn a lot in the downswing, either. He starts down with a tremendous hip shift to his left leg. Doing this allows him to shallow the golf club, and bring his arms down in front of him into a neutral positon.

This is where most amateur slicers go wrong. They don’t turn enough going back, then turn too much too early on the way down, which then gets the club outside and causes a slice.

If you are a player who can’t turn very well going back, then you must use your arms better. You get the club down into a good position before turning through.

The club face remains closed, and he doesn’t seem to release the club very much in the downswing from his wrists, which shows a very ‘blocky’ release. This way, I’m sure Koepka feels like he can just hold the face-off and push it to target.

Into The Finish

After holding the clubface square for quite a while after the ball, Koepka allows the club to pass his hands and finishes with his weight on the front foot, nice and in balance.

Brooks keeps his head down for quite a while after the ball is gone, this isnt at all necessary but is likely something just ingrained in his technique from being told to keep his head down when he was learning the game – this is not something to copy!

What can we learn?

Brooks Koepka wins so often that we cannot ignore his golf swing as something to learn from. He is a big American athlete that is big and strong, but there are some things that we can learn from his technique that might just help our own games.

• Keep the face closed if you are not going to turn very much. There is no time or room to manage a release pattern, so you must pre-set a square face with a strong grip and bowed left wrist.
• Shifting your hips and bringing your arms down can buy time in the downswing. If you can’t get a deep position at the top, don’t panic; you can still shallow the club and hit the golf ball a long way by delaying your rotation, sliding forward, and bringing your arms down.

If you enjoyed this Brooks Koepka golf swing analysis, keep an eye out for more tour winners’ swing analysis in the future.

If you are interested in seeking further information from Jack that is more specific to your golf game, you can book an in-person or online golf lesson by clicking here.

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