[Mike O]

Trig,
First- responding to your post is difficult via a forum, in that - my response can come across as if "your swing sucks"- if you know what I mean- and I'm sure it doesn't. Given the fact that if you - Trig - think about the hands first on the downstroke- then you come over the top- as opposed to when you think of the hips first you don't come over the top- from your perpective - thinking about the hands first CANNOT be correct- you've "proven" it!

But my point that I made in the third paragraph of my post above- was made for that very reason- that you've got other issues that are not being performed correctly or get in the way of performing a hand controlled pivot. I typed that very paragraph for everyone but specifically for all the people like yourself (hey - that may include 99.9% of everyone, including me). Because when someone says - say per the Golfing Machine- just take your hands down the plane and everything else will/should respond etc.- guess what it doesn't- and isn't that simple- because of all these things that get in the way. So the easy answer is to throw the baby out with the bath water- "Start the club down with the Hands i.e. the awareness of the lag pressure"- FORGET IT- THROWAWAY!, That's wrong! You got to focus on the body first!

So you've compensated by having pivot controlled hands- specifically in your case making sure that the body- i.e. hips, slide or make a particular move before you can allow the hands to move, etc. You've taken a movement that should be one continuous flow and broken it up- to allow your best chance of hitting the ball well- given the unknown issues in the movement.

Now, AND THIS IS KEY- your situation is not unusually- it's more of the norm for all of us on this forum. The good part about that, is that most probably can relate to what you're doing- and many including yourself can also sense or deduct that the movement that you're making is not the ideal- but it performs the best for today, given all of the known alternatives.

Not a cop-out but the proper context/knowledge to really grasp this can't be posted on a forum post in a matter of minutes- too many issues to cover. And believe me, many play golf and at a very high level doing what your doing- as I tried to emphasis it's not unusual to run into the problem that you have experienced. I guess that's about it for now, I'll respond to Tongzilla's post- which may address one specific issue- that may be helpful in understanding the issues surrounding this.

Mike O.