Weekend golfers often equate “muscle power’ with length off the tee. I see it all the time in my golf lessons. The player swings his or her driver as hard as he or she can, hoping to hit a monster drive. They never do. In fact, swinging the driver harder, as I tell these players, shortens your drives because it tightens your muscles, decreasing their ability to producing power.

The secret to more distance off the tee is generating more clubhead speed. Mechanically, you generate more clubhead speed one of three ways, as I point out in my golf tips:

o By widening your swing arc

o By lengthening your swing arc

o By adding speed in the hitting area

Widening your swing arc increases the distance the clubhead travels, giving it more time and room in which to build up speed. The same thing happens by lengthening your swing arc. This makes the swing arc longer, and again, gives the club more time and room to accumulate speed. Adding speed in the hitting area increases the clubhead’s momentum through the impact area, generating more power.

Below are three drills I use in my golf lessons to teach how to generate more clubhead speed. The key with the drills is learning the feeling of what it is like swinging the clubhead faster, then incorporating that feeling in your swing. Practice the drills faithfully. You will see results fairly quickly.

Widening Your Arc: Right Hand Drill

If you swing arc is narrow, the club has less time and room to build up speed. If your left arms (for right-handers) bends too much during your back swing or is scrunched against your body during your backswing, as I often explain in my golf tips, your swing radius diminishes. This, in turn, narrows your swing arc. To generate more distance, you must keep your arms extended, which isn’t easy if you have too much tension at address. Watch golfers with a low golf handicaps. They are always loose at address.

Ideally, you should feel your left arm extending on the backswing and downswing, with the sensation that you’re swinging the club’s butt away from your body. To achieve this feeling, practice hitting balls with your left hand holding the club and your right hand gripping your left wrist. Stretch the left arm out as you swing back. Use the right hand and arm to move the club farther from your body. The muscles at the top of your left arm should feel stretched as you complete your backswing. Swing slowly to keep club-ball contact solid.

Lengthening Your Arc: Right Foot Drill

Here’s another golf tip: The farther away from the ball the clubhead travels on the backswing, the more potential it has to generate speed on the downswing. Short swing arcs result from a lack of body turn on the backswing. A full turn pushes the club back farther, so it has farther to go –and more time and room to generate speed–coming down. To set the stage for a steeper turn, try the right foot drill. I use it frequently in my golf lessons

At address, draw your right foot back about 10 inches (like taking a small step backwards, away from the ball- so as to set your stance as closed) and turn the toe of your left foot out at a 45-degree angle to your target. Keep your shoulders and body pointed toward the target. Define the target line by laying two clubs on the ground, pointing toward the target. Now hit some balls. You’ll feel the sensation of your hips and shoulders turning more fully. Remember that feeling. Go back to your normal set-up but incorporate that feeling in your swing.

Adding Speed Through Impact: The Listening Drill

Next time you play a golfer with a low golf handicap, listen closely when he drives his ball. You’ll hear a loud “whoosh.” That’s the sound of clubhead traveling through impact at an enormous speed. That’s the sound of a good ball striker.

This drill teaches you what it feels like to swing a club with incredible speed as it passes in front of your body. You need a driver length shaft, with a grip on it and no clubhead attached. Swing the shaft back and through as in a normal practice swing, listening closely for the “whoosh” as it tears thought impact on the downswing. Try to make the whoosh loudest from a point even with your right leg to about midway into the follow-through. If you don’t have a spare shaft, simply turn your driver upside down and grip it on the neck just above the clubhead and the grip of the club will be where the clubhead would normally be.

As you swing, be aware of what body parts move the fastest during the drill. This sensation varies from player to player, then incorporate it in your swing. If it feels like your hands give you the greatest increase in speed, for example, concentrate on using them more actively when you go back to your normal swing.

These three drills generate more clubhead speed. Practice them from 25 to 50 times at a session. Make them a daily golf instruction routine. Doing so will improve your mechanics and ingrain the feeling of adding clubhead speed. Once you’ve ingrained this feeling in your mind, take it with you to the practice range and hit some balls. Keep at it. You should find yourself producing more distance off the tee without swinging harder and, probably, cutting strokes off your golf handicap.

What you are about to read… will change your golfing life forever! What are these three “secrets”? If you knew how would they effect your game?. These three “secrets” are what the worlds best players do. Every player MUST know these “secrets” if they are to have a powerful, repeating golf stroke.

The problem with the majority of golfers is that they don’t know what to do. Oh their friends, well wishers at best, tell them that they are “bending their left arm”, “raising up through the shot”, “coming over the top” and host of other swing faults. But these are the same people that shoot the same scores you do! What could they possibly tell you that would improve your game?

The information you are about to receive is not theory or conjecture but science. Ooooh, you say, this sounds complicated. Well it isn’t, it is simply the laws of force and motion that govern our entire lives and day to day living. Once you understand these simply laws your golf game will forever change…for the better!

Secret #1: A Flat Left Wrist

Because the golf stroke involves a golf club, a left arm, and a wrist in between, it is called a “lever system”. The left wrist acts as a “hinge pin” much like the old time “flail” used to beat wheat. This “hinge pin” can rotate, cock or uncock but NEVER Bends!

Golfers however routinely bend the left wrist causing the clubhead to reach the ball before the hands do. This causes a “quitting” motion, adds loft to the clubface, points the face to the left of target, makes the clubhead swing upward disrupting the downward motion that ALL good golf shots MUST have. Good players DELOFT the clubface at Impact. Poor players ADD loft to the clubface costing them distance, direction, and trajectory.

A 5 iron, for example, has approximately 8 degrees for “forward lean” when soled properly. At Impact with good players the “lean” is approximately 15 degrees. This turns the 5 iron into a 4 iron. Poor players reach Impact with a “backward” leaning clubshaft thereby ADDING loft and turning the 5 iron into a 6-7 iron!

Secret #2: A Staright Plane Line

You only have two choices when it comes to the swing plane, you are either on or you’re off. There is no middle ground!

What exactly is the swing plane? The plane is the angle of the clubshaft as it sets at address – period! It is NOT Hogans plane of glass as many would have you to believe. There are only three planes available;

1. Horizontal – a wall

2. Vertical – the floor

3. Inclined somewhere in between

As golfers you and I use the Inclined Plane to swing the club back up and end, down out and forward, up back and in making the Golf Stroke three dimensional.

The clubshaft, actually the sweetspot of the club, may travel to any other plane angle during the swing as long as it DOES NOT cross the base of the plane. Here is a simple way you can know if you are on plane or not. Whichever end of the club is nearest to the ground MUST also point at the base of the plane from horizon to horizon. If neither end is nearer then the clubshaft MUST be horizontal to the ground and parallel to the base of plane.

Secret #3: A Lagging Clubhead

Lag by definition means “trailing”. When the clubhead passes the hands coming into Impact there is no “lag”. Without “lag” the golf ball cannot be compressed, we cannot hit downward, and we have a tremendous power loss. Clubhead lag promotes a steady and even acceleration giving us a dependable way to control distance.

Look at any picture of your favorite player at Impact. The left arm and clubshaft are in ONE LINE! Never two lines. This means that the player is utilizing “lag”. When a ball is struck with “lag” it explodes off the clubface! Without this “lag” the sound turns into one of mush, a soft Impact instead of a driving Impact.

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If you follow this outline, learn these three “Secrets” you will be hitting the ball with more compression than you ever thought possible.

For example, a Driver striking a golf ball with a 2 degree “backward” leaning clubshaft at 100 mph with 9.5 degrees of loft produces a launch angle of 6.4 degrees and a carry distance of 230 yards.

By changing Impact to a 2 degree forward leaning clubshaft the player produces a launch angle of 10.4 degrees and a carry of 251 yards. A 21 YARD INCREASE WITHOUT buying a new Driver and simply having clubhead lag!

YOU can improve your game dramatically by following the steps outlined above. Become the best player YOU can be and start winning those 4 way presses! If YOU really want to elevate your game, hit it farther, straighter, and nearer the hole then practice what I’ve shared with you.

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Chuck Evans, G.S.E.D.

http://www.chuckevansgolf.com

chuck@chuckevansgolf.com

P.S. Visit our website for more information on how to become the best player YOU can be.

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