Alright. Hammered that one. Now everybody wants to drive afar. Let’s be honest. It’s one of the most important things in golf. But it can be difficult sometimes, especially when the instruction you’re getting is actually killing your swing speed and distance rather than building it. Let me give you some best secrets to crank up the speed, increase your distance, and make it even easier on your body. Let’s go ahead and get started.
1. Mastering the Weight Shift
The first piece is making sure that we get a little bit more of a weight shift to the right. Every athletic motion you have involves a weight shift, and golf is no different. I want to get an early weight shift to the right, so I really load up on my right side, allowing me to shift all that energy through the ball. This will help me complete the swing, accelerate through the ball into the finish, and just make it a lot easier in general.
Let me try to hit one here without much of a weight shift. Not only will I decrease power, but I’ll also feel like my swing is out of coordination. Here, my weight stays left and falls back to the right, forcing my arms and hands to take over to save the shot. The result? The shot went off the hosel, losing a ton of distance just because I couldn’t get all my energy into it. I also lost awareness of the club face, leading to slices or hooks.
Now, here’s the solution: very early in your backswing, feel like you load your right quad—the muscle on top of your right leg. You want to feel some pressure in that muscle early in the backswing. As soon as you take the club away, even after it’s moved just a foot, get loaded into your right leg and create a little pressure shift that direction. Then, as you complete your backswing, shift back to the left and swing through the ball. This mimics throwing a baseball: right side early, shift left, and swing through the golf ball.
2. The Importance of Hip Turn
Next up is your hip turn. You really don’t want to turn those hips so much that they feel locked up. A common mistake is to try to create a big stretch in your body by restricting hip movement. In my backswing, if I keep my right leg flexed and don’t rotate my hips much, I might feel a stretch between my hips and shoulders. But this can cause distance to plummet.
Even if I hit a perfect shot with restricted hip turn, it still won’t compare to swings made with a full turn. For instance, one drive might be dead straight but still only carry 244 yards at 100 mph swing speed. To generate more speed and power, focus again on that right leg: feel pressure in your right quad early in the swing and push it into the ground as your right leg straightens. This will enable a full hip turn in your backswing.
3. Creating a Compact Swing
Lastly, let’s talk about making a short, compact swing while keeping your arms on plane. A shorter swing means my hands don’t go as far back, and my left arm matches the angle of my shoulders. While this might look great on camera and allow for solid shots, it requires a lot of effort to achieve the necessary distance.
If you can create a little more distance, you won’t have to play as well to shoot the same score. So let’s elevate those arms. When my left arm is higher than the angle of my shoulders, I can add to that big body turn and get my hands up higher. This makes it easier to create distance with a more relaxed swing.
Let’s recap these three essential points:
- Weight shift has to be early. Load your right quad.
- Rotate your hips. Push into the ground and let your right leg straighten.
- Allow your arms to elevate instead of keeping them short and around your body.
By incorporating these three tips, you free up your swing and hit it a whole lot farther. Golf becomes significantly more enjoyable when you can unleash your full potential!
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