If you want to swing your club faster, you'll want to create more acceleration. Acceleration is how fast your club is gaining speed during the swing. In addition to creating this speed, you'll want to maintain it until you make contact with the ball, decelerating the club only after you hit the ball. What you do before and after your golf swing is just as important as what you do during the stroke.
Step 1
Set up correctly in terms of your position to the ball. Standing too close to or far away from the ball will cause you to swing from an angle, either toward or away from your body, instead of straight into the ball, decreasing club head speed.
Step 2
Place the ball in your stance to allow you to shift your weight from your back leg to your front leg. Placing the ball closer to your front foot than your back foot will allow you to open your hips to generate the internal shoulder rotation that is responsible for most club speed during a swing.
Step 3
Take your club all the way back by starting your backswing with a shoulder turn. The more you turn uncoil your upper body backward, the farther back your arms can go. The farther back your arms go, the farther forward they can swing, giving your club more time to build acceleration.
Step 4
Relax your grip on the club. A tight, tense grip tightens the muscles in your forearms, interfering with the concentric and eccentric muscle contractions necessary to create the energy and movements required for a maximum-speed golf swing. This is where the term, "Swing easy, hit hard" gets is meaning.
Step 5
Bend your knees downward as you take the club back, then push off the ground, straightening your legs as you swing forward. This down-and-up movement generates reactive power, which contributes to the chain of events that creates club acceleration.
Step 6
Open your hips prior to your arms coming through your body during the forward swing. If you lead with your arms, instead of your hips, you will not generate the internal shoulder rotation that sports biomechanist Bruce Elliot of the University of Western Australia has identified as key to creating maximum biomechanical swing speeds. If you open your hips at the correct time, your weight will shift from your back leg to your front leg and the heel of your back foot will come off the ground as you finish your stroke.
Step 7
Snap your wrist as you hit the ball to allow you to maintain your acceleration through contact, slowing the club down with your post-contact follow through. Hitting the ball without turning your wrists over does not allow you to decelerate naturally, after the shot, and will cause you club to slow down before contact.
References
- "British Journal of Sports Medicine"; Muscle Activity During the Golf Swing; A McHardy, H Pollard, 2005
- "British Journal of Sports Medicine"; Biomechanics and Tennis; Dr. Bruce Elliot, December 10, 2005
- "The 4,000 Watt Tennis Player"; W. Ben Kibler
- Athletic Quickness: Golf--The Anatomy of the Forward Swing
- BodyBuilding.com: The Best Exercises for Developing Speed & Vertical Jump
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