Perform Better Golf Blog

If you’re a golfer looking to quickly and effectively improve your golf swing speed, power and distance, you’ll want to take a look at our Power Golf Swing Weight Trainer.

I am always on the lookout for golf swing trainers that will help golfers add more power and distance, and this one “fits the bill” completely!

It is now part of my power training routine, and I can already feel a difference in my flexibility and power.

It’s ONLY a fraction of the cost of a weighted club, and it’s the most portable of all of them!

I have come to the conclusion that the wrists play a critical role in power golf, increasing clubhead speed, and distance. It’s not a very glamorous bodypart, but I do feel this is one of the KEYS to hitting longer golf drives.

Earlier we discussed power golf wrist hinge, and the correct way to do it, and now I want to give you a SIMPLE golf exercise to quickly strengthen your wrists for a powerful impact into that poor golf ball.

Stand erect with your arm at your side hanging long. Hold an 8 iron (I use my weighted golf club) in your hand with the clubhead on the ground. This puts your wrist in the uncocked (unhinged) position. Now, without moving your arm at all, raise the clubhead upward as high as you can, using only your wrist and forearm.

Slowly lower it back down and repeat 15 times. Switch arms and sides, and do 15 with the other arm. If you’re feeling spunky, do a couple of sets each arm. You’ll get a good burn in your forearm muscles.

This movement is identical to the movement of your wrist cock in your golf swing. Doing this simple golf exercise 2-3 times a week, will make a huge difference in your power, with strong wrists through impact.

Long golf drive secrets! Hmmmm???? Is there such a thing? I have learned that if you didn’t already know something, then it in fact is a secret to you. Now I’m not going to say I’m going to tell you anything you haven’t already heard to hit long drives in golf, but I am going to reiterate the key tips you MUST do to maximize your distance with y our golf driver swing.

Lets dispel a huge myth. You don’t have to be like those beasts that enter and win long drive contests. Some of those guys are animals! I mean…6′8″ and weigh 260 pounds, but it’s ALL MUSCLE!

This is not realistic for most of us mere mortals, so given you’re not already the above height and weight, what can you do to maximize YOUR driving distance?

There are a couple of critical things and I want to discuss them right now.

Clubhead Speed

Most of us know that the faster we can swing our driver, the farther the ball will go right? Well, not necessarily if you can’t find the middle of the clubface for solid ball contact. You can swing at 150 mph, but if you hit it off the heel or toe, you’re not going to hit it very far (or find the fairway).

Clubhead speed with solide swing fundamentals is what you want. As you slowly increase your swing speed, you must also maintain or improve your swing technique. Make sense?

How do you increase clubhead speed?

There are several choices you have to increase your swing speed. You can embark on a strength and flexibility program like my power training system; you can swing a weighted golf club at higher speeds, but again under control; or, work on your golf swing mechanics to enhance solid ball/clubface contact, then introduce speed to this new swing.

Work On Your Lag!

One way to quickly increase your swing speed at impact is to work on maintaining your wrist cock late into your swing. It is nearly impossible to do, but training like this will engrain in you to hold that wrist hinge and not release it too early.

Just think of Sergio Garcia or even Camillo Villegas. They both have tremendous wrist cock just before impact. This imparts a tremendous amount of speed through the ball, as the club and head act like a whip this late in the downswing. You want that WHIP through the ball!

Stay Behind The Ball

This is something I work on all the time. When you see some of the longest hitters of the golf ball just beyond impact, they have FULL extension with BOTH arms. The ONLY way to achieve this is to rotate on your downswing, while staying back. This is very hard to do, as the feeling of moving laterally into the ball feels more powerful but it’s NOT!

That’s why it’s so important to move the ball WAY FORWARD in your stance when you want to hit it long. You will achieve this amazing full extension and be pounding the ball.

We are on Week 9 of our 10 week golf swing transformation with Morrie. Morrie had a frustrating week of golf, but we got him straightened out, and his spirits are back up. We’re on my main blog here, and unfortunately it does not allow comments, but I know your thoughts are with us.

The course and the greens look kind of trashed, but for some reason the video is doing some of this. The greens are much better than the video shows. Do I sound like I’m defending my course <grin>?

The Power Golf Swing Trainer we had Morrie try turned out so good for him, that he bought one right here on the site, and here’s what he had to say about it:

“Mike let me try his Power Golf Swing Trainer the other day…..and wow! It keeps your triangle and right arm in tact all through the swing. I added imediate distance and I could get through the ball with out trying to steer it. I ordered one for my self!

Many of you have been following “Mondays With Morrie” I’m Morrie, and this simple comfortable trainer worked for me in just a few swings I could see the triangle. Check out
my next episode tomorrow….you’ll see some mighty powerful results.”

The game of golf, and the golf swing are evolving. The modern golf swing has become the ideal for most amateur golfers. With tour players like, Adam Scott, Aaron Baddeley, and now the emerging star Anthony Kim, you’ve got a level of golf that is nearly untouchable for 85% of the tour players. Even Tiger Woods has a run for his money.

Can any golfer emulate the modern swing? I’m not sure it’s possible, unless the golfer improves both golf specific flexibility and strength with golf swing exercises that allow them to make full shoulder turns with no tension.

For the senior golfer, the modern golf swing may not be attainable. The key to good golf as you get older is “swinging within yourself”. You’ve got two choices as the years go on. Accept your physical decline and make compensations in your swing, or buck the curve and start fixing the machine and watch your game go to a new level.

Anthony Kim had a phenomenal year in 2008 and I look for him to do even better in ‘09.

Look at Anthony’s impact position! Most amateur golfers could not get their bodies to do that. Have their hips this open at impact. The core strength and flexibility to do this, is way above average, and can ONLY happen with golf-specific training.

Talking about these young golfers does not mean that there is no hope as you get older. It just means you need to adjust your golf improvement approach to enjoy your golf for years to come. The best way is to create a program that slows the aging process, and helps you maintain (or improve) a level of golf specific fitness that enables you to make more of a modern golf swing.

I just got done watching The Golf Channel’s Playing Lessons With The Pro’s. They had JB Holmes on it, so since I’m a big believer in the advantages of power in your golf swing, I watched it (Tivo of course).

Look at his address position above. A really strong grip with his left hand turned over the top of the club quite a bit. Also, notice his ball position. Off his left foot instead of the heel. This could be the camera angle, but I’ll bet it’s pretty accurate.

What I see immediately in his swing (this is with a golf driver) is the minimal wrist cock at the top of his golf swing. So many teaching pro’s advocate a full wrist cock for maximum power, but he’s proving them wrong isn’t he.

But…what he does do is a FULL shoulder turn with a restricted hip turn creating maximum torque in his core area. This is the engine to his golf swing, and creates a tremendous amount of golf swing speed.

Notice on the way down, JB has a tremendous rotation of his lower body. His teaching pro on the show mentioned this is his power in his golf swing. The aggressive move of his lower body starting his downswing. He mentioned on the show, he feels like he pull’s down from the top. No wrist release (casting) of the club.

Please take note, it is not a slide of his lower body, but a rotation. He quickly follows his hips with his core, chest and shoulders aggressively turning through impact.

One thing he mentioned that I thought was interesting, was his “hands getting ahead of the ball” even with a driver. I had never heard of that before. He says it gives him that whipping effect very late in the swing maximizing his clubhead speed through the ball and not before it. He also, said it delofts his clubs making the ball fly lower and run after ground contact.

I find it interesting to see all the different golf swings on tour and how any of us can find a tour player to emulate with our particular body structure.

If you are not a full wrist cock kind of golfer, JB Holmes might be a swing you’ll want to try.

The full golf swing is something that should be a major focus for any golfer at any level. If you can’t make a repetitive swing that holds up for 18 holes, you’re in for a long round that ends up in frustration and unhappiness.

My personal golf instructor has agreed to provide some valuable golf swing tips right from his Golf Swing System that I’ve personally used to add 15 yards on my drives, and lower my score by 5 strokes, and I was a single digit already.

There are so many components to a good swing, that many golfers get overwhelmed and frustrated, never to improve. This golf swing system I’m talking about is simple, effective, easy-to-implement, and better yet…I’ve used it personally with awesome results.

I spent the past 10 years looking for a golf professional who could help me with my game. Thousands of dollars later, I finally found MY PRO! Not only has Bobby helped my golf swing immensely, he REALLY cares about me. I have NEVER met a golf instructor with SO much passion and care.

If you’re looking for a more powerful golf swing you must use your hips. Look at how much Tiger Woods uses his hips in the downswing? In fact, most of the touring professionals utilize their hips to create more power, especially with their driver. On tour, hitting it at least 275-280 is a must, as most of the golf courses play well over 7100 yards, making even a standard par 4 over 440 yards.

In my golf swing, I connect my upper body and hips together (one plane golf swing) to generate a HIGH amount of clubhead speed. For many senior golfers having the strength and flexibility to generate hip rotation separate from the upper body is almost a physical impossibility. You have got to have a level of hip flexibility that will allow you to powerfully rotate them first at the initial part of the downswing.

Many golfers can’t get the sequence right coming down. Usually they fire the upper body first, getting the golf club off-plane, creating a steep, out-to-in swing resulting in a big slice. Being able to initiate the downswing with the lower body first is critical to longer golf drives.

Look at the picture to your left. You can see the golfer has definitely fired his hips first, while keeping his upper body back to apply a powerful blow behind the golf ball.
If you’re like me, I have struggled for years trying to get my hips to clear, but not from lack of strength or flexibility, but from the wrong move coming down. Once I figure it out, and now swing around my body, my hips clear easily allowing me to really fire my right side through impact.

So if you want more power and distance, you need to use your hips in your downswing. If you can’t physically do it, you might want to look at my Effortless Golf Training System to improve your golf swing biomechanics through muscle and joint mobility training with EASY golf swing exercises and stretches right in the comfort of your own home.

Golfers want the silver bullet to longer drives. Golf weight training is your ticket to more distance. But the kind I’m speaking of is simple exercises done in the privacy and convenience of your home. They are actually fun to do and are really effective! The more golf-specific you can make them the faster your results will be. You’ll be bombing your driver past all your golfing buddies.

I don’t want you to think of going to the gym and lifting heavy weights. That’s too much work right? I only want you to do as much as you need, and not an ounce more to see massive improvement in your distance and accuracy. Lifting weights in your home is done by using dumbbells, an exercise ball, exercise tubing with handles and that’s it. If you get adventerous you can get a weighted medicine ball and REALLY speed up your distance output.

Either way, I’m ONLY talking about 15 minutes a day to see FAST improvement on the course! Isn’t your game worth that much? If not, you might want to think about a different recreation. Seriously though! To improve in golf takes a little bit of effort, just like anything else in life. You can’t expect improvement if you don’t put that effort in right?

What is a long drive golf swing?

Is it some magical technique that instantly gets golfers to hit it ________ yards longer? Or is it using some extra long shaft, nuked driver head club to accomplish it?

Most golfers I know don’t dream of being a long drive king, but most of them sure would like to hit it a little further. There is a definite advantage to the golfer who hits their drives longer (but you have to keep it in the fairway). Getting to most greens in regulation gives you a great chance at par on EVERY hole.

That’s all you can ask is to give yourself a chance to make par, and if the occasional birdie falls in, it’s icing on the cake right?

There are several critical elements to a long golf drive, and one of the most important is core rotational torque. This means the differential between your hip turn and your upper body at the top of the backswing. If you lack the required core strength and flexibility, you will have minimal chance to reach your true driving distance potential.

The more you can turn your shoulders while keeping your hips relatively still, the greater the torque and clubhead speed you’ll develop. This in turn creates more power at impact for longer drives. So the next step is doing simple golf stretching exercises for your core area. These are not difficult, but critical to you achieving maximum driving distance.

Here’s an example of a VERY simple stretch you can do from my Effortless Golf Training Manual, right in your office, in your chair. No excuses not to do this one several times a day.