Perform Better Golf Blog

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.

To achieve maximum power in your golf game, you must be able to fully hinge, unhinge and rehinge your wrists. A lot of clubhead speed comes from this wrist action, especially through impact. Hingeing (or wrist cock) your wrists, creates lag. Lag enhances power. Power means LONGER drives!

When I think of lag from the wrists, I think of Sergio Garcia. He has the most impressive, nearly impossible wrist lag (delayed wrist cock) on tour. It’s absolutely amazing to see him with his hands near impact, and his wrists still fully cocked.

One of the LONGEST hitters on the PGA Tour is JB Holmes. He is another perfect example of gaining maximum power through your wrists.

Hinging and unhinging (rehingeing) the wrists is ONE motion. This is where golfers get it wrong!

I took a quick picture(s) to show you the very SIMPLE motion of the proper wrist hinge.

I’m hinging, the second picture is unhingeing, and the third is rehingeing. That’s it!

Another common term for wrist hinge is wrist cock. Look how my wrist is bending only ONE way! This is SO important. It doesn’t break side-to-side, only up and down. Combine the turning of the shoulders, dropping of the arms, and this hinge, unhing and rehinge of the wrists at the right time, and you’ve got a TON of POWER!

A couple of days ago, I did an article on long hitter JB Holmes golf swing. What we found out is there is no perfect swing or one answer on how to increase driving distance, but with that being said, there are a couple of key things you can definitely work on to achieve longer drives.

Solid Ball Contact

You have got to hit the ball with a square clubface no matter what. It does not matter how hard or how fast you swing if you hit the ball with an open or closed clubface. So you could really plead a case that solid contact is near the top of the list for increased distance.

Inside Swing Path

Coming from the inside on your downswing will create a “top-spin” draw ball flight, so when it hits the ground it will release and roll an extra 10-30 yards depending on the fairway cut and dryness.

Golfers lose so much distance because they swing from outside-to-in, creating sidespin that goes against the air, and exactly loses distance, compared to a inside-to-out, draw swing.

Staying Behind The Ball At Impact

This is one I have to work on DAILY! But someone who did it better than most is Ben Hogan. Look at how he stays behind the ball at impact.

It is so critical to feel like you’re behind the ball at impact. Most of us get ahead of it and end up throwing the club at the ball, instead of driving through it and getting a full extension like the pro’s get. Staying behind it is the ONLY way to achieve that full extension and maximum power through impact.

Now…on to the BIGGIES!!

Increase Golf Swing Speed

Given you’ve been able to accomplish everything in this article, the next VERY important aspect of increasing driving distance is absolutely increasing golf swing speed.

One of the easiest ways to increase your swing speed is to swing a weighted golf club. Swing this weighted club at a higher, yet controlled rate of speed, and your golf club will feel like a feather next time you go out and play.

Get A Bigger Backswing

To hit longer drives, you need a maximum turn to the top of your backswing. Most senior golfers have lost their physical ability to make this full shoulder turn. The ONLY way to get it back, is to work on your flexibility and strength in your core area.

I’ve put together in instantly downloadable report with 5 simple golf swing training drills you can do that will quickly get you a bigger backswing and longer drives.

Click here to learn more!

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.

Golfers want more distance. You have to increase your golf swing speed to get it! Line up a 100 of them and 95% of them will raise their hand when asked if they want to improve distance. Why is distance such a yearning for golfers? I thought the ball has to go in the hole to shoot lower scores?

There’s no denying that more distance (in the fairway) is a HUGE advantage. Being able to hit shorter clubs into the greens will increase your accuracy and give you more chances at birdie. Being the LONGEST hitter in your foursome will play mind games with your playing partners.

There are many advantages of hitting it longer, so how do you get those extra yards?

You have to increase your golf swing (and clubhead) speed to improve your distance. The faster (but in control) your swing is, the more compression you impart on the golf ball, making it go further. But…let me add that it’s not swinging harder that increases clubhead speed. It’s several things combined that will increase your swing speed.

Making a full turn (90+ degree shoulder turn with only 45 degrees of hip turn). Starting the downswing with your lower body first, allowing you to retain all that stored energy in your core for a powerful blow on the ball. Being able to aggressively rotate through the ball with a square clubface. Having your highest amount of swing speed through and after the ball and not before like most golfers.

All the above requires one CRITICAL component to be able to pull it off. Do you want to know what that is? You may not want to hear it! You have to be in better shape physically to do any of the above. If you do not have the required core strength and flexibility you will not be able to perform the above moves in your golf swing.

It’s a FACT!

A lower level of both strength and flexibility will continue to hold you back from achieving optimal driving distance.

That is the sole reason I put together my Effortless Golf Swing Training System. To help you quickly achieve higher swing speeds with no additional effort. That’s the KEY to longer drives. Not swinging harder, but letting your newfound strength and flexibility do their job effortlessly.

If you’re not willing to put a little time in on your body (BIG mistake), you can quickly pick up some swing speed with a weighted golf club.

One of the best ways to improve distance is to create lag in a golf swing. Lag is the retaining of your right wrist late into the downswing. The golfer who did this the best was Ben Hogan. Take a look at the wrist angle of hogan in this picture! It’s unbelievable! He is so deep in his downswing and STILL is holding that wrist angle.

95% of all amateur golfers do not every get in this position in their golf swing. In fact, they do the opposite, which is release the wrist angle too early in the downswing, robbing you of power, and also creating mishits like chunked shots, slices, and even thin shots because your body raises up to compensate for the early wrist release.

The best example of the modern day golfer is Sergio Garcia. Sergio holds his wrist angle, and creates a ton of lag in his golf swing, which enables him to compress the golf ball and hit it a LONG ways.

If you were to see the sequence shot of hogan in this picture, you’d see his hands come all the way to impact position, and he’d still have a massive lag with the club. The ONLY way he is able to get the clubhead back to the ball to make contact, is he makes a very aggressive move with his body from a rotational standpoint. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t even hit the ball.

Increasing your swing speed is not the cure-all-end-all to your distance woes and inconsistencies. In fact I do not even want you to obsess about it. Here’s what I want you to do.

Get yourself a weighted golf club! I am swinging one in this picture. Swing it 20 times a day in front of the mirror checking to make sure your technique is solid and not getting sloppy.

Do some golf stretches and exercises to enhance the swing training you’ll be doing above, and you’ll be golden. It’s that easy!

For more information on golf swing speed, check out our golf swing articles section of our main site.

Have you ever had your golf swing speed checked indoors? Were you shocked at how high it was? I went into one of those “big box” golf stores and was checking out the latest, greatest drivers. The young kid working that section of the store asked me a few questions and proceeded to round up about a dozen different drivers based on my answers.

I was hitting into one of those virtual screens where it shows ball flight and supposed distance.

I normally drive it 300 plus yards, but I was hell-bent on swinging as hard as I could and still trying to get a straight ball flight.

To make a long story much shorter…they said I had a golf swing speed of 138 mph…almost as high as Tigers…and the distance was reading between 314 and as high as 362 yards.

When I was done (I bought one of those drivers by the way), I left the store and comtemplated my “indoor stats”.

I came to the realization that I was able to relax and swing very hard because there was no fairway to miss, and no score to balloon from a mishit drive.

The morale of the story is…golf swing speed being tested indoors is not actual golf swing speed as comparable to play. So don’t walk out of one of those golf stores thinking you’ve got a golf swing speed higher than Tigers.

Every golfer is looking for the “secret” to improving golf swing speed and ultimately distance! I hear this one the most from all the golfers I work with through my online golf training program and customers of my golf fitness products.

There is no “secret!” It’s not your clubs. It’s not pounding more balls. It’s your core golf strength!

Your core dictates everything!

If your core is strong AND flexible from a rotational standpoint…you’ll be killing it off the tee! If you are not satisfied with your driving distance then focus on core golf strength with rotation incorporated.

A simple example is the seated twist with tubing.

Attach the tubing to a door and move away from the door to create tension in the tubing. Turn sideways to the door and hold tubing chest high with arms extended. Now rotate away from the door creating even more tension. Repeat it 15 times then switch and go the other way.

This is just one golf exercise of dozens that are in my golf training manual that will quickly and dramatically improve your golf swing speed and distance with ALL your clubs!

I am very fortunate to have golfers who actually take my golf exercise program(s) and get awesome results. See below.

“A great WIN for me is that I can comfortably play 36-holes in a day, which was a struggle for me 6-9 months ago! I’ve gained greater golf distance off the tee (Driving 240-260 meters consistently now), because a much higher golf swing speed; and have had NO INJURIES this year. Another great thrill for me is my 3-Wood. When using it, I have out-driven other players using there drivers (Distance 220-meters). Your golf exercise program has helped me improve my golf game, my level of fitness, and appreciation of this great game - SO A BIG THANKS!” — Warren Michael