Perform Better Golf Blog

You’ve heard it before. You MUST have a full shoulder turn for maximum clubhead speed, power and distance. I want to briefly explain that a full shoulder turn does not mean your golf club has to get high at the top of your backswing. So many golfers are worried about getting the club shaft parallel to the ground at the top.

This is not so! It’s becoming more common to see the touring pro’s not reach parallel at the top, even with their golf driver. As long as you get a 90 degree shoulder turn with about half that in hip turn, you will have maximum clubhead speed, and better yet, more control over your golf swing.

I want to show you a drill you can do in your home, garage, office and of course on the practice tee.

See the club I have on the ground to the left of my right foot? See the club across my shoulders?. Match those up and you know you’ve made a full shoulder turn on your backswing.

Give it a try!

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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.

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!

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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.

Man…just when I thought I saw it all with the “bomb-blasting” golf drives of Bubba Watson…I see another guy who absolutely kills it!

J.B. Holmes.

This guy can flat out launch it!

I was blown away by how far he hit his drives on television at the FBR Open today! You want to talk about Power Golf?

He is young and VERY strong. He puts his whole entire body into his long drive golf swing.

The advantage he has being a long driver is every Par 5 is now turned into a Par 4. He is looking at birdie at the worst on most Par 5’s. That’s a game I’m not familiar with.

The Tour is going to be fun to watch with these young, long-drive bombers coming aboard.

“Mike, Well I’ve started my golf exercise program and believe it or not I’ve seen immediate results. I was stuck in the 81-84 scoring range for weeks. I did my first two golf workouts with many many stretching exercise in between at various times during my day. My first two rounds after starting my program were 79 and 75 and both could have been lower!

I truly believe the combination of the golf stretching and golf workouts made the difference. I am now getting FIT FOR THE FIRST TEE and THE FAIRWAY. My drives were 10-12 yards longer and my irons were approx. 5-7 yards further then I normally hit them (my golf swing speed is already better). I even knocked a ball over a par 5 in two. I have never done that before on a par five. My buddies say they aren’t playing me until my handicap goes down at the end of the month.” — Randy Wolf