We have already looked a little bit about what the open stance means but how does it actually generate the extra power? If you want to open your stance up, how will that give you that little bit of boost of extra distance? There’s two things that we need to be looking at; first of all, backswing resistance between the upper body and the lower body and also the amount that you can turn your lower body coming through the point of impact.

If you have a look at some of the biggest cities in the game and if you go to the green and you have a look at the long drivers, as they’re coming through the point of impact, their hips are rotated so much there at the point of impact they’re almost facing down towards the target. For many people, this is an unachievable position because you need a lot of strength and you need a lot of flexibility to actually be able to hit that certain point of the swing. That is where the open stance comes in.

If you open up the stance, it’s quite an extreme. If you open up the stance so it’s pointing quite a long way off to the left-hand side like this. If I turn to the top of my swing as I manage to complete a full back swing, you can see here how my lower half has rotated slightly. But if I just moved it back to the point of impact, my hips have already opened to the ball. So I got a big backswing, my hips are already open and [addressed]. And as they moved through the point of impact, I am able to rotate them much, much more.

And it’s that extra little bit of rotation, it’s that little head start that you’re giving yourself by setting up with the open stance. They will allow you to move the body much, much quicker. It’s only going to work if you can still have quite a full backswing because then the resistance between the upper body and the lower body will be built up and it will be ready to be released when you really rotate through.

But that is how the open stance works by giving you extra time and giving you a head start on rotating your hips through the point of impact.