You're Correct!

When golfers start the down swing and then decelerate into impact, inconsistent shots are sure to follow!

This is because the act of slowing the club down through the ball stops the club from accelerating through naturally. The fastest point of the golf swing should be just after impact as the arms and club fully extend. If the club decelerates into the impact then the fast point of the swing will therefore become halfway during the down swing. This deceleration will not only lead to a loss of power but also consistency of strike.

Deceleration is normally caused by golfers trying to control the club too much. When this happens, the grip normally becomes tighter and the player wants to steer the club through impact. To try and eliminate this deceleration, practice this drill.

For the drill, you need to find a long thin stick, a golf alignment stick is perfect and is available at most golf shops and online.

• Take hold of the stick with your normal golf grip and adopt a posture position.
• Hold the stick and begin to swing. As the thin stick travels through the impact area it will begin to rip through the air particles and create a swoosh sound
• After a dozen swings or so, notice where the main swoosh is coming from. If you are decelerating through impact, the swoosh will come from before the stick reaches impact
• Try to get the swoosh happening after the point of impact. This will show you can accelerate through naturally
• Pick up your driver and transfer feeling onto your normal club, trying to re-enact the same swoosh sound
• Your club head speed should instantly be increased and the ball should fly further without much of a decrease in accuracy

Deceleration through impact will kill distance and consistency. Make sure you accelerate correctly.

Hitting the ball straight comes from a combination of club path and face angle at impact. If you were to slow the swing down to a snail pace these two things would be easier to control. However, without any acceleration the ball would go literally nowhere. Acceleration is key to knitting everything together.

With the change in acceleration (slowing down) the chances of being able to slow down and control the shot become very low. Focus on flowing through with a natural acceleration.

This is a big mistake for all golfers. If you want to control the length of a shot then focus on changing the back swing length. For shorter shots, swing back less and for longer shots swing back more. Keep the acceleration up through impact for all shots.