How To Keep Arms Relaxed In The Down Swing - Golf Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles
How To Keep Arms Relaxed In The Down Swing - Golf Tip (Video) - by Pete Styles

How many times do you feel like you’ve made a good swing on the way back, good set up, good swing on the way back and then you’ve ruined it on the way down. And often the thing I hear people tell me is I tend to stop Pete, I got to the top, I was so keen to hit that thing I tend to stop and I ruined my downswing. I came over the top, I topped the ball and I’ve hit it 20 yards and I should have hit it 220 yards. And it’s the tension of the downswing we are going to have a look at now. So as I address the golf ball, everything should be nicely relaxed. As I swing back I can feel my back tensing up as I create tension on the back swing this way. But I don’t actually feel my hands and arms are too tight, but then I’ve got to get the club moving, I’ve got to pull this club down and turn into the golf ball quickly.

Club head might be traveling in excess of a 100 miles an hour with a driver. So how can I do that without tensing up? The key is, to use your tension in the right areas. Use the tension in the body, use your tension created in your back and in your legs, but not necessarily in your hands. Let me explain this, if you get to the top and squeeze that golf club as tight as you can and then pull down, this angle here will effectively lock out and you won’t be able to release that golf club as quickly as you should be able to. Great way of explaining that for yourself is to do a little experiment. Take a cane like this or you could just take a longer golf club and turn it upside down so you are holding the head swinging the handle, but if you got a stick or a garden cane, just swing it and you’ll hear a swoosh. The faster you swing, the louder the swoosh. Now tense of every muscle in your body including your hands and try and swing it and see if you can make a swoosh. Everything is really, really tight now that swoosh sounded a bit shorter, a bit slower and the club didn’t necessarily go as long on both sides. If I’m relaxing grip that a little bit lighter there’s a bit more whip there and there’s really good releasing in the hands. And it’s the releasing in the hands that generates the extra club head speed to give you that extra ten or fifteen yards out here. So tension is never going to be a good thing in your downswing. What you could do with that exercise is squeeze it as tight as you can call that ten and swing it a few times, then relax it number by number, nine, eight, seven, six until you get onto one which is pretty much letting go of it. Find where you hit your sweet spot where your hands are working the best then try and maintain that grip for actually most of the time. For most golfers it’s around about four or five. They are holding the golf club enough to keep control of it certainly not throwing it out there on the driving range, but at the same time they are not tense they, are not squeezing it too much. So about a four or five with grip pressure nicely back, nicely through, there’s plenty of speed in there but it’s not too tense. If your hands are relaxed, generally your arms are relaxed your shoulders will be relaxed. So through impact will be a good extension rather than a pulling up which often results in a bad top shots or fat shots on occasions as well. So work on relaxing your arms on the downswing and see if that can help you hit better and straighter golf shots. 2014-03-26

How many times do you feel like you’ve made a good swing on the way back, good set up, good swing on the way back and then you’ve ruined it on the way down. And often the thing I hear people tell me is I tend to stop Pete, I got to the top, I was so keen to hit that thing I tend to stop and I ruined my downswing. I came over the top, I topped the ball and I’ve hit it 20 yards and I should have hit it 220 yards. And it’s the tension of the downswing we are going to have a look at now. So as I address the golf ball, everything should be nicely relaxed. As I swing back I can feel my back tensing up as I create tension on the back swing this way. But I don’t actually feel my hands and arms are too tight, but then I’ve got to get the club moving, I’ve got to pull this club down and turn into the golf ball quickly.

Club head might be traveling in excess of a 100 miles an hour with a driver. So how can I do that without tensing up? The key is, to use your tension in the right areas. Use the tension in the body, use your tension created in your back and in your legs, but not necessarily in your hands. Let me explain this, if you get to the top and squeeze that golf club as tight as you can and then pull down, this angle here will effectively lock out and you won’t be able to release that golf club as quickly as you should be able to. Great way of explaining that for yourself is to do a little experiment. Take a cane like this or you could just take a longer golf club and turn it upside down so you are holding the head swinging the handle, but if you got a stick or a garden cane, just swing it and you’ll hear a swoosh. The faster you swing, the louder the swoosh. Now tense of every muscle in your body including your hands and try and swing it and see if you can make a swoosh. Everything is really, really tight now that swoosh sounded a bit shorter, a bit slower and the club didn’t necessarily go as long on both sides. If I’m relaxing grip that a little bit lighter there’s a bit more whip there and there’s really good releasing in the hands.

And it’s the releasing in the hands that generates the extra club head speed to give you that extra ten or fifteen yards out here. So tension is never going to be a good thing in your downswing. What you could do with that exercise is squeeze it as tight as you can call that ten and swing it a few times, then relax it number by number, nine, eight, seven, six until you get onto one which is pretty much letting go of it. Find where you hit your sweet spot where your hands are working the best then try and maintain that grip for actually most of the time. For most golfers it’s around about four or five. They are holding the golf club enough to keep control of it certainly not throwing it out there on the driving range, but at the same time they are not tense they, are not squeezing it too much.

So about a four or five with grip pressure nicely back, nicely through, there’s plenty of speed in there but it’s not too tense. If your hands are relaxed, generally your arms are relaxed your shoulders will be relaxed. So through impact will be a good extension rather than a pulling up which often results in a bad top shots or fat shots on occasions as well. So work on relaxing your arms on the downswing and see if that can help you hit better and straighter golf shots.