Why you need to accelerate at the bottom of your golf swing (Video) - by Pete Styles
Why you need to accelerate at the bottom of your golf swing (Video) - by Pete Styles

So I'm sure you want to hit the golf ball hard, and particularly when you're taking your driver, you're going to stand over the golf ball and you think, "I’m not going to leave anything behind on this. I'm going to hit it as hard as I can and get maximum distance." But it's important to understand whereabouts in your swing you should put maximum power and maximum club head speed into the shot. One thing that I see as a common fault is that people put too much club head speed too early on in their swing. So we'll take the club to the top of the backswing and from there will just jump all over it and they will react in a very violent position from the top. The club head have a tendency then to come forwards too early as the shoulders release, you have to crush the ball. Although the club head might be traveling very quickly, it's not a very efficient way of hitting the shot and the shot can often curve from left to right if the club face was more open down the swing path. So you have to be careful trying to hit the ball hard doesn’t negatively affect your swing path. So what I would like to feel that you do is turn to the top and pull down with your hands and your arms first, moving your hips at the same time and then you turn your shoulders into the ball so you feel the maximum acceleration happens in the bottom half of your swing, and not immediately off the top.

Now a nice way of doing this is to feel where the speed comes into your swing is to hold your golf club upside down and swing the grip end. And when you swing it, it'll make a swishing noise and you can hear where the swoosh happens. Does the swoosh happen at the top? Does the swoosh happen at the bottom? Does the swoosh happen in the follow through? So what I'm actually going to do is just so you can hear this a little bit better and hopefully it picks up on the microphone, is just swing an alignment stick. This tends to make a little bit of a louder swooshing noise so you should be able to hear this. We want to hear that swish in the latter part of the swing. If it's here and there's too much unwinding of the upper body, not enough with the hips, so much slowing down as it comes through here. You can hear it's not the fastest point. So try and make the club or the stick come down quietly and then accelerate through the bottom half. So as a drill I can really accentuate this for you slowly, slowly, fast. Slowly, slowly, fast. And at full speed, the maximum noise happens right down here. If you don’t have an alignment stick, you can use the back end of your golf club, swing to the top and then accelerate right through the vital point. Don't turn your upper body too quickly. Don't throw your hands on it. Get the feeling you don't jump on the shot. Yes, you need to accelerate, but only accelerate at the right point.

 2013-01-16

So I'm sure you want to hit the golf ball hard, and particularly when you're taking your driver, you're going to stand over the golf ball and you think, “I’m not going to leave anything behind on this. I'm going to hit it as hard as I can and get maximum distance.” But it's important to understand whereabouts in your swing you should put maximum power and maximum club head speed into the shot. One thing that I see as a common fault is that people put too much club head speed too early on in their swing. So we'll take the club to the top of the backswing and from there will just jump all over it and they will react in a very violent position from the top. The club head have a tendency then to come forwards too early as the shoulders release, you have to crush the ball. Although the club head might be traveling very quickly, it's not a very efficient way of hitting the shot and the shot can often curve from left to right if the club face was more open down the swing path. So you have to be careful trying to hit the ball hard doesn’t negatively affect your swing path. So what I would like to feel that you do is turn to the top and pull down with your hands and your arms first, moving your hips at the same time and then you turn your shoulders into the ball so you feel the maximum acceleration happens in the bottom half of your swing, and not immediately off the top.

Now a nice way of doing this is to feel where the speed comes into your swing is to hold your golf club upside down and swing the grip end. And when you swing it, it'll make a swishing noise and you can hear where the swoosh happens. Does the swoosh happen at the top? Does the swoosh happen at the bottom? Does the swoosh happen in the follow through? So what I'm actually going to do is just so you can hear this a little bit better and hopefully it picks up on the microphone, is just swing an alignment stick. This tends to make a little bit of a louder swooshing noise so you should be able to hear this. We want to hear that swish in the latter part of the swing. If it's here and there's too much unwinding of the upper body, not enough with the hips, so much slowing down as it comes through here. You can hear it's not the fastest point. So try and make the club or the stick come down quietly and then accelerate through the bottom half. So as a drill I can really accentuate this for you slowly, slowly, fast. Slowly, slowly, fast. And at full speed, the maximum noise happens right down here. If you don’t have an alignment stick, you can use the back end of your golf club, swing to the top and then accelerate right through the vital point. Don't turn your upper body too quickly. Don't throw your hands on it. Get the feeling you don't jump on the shot. Yes, you need to accelerate, but only accelerate at the right point.