More Distance – The Right Way

Posted by John

May 31, 2009

Who doesn’t want more power, or more precisely more distance! So what’s the secret? Bulk up so you can swing like a wild man? Of course not.

Golf is a game where all the strength in the world isn’t going to do you any good if you don’t control timing. We’ve all seen the guys who swing out of their shoes only to have their shots go everywhere but straight and long.

First and foremost, you’ve got to be flexible. Said another way, you can’t swing beyond your ‘flexibility’ range. Why, because you’ll pull everything out of sync and out of plain and all the strength in the world isn’t going to right the ship.

You’ll find thousands of articles in golf magazines about what to do if you’re hitting the ball every which way – right, left, fat and thin. The one fix that addresses 90 percent of the problems is to swing within your flexibility range.

If you want scientific proof of this, take a look at the book ‘The Golf Biomechanics Manual’ by Paul Chek. It’s written more for physical therapists than golfers, but the logic is irrefutable.When you swing past where you are flexible, your biomechanics go to hell and your body tries to make all sorts of adjustments to compensate. The bottom line – you never swing the same way twice. Nobody can play decent golf under those circumstances.

Why do the pros look so smooth when they swing? The swing within their ‘flexibility range’ which is greater than that of amateurs because they work on it every day. When you swing out of the range, you lose tempo, your swing is herky jerky and nobody would ever call your swing ‘smooth’.

I agree with Paul Chek that in order of importance these are the four keys for great golf; flexibility, stability, strength and, finally, power. If you go immediately for power, you’ll never be consistent. Work your way up the ladder and your game will improve dramatically and quickly.