The golf swing can be a mystery for many of us throughout our golfing lives. To find power in your golf swing you need to understand some basic biomechanical facts. I play with lots of great people who struggle to find the desired distance in their golf shots. Many of these are long time golfers who love the game. Sadly, as these individuals get older they blame their lack of length on age.

Where Does Power Come From In the Golf Swing?

The lower half of your body – hips, legs, and feet are primarily involved in generating power in your golf swing. If you experiment with throwing a tennis ball and pay attention to how you create the force in your throw – you will understand the role of your hips in this. It is the same for the golf swing. Your hands and arms may appear to be the main players in the golf swing but they are not acting alone. The hips begin the downswing and stored energy in your trail leg moves downward before turning through the ball.

Understanding the Golf Swing

Your shoulders and arms follow on the momentum of your lower body turn. The more tension and torque you can feel on the inside of your trail leg releasing toward the ball the more effortless power you can generate through your golf shot. Your arms stay in front of your body and bring the club down on a shallow plane into the ball. This is where the infamous lag they talk about comes in to create power through the ball. You hit against a firm lead side at impact to generate more force.

This is the shallow and not steep angle of attack to facilitate the kind of solid contact that the pros make at impact. The arms then naturally turn through the ball at speed as our body turns and follows through. There is resistance at impact and then the release which carries us around and through in a balanced finish with our weight on our lead leg side. A lot of teaching professionals reference the baseball bat swing, but aimed at the ground, to give an idea of the release through the ball to find power in your golf swing.

To begin the backswing the hands and arms take the club back with width before folding up and around as the upper torso turns back. There is resistance between the upper body and the hips in the turn in the backswing. This is where you load the torque and power in the inside of your trail leg thigh during the backswing. This resistance prevents you swaying back off the ball and losing all your stored power. Your trail leg is your pillar of strength around which the upper body turns.

There is no need to rush from here once you have achieved the finish of your back swing. Indeed, a graceful beginning via your hips is recommended. Remember the lower half always begins the downswing on full shots desirous of power. It is an unleashing of all that coiled torque in the upper trail leg, which drives down to derive even more power from the ground. Everything else follows on that shallow 4.30 plane back around to the ball.

Your shoulders and arms follow on the momentum of your lower body turn. The more tension and torque you can feel on the inside of your trail leg releasing toward the ball the more effortless power you can generate through your golf shot. Your arms stay in front of your body and bring the club down on a shallow plane into the ball. This is where the infamous ‘lag’ they talk about comes in to create power through the ball. You hit against a firm lead side at impact to generate more force.

Learn to feel comfortable in your unhurried transition from finishing the backswing to unleashing your downswing.

Experiment with finding that shallow 4.30 plane angle and the lag coming into impact. Remember your arms stay out in front of your body and don’t get behind. Otherwise you can get trapped and lose all that natural power coming through the ball.

Can you see the marks from your feet depressing the ground after your strike? You want to witness these disturbing impressions to validate that you are generating real force via your lower body into the ground. When I am playing my best golf I feel that I am playing out of my feet. My weight transfer is so effective that I don’t need to worry about what my arms and shoulders are doing. It is like the swing is taking care of itself.

Playing good golf is a real high in my experience. Golfers talk about the zone and the effortless nature of swinging through the club. Our bodies know what to do once we have established the ground rules. The more we can trust our bodies to swing the club without too much intellectual assistance the better the golf in my experience. Find power in your golf swing by remembering these key points.

• Your lower half always begins the downswing.
• Load up your trail leg with all that power in the backswing.
• It is your fixed point in the backswing around which your upper body turns.
• No swaying off that fixed point.
• Slowly unleash the downswing down the inside of your trail leg toward the ground.
• Keep your arms out in front of your body on a shallow plane.
• Turn through to meet the ball.
• Hit against a firm lead side at impact.
• Finish with the weight on your lead side in a balanced manner.

Learn to love practicing the various aspects of your golf game if you truly want to play better golf.

The interesting thing is that once you realise that it is your lower body playing the driving force in the golf swing it takes a lot of perceived pressure off your arms, shoulders, and hands. You will find yourself naturally not gripping the club so hard, which promotes a more fluid swing as well. Releasing the strain from your hands, arms, and shoulders allows the club to do its work far more efficiently. That golf club has been designed by engineers to propel the golf ball vast distances when swung correctly. Focus more on your weight transfer, timing, and hip turn to dramatically improve your golf shots.

Robert Sudha Hamilton is the author of How To Play Golf: Like A Winner & The Golf Book: Green Cathedral Dreams

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