Why You Need This:

In this video, you’ll discover how to add golf swing speed no matter your age.

This is the forth video in my groundbreaking Play Your Best Golf After 50! course…

And the goal of this video is for you to make a full turn and to keep your arms extended for maximum power.

Now, as we get older, our bodies get a little tighter, and that makes it tougher to make a full rotation in the swing.

To counter the restricted rotation, I often see golfers pick up the club quickly with their hands and arms.

The problem is that if you’re not getting a good rotation, you’re giving up tons of power and distance.

In this video, you’ll learn the keys to getting a full rotation in your swing.

You’ll find out how to maximize your swing speed with your rotation…

And you’ll learn why swinging with “short arms” is sabotaging your distance.

First, you’ll see me demonstrate what I mean by using your hands and arms to swing the club.

It’s easy to swing like this especially after a long day in front of the computer.

To loosen up your swing and get a fuller rotation, you need to get more rotation with your hips and shoulders.

In the backswing, let your hips rotate back about 60 degrees or so.

You need to get those hips to open up first before anything else!

Then from there, concentrate on rotating your shoulders back.

You’ll be surprised with how much you can turn if you open up your hips in the backswing while rotating your shoulders back.

In the downswing, come down and rotate all the way through impact.

The reason a full rotation gets you more power is due to the stretch shortening cycle — a fancy term for describing how your muscles fire faster.

As you rotate through impact, unleash the pent up power into what I call the Straight-Line Release.

In the next part of the video, you’ll learn how to keep your arms extended throughout the swing.

This is crucial to add golf swing speed since “short arms” limits your swing speed.

Watch this video now to make a full turn…

And release with tons of power!

What's Covered: How to avoid picking up the club with the arms and shoulders, getting a short backswing and weak rotation.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 6:16

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, lost a lot of distance on that one. That’s one of the biggest mistakes I see players make.

Almost all the players I see that are getting a little bit older, we get a little tighter with our body, we don’t get quite as much rotation, and then we start to pick the club up with our hands and arms instead of rotating the shoulders, getting that good Power Turn like we go over in the Top Speed Golf System.

I’m going to go over some good keys on how to get that full turn and how to get the maximum speed not only by getting the Power Turn but also keeping those arms nice and wide, which is a big mistake that I see.

So on that very first shot there, let’s see how far that one went. My club head speed is about 76, total distance was only 123, that was with the 6 iron, was that 123, or 122.8.

I’m not getting a lot of speed there, even though I felt like I put out a pretty good amount of effort. I felt like I put out about as much effort as I would in a normal, full swing, but it was how I loaded my body that made the mistake.

On that swing, what I did is I picked up the club with my hands and arms and I didn’t rotate my shoulders. You can see how my arms were starting to bend a lot, my hands are pretty low here. Just so they’re not above my head very much, I probably only picked the club up to maybe there.

Then my shoulders didn’t get a good, full turn either, I didn’t get all the way to 90°, and really get stretched out.

When I don’t get stretched out, I lose a lot of power. Typically, as we do get older, especially if you’re working a desk job, I notice I work on the computer a lot, I notice my hips get really, really tight. It becomes very easy for me just to pick up this club.

I could do this type of a swing and just pick the club up and no problem, no stress. I can get 1,000 golf balls and feel like I’m as fresh as could be, but I’m not going to be able to get very much power like that.

As we get a little bit older, what we want to do is get those hips to rotate a little bit. I want to get these at least 45°.

If you’re struggling, if you don’t have a lot of flexibility, go ahead and let those hips turn a good 60° as you’re going back. We’ve got to get these to rotate first, and then from there, we’re going to get those shoulders to go all the way past the ball.

Again, if you’re putting a club across your shoulders, get those hips to rotate. Really feel like you’re pushing down and out with this right foot, that’s going to push this hip back and you’re going to get the shoulders to rotate to where now my club is facing outside the ball as I go to the top.

That’s a good, good, full turn there. Then as I’m coming through, that’s going to happen. The reason this gets us more power, is because this separates between our hips and our shoulders, which is called a stretch-shortening cycle.

As I go all the way to the top, that’s a big fancy way of saying kind of how the muscles will fire a little faster. But as I go all the way to the top, now I’ve gotten a good stretch all down my left side, I can feel really stretched out here.

My lats, my obliques, and my midsection, those are all really stretched. I’m fully maxing those out as I start down into my lag position halfway down. Now from there, now that this is all stretched out and I’m feeling good, I’m going to let that catch up to my straight line release.

So now when I release, again like we go over in the Straight Line Release section on the Top Speed Golf System, my hips are 45° open, my shoulders are 45° open, my arms are all pointing that same way.

I’ve gotten that good stretch, and then I’ve fired that stretch until it all went to one point, and the golf ball is just getting in the way of that happening.

That’s the first key, go ahead and make sure that you let your hips open up a little bit more if you do feel tight, and you feel like you have a tough time going back in the swing. Let those hips rotate a little extra.

If you put a club across them, let them go at least to there, that way you’re going to make sure that you can really load up those shoulders going back.

Now the second piece of this, when we pick up the club with our arms and we don’t move our shoulders, when we do this type of thing and get the club back, notice how low my hands are and notice how my arms have really folded up.

So I haven’t gotten any shoulder turn, I picked up the club with my shoulders. Imagine I have a hula-hoop here, and my hands are going to stay outside that hula-hoop.

There’s a big hula-hoop, as I set up to this golf ball, I want my hands to stay outside of that hula-hoop, and I’m going to go ahead and let my arms lift to get above my head. So no matter what your age is, we can do this very easily. I’ll show you the easy way to do this.

If I’m picking up my hands and arms, very low at the top of the swing, see they’re about head high. As I make them go up that hula-hoop, all we want to do to get a little extra turn is make sure that we don’t go real flat.

Now I can’t get my arms over my head. I want to get a little bit of elevation, somewhere between that one and two-plane swing like we talked about in a previous video. I’m going to feel like my arms are going a little bit more up as they’re staying nice and wide, like this.

Very comfortable for me to do that. If I want to go higher, I could just put my arms even more vertical. The flatter I go, the lower my hands will be. The more vertical I go, the higher my hands will be.

I’ve got to find that nice zone where I feel comfortable getting my hands up and getting that big, powerful turn.

Same thing in the downswing, as I start my downswing my hands are going to stay outside that hoop. You may remember a video that I did talking about the bow and arrow drill.

So as I had my club on my hands, the first move down was to feel like you stayed outside. That’s going to give you more lag as you’re starting your downswing.

That’s the same thing we’re going to feel here. We’re going to stay on the outside of that hoop as we come on through, and then hit the ball.

Let those hips turn, get a good, full shoulder turn. Get a good 50 to 100 reps in, making that good, full turn back, that good, full turn coming through, and I’m going to keep those hands outside that hoop. Let them get nice and high, a little bit more vertical.

If you’re struggling getting those hands high, keeping that left arm fairly straight, doesn’t have to be locked but fairly straight. That’s going to help me to get some more distance. So let’s go ahead and try that out, and let’s see how much distance I pick up if I go ahead and follow those keys.

There we go, nice and hard-hit ball. Let’s pick up the FlightScope and let’s see how far that went. So club head speed went from 76 up to 99 club head speed, almost 100 miles an hour with the 6 iron. 185 carry distance, and rolled out to 193.

So good luck to you guys, rip those shots. I know you guys can do it.