Why You Need This:

Many golfers ask themselves… “Am I physically capable of a Power Turn?”

It’s a great question because I often refer to the Power Turn in the Top Speed Golf System…

So it’s a pretty good idea to take a closer look at the Power Turn to make sure you can perform this move correctly.

In this video, you’ll find out if you can make a full Power Turn…

And you’ll get some great drills to help you make a full turn.

First, you’ll get a quick test you can perform at home to see how much you can rotate your upper body.

The key is to get at least a 45 degree separation between your hips and your upper body.

Now, 45 degrees is certainly not a full turn in the swing, so what gives?

Well, keep in mind that you can also rotate your hips.

In your normal golf stance, see if you can rotate your hips open 45 degrees.

If you can rotate your hips 45 degrees AND you can rotate your shoulders another 45 degrees…

Then you’re getting a full 90 degree turn.

I see some golf instructors teach players to restrict hip rotation in the backswing.

But that really doesn’t make much sense.

Pros such as Tiger, Adam Scott, and Lefty all let their hips rotate in the backswing.

So, relax and let your hips rotate in the backswing.

That will help you make a full Power Turn.

Later in the video, you’ll get tips to help you turn farther if you’re still struggling to make a full 90 degree turn.

Watch now to discover how you can make a full Power Turn!

What's Covered: Tests motion of your shoulder turn.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 7:12

Video Transcription:

Hi guys, so in most of my videos I’m talking about drills that you can take out to the golf course, drills that you can do to improve your golf swing.

Some of you may be struggling to do those correctly, and in this video it’s going to be a lot different. It’s going to be a longer video. We’re going to talk about ideas, and we’re going to talk about just how the body moves in general.

I’m going to break it down by the joints. Doesn’t mean you have to be thinking about this stuff when you go out and play.

It doesn’t mean you have to be working on all these drills, but just learning how the body moves, it’s going to help to speed up that progress for those of you who are struggling with one specific thing.

Let’s go through this, try these motions out. Don’t get obsessed with them, it’s just kind of helping you to learn how the body moves, and I think it’s going to speed up your progress. Let’s go ahead and get started.

Hey guys, hope you’re all doing well today. We’re going to talk about am I physically capable of doing the Power Turn. Am I able to rotate my body enough?

Sometimes it’s a physical problem, sometimes this is a coordination problem or being able to just learn how to move the body the right way. We’re going to test that out.

What I want you to do is I’m not against a wall right now. We’re going to pretend like I’m sitting against a wall. I’m going to set against a wall, put my rear end right up against the wall.

Let’s imagine my golf bag is a wall and I’m in my living room. Go ahead and try this out. I’m going to put my rear end against this wall, and I want my right and my left butt cheek to be put up against the wall there.

Now I’m going to put a club across my shoulders, and I’m going to keep both butt cheeks against the wall here, and I’m going to go ahead and rotate my shoulders as far as I can.

I’m just going to rotate like I would in the golf swing. I want to see at least 45° of rotation. If I can do that, if I can rotate 45° then I’m going to be OK. I’m going to be able to make a good, full Power Turn.

Now I don’t want you to cheat, and if you watch my left butt cheek here, as I start to rotate back if I do that and let my hips move, then I’m cheating.

My belt has to stay perfectly still, my hips against the wall, and I’m going to rotate all I can. That’s going to allow me to see if I can get the full range of motion. I only need about 45° there.

Now in the backswing, my shoulders are rotating against my hips. My hips should be able to get a little separation. Another way to test the same thing is, let’s keep my shoulders square and let’s see if I can rotate my hips open 45°.

That’s really the same test going two different ways. So if I put a club across my shoulders, if you don’t have a wall, this is a little easier to do. I’m going to be able to see is this club moving, no.

There’s my hips, I’m going to look down and see OK, my hips have rotated about 45°. That’s really the same thing, just two different ways of testing it.

I like the one where your hips are against the wall, you can’t cheat it as much. I could start doing a lot of things with my legs to try to cheat this drill.

If I pass that, then I’m well on my way. All I need to do now is make sure that I’m performing this correctly.

So if I could get that 45° of turn, what’s going to happen in the backswing is my hips are going to turn 45°, my shoulders are going to turn that extra 45°, and then here’s the last piece of it.

I have protraction and retraction in my shoulders. So if you look at my chest it stays straight forward. I can protract and retract my right shoulder. Go ahead and take your right arm and roll your shoulder toward your rib cage.

Here’s your sternum, I’m going to roll my shoulder to where I feel like I’m going to touch my sternum. Then I’m going to go ahead and pull that back just like I’m pulling a lawn mower chain I’m going to retract that shoulder. So back, and that’s forward.

What’s happening there is your scapula, when I go forward, my scapula is rolling up on my shoulder. When I go backwards this way, lawn mower pull, my scapula is rotating kind of down and back in toward my spine.

That’s the last piece that helps you to get that extra past 90°. So as I go into my golf swing, my left shoulder is going to protract my right shoulder’s going to retract.

When I put those things together, my hips rotate 45°, my shoulders get 45° of separation, that’s to 90°, and then I get protraction, retraction, which gets me a little bit extra past 90°.

If I’m limited, it’s so easy to fix this. I can do a couple things here. I can number one, I can turn out my right foot just very slightly, 10° to 15°. Now when I rotate to the top my hip’s going to be more mobile, it’s going to be easier to get to that 45°, then I can rotate on to the top.

As I come down it doesn’t matter if my right foot’s open, because in the downswing, as I make my downswing, even if my right foot’s like this, as I make my downswing my heel can come off the ground and my hip can still rotate forward.

So rotating this foot from 90° to 100° isn’t going to make that much difference, because as your heel comes off the ground, then you’re going to be fine, it’s going to allow you to rotate through.

As I come all the way on through, my right foot isn’t touching the ground. So it doesn’t really matter what position it was in the backswing, I’m going to be able to rotate on through.

The second piece there is go ahead and left heel a little bit. Best players in the world, Jack Nicklaus, Bubba Watson, if you look at strokes game, ball striking, so this is basically saying there’s a mathematical formula now saying who’s the best ball striker on the PGA Tour.

You look at Bubba Watson, crazy looking swing, lifts up his left heel way up in the air like that. He is always in the top five strokes game ball striking, which means he’s always one of the best ball strikers on tour.

Things that may look a little bit not perfect, may actually lead to better results. Jack Nicklaus, you can’t argue with 18 Major championships.

If I’m a little bit limited, if I didn’t do very good in my test here, turn the right foot out a little bit. As you go to the top of the backswing, let that left heel lift just a little bit.

It doesn’t have to be more than an inch, two inches, is fine. Now I’m really going to free up my shoulder rotation.

When I do that, here’s left heel on the ground. For me, here’s left heel a little bit off the ground, I get a little bit more rotation.

As long as my stable, fluid spin is good, and I’m rotating around that table spine, my head isn’t moving around all over the place, then I can lift that left heel and I’m going to be very consistent. My stable, fluid spine starts moving around, that’s when I’m going to have problems.

Test yourself, if you’ve got good range of motion, don’t worry about it, you’re good to go. If you don’t have very good range of motion, right foot flared out a little bit. Left foot, you can go ahead and lift it off the ground.

As I come on through, the big key is here, I’ve got to extend my hips and I’ve got to let this right foot come all the way off the ground. This thing has to be just barely toe touching the ground, rotated all the way through there.

Look at my right foot as I’m coming through, that’s what it should look like all the way through. A lot of times I’ll see people keeping a little weight on the right foot and they’ll be here, and then they can’t get their Power Turn coming through.

I’ve got to go ahead and get it all the way on through there. So test yourself out, get that big Power Turn. Do yourself a favor if you’re struggling, make those little minor adaptations, lift that left heel.

You’re going to pick up some distance right away, you’re going to thank me for it later. So good luck, see you guys soon.