Why You Need This:

In this video, you’ll discover how to get more distance over age 50.

This is the first video in my Play Your Best Golf After 50! course and if you think you’re too old to crush your drives and hit solid shots…

Think again!

I’ve gotten tons of requests for specific instruction for players over 50.

As you get older, it gets a little tougher to make a full Power Turn in your backswing.

But don’t give up because I have a great lesson for you.

In this video, you’ll…

• test your mobility to see how far you can turn,
• get a few drills to improve your mobility, and
• get a couple of key exercises to help you with your power turn, back and through, so you can hit with more power and get more distance.

Watch this video now to show father time who’s boss…

And get a powerful swing that’ll make the young fellas jealous!

What's Covered: Techniques on how to get more rotation as you get up in age, followed by a few stretches.

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 7:17

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, and welcome back. It’s great to have you here today. Over the last few months I’ve gotten a lot of requests for specific instruction for players that are over 50. Get a little bit up in the age, it gets a little tougher to make that good, full power turn going back, get that 90° shoulder turn.

It’s tougher and tougher as we get older, and we want to make that good, full turn so we can have power, we’ve got to do it in the right way. So I’ve got a great lesson for you today, we’re going to test your mobility. We’re going to see how far you can turn.

I’m going to give you a couple drills to work on that, and I’m going to give you a couple of key exercises that are going to directly help you with your power turn both back and through so you can get more distance. Let’s go ahead and get started.

All right, so the first thing we’re going to do here is we’re going to test your mobility. There’s a lot of players out there that aren’t quite getting that 90° shoulder turn like we recommend in the Power Turn section of the Top Speed Golf System.

But it’s very difficult to know is it my range of motion? Can I physically get the turn that I need to get? Or is it just a habit that I’m having with my swing? We’re going to test that today so we’ll be able to tell.

What I want you to do is go ahead and stand straight up and down. I’m going to put my chest out nice and high, and I’m going to put my arms to my side. Now as I rotate, I’m going to rotate my arms all the way back and we’ll see how far I can go.

Now I’m not going to be bending my arm across my body, I’m basically keeping them in line with my shoulders as I’m doing this. I’m going to see how far I can go.

I want to get my hips to rotate as I’m doing this, and I’m going to maybe just barely lift my left ankle, just starting to barely come off the ground as I’m going into the backswing.

So me personally, if I get about 45° hip turn, I can put a club across my hips as I do this. If I get about 45°, maybe a little extra, I can get a little over 90° shoulder turn. So my arms are kind of here.

If I was to put a club across my shoulders and do the same thing, again we’re standing straight up and down, that left heel barely comes up, I can get that pointing a little bit past parallel with the ball. It’s almost in line with my right foot as I’m doing that.

Now as I come on through, let’s go ahead and rotate. Let your right foot come all the way up off the ground, and I’m going to rotate as far as I can this way.

So if I was to put this club across my shoulders with the grip sticking out this way, as I come on through I can almost get down the right side of the fairway, it’s just a little bit in the right rough if I’m turning through that way.

So let’s say this is maybe 110-115° going back this way. If I come on through, the ball is zero, this would be 90°, I’m probably at about 170° or so as I’m coming on that way.

That’s a pretty good range of motion, I’m fairly flexible between the hips and the shoulders. Test out your own range of motion right now. See how far you can get that club to point just doing this, so we’re eliminating golf swing tendencies from this, and then turning on through that way.

Make sure that right foot comes all the way up as you’re turning on through. That’s going to give you a good baseline.

If you can get to at least 90° here, then we can get to 90° in the swing. If we can get past 90°, then we’re going to be able to get past 90° in the swing.

Again, I get about usually about 110° shoulder turn, something like that. That’s about, I’m pretty close to being maxed up there. I could force it and really try to push it over there a little bit extra, or I could really try to push it, but then it gets a little bit too much strain.

I’m just going as far as I can go, pretty comfortably. It feels tight, but it doesn’t physically hurt or anything like that.

Now on the golf swing, we’re doing the exact same thing. We’re going to set up here, and instead of being straight up and down, we’re going to tilt forward so that now as my arms swing, they’re going to be pointing just outside that golf ball.

Then as I swing through, this would be kind of when my hands are chest-height coming through, I’m going to be still in that posture.

As I come all the way around, now my arms are going to fold up. We’ll actually work with that drill a lot in this series of videos for golfers over 50. But if we’re looking at it from this way – I’ve got a few more videos that work just with that posture and the good Power Turn.

If we’re looking at this this way, again, as my arms comes back my hands are going to be slightly outside that ball. I’m getting that good, full turn.

As I come through, that would be in my release, so that would be when my club is about chest high, my hands are about chest high, my club is releasing, now my hands are going to be here as I’m coming through. After that point, then I can go ahead and stand all the way on up and rotate through the shot.

So we’ve got a good test to see how much can we physically do, and how much of this is just habits in our swing. If we tested our self and we can get all the way back to here, and then we take our swing and we’re only here, shorter turn, we’ll know that it’s just a habit, it’s not a physical limitation.

Once we fix our physical limitations, now we need something to work on as we’re doing this. I’ve got a couple of good stretches for you, and then we’re going to work on building some core muscles so that we can really stabilize our back.

We don’t want to get those back injuries, we want to make sure that we’re injury free, we want to make sure we get a good turn.

So go ahead and lay a towel down on the ground and we’re going to lay flat on our back, and we’re going to stretch our right leg across our body. Now the really important thing is, keep your right shoulder touching the ground as you’re going to your left.

So as you lift your right leg up, fold it across your left side, your right shoulder’s going to stay on the ground, and you’re going to get that stretch as good as you can get it. Again, you don’t what to force to where there’s any injury, but you should feel a little bit tight.

You should also feel it in your right glute as you’re stretching the right leg across. That’s really going to free up the separation between your hips and shoulders like we were just working on there.

Same thing with your left side. Fold your left leg over, keep your left shoulder against the ground. We’re going to hold that for five seconds. We’re going to take it back and relax a little bit. We’re going to breathe out, and then we’re going to go all the way and see if we can get a little past where we were before for another five seconds. Again, then take a breath, relax, another five seconds going over. See if you can get a little farther each time. That’s really going to help.

Now once we’ve done that, now we’re going to go ahead and do a couple leg exercises where you just lift your legs up, you’re laying flat on the ground. Put your hands under your rear end, lift your feet up in the air a little bit, and then hold that for 10 seconds.

Rest for five seconds, hold it for another 10 seconds. We’re going to do five reps of each of these exercises. Same thing with the leg across, we’re going to do that with the seat up.

Those are both going to help you to strengthen your core and get more mobility in your core. So not only can you stretch, but you also have some power to fire from that.

Finally, let’s tie all this together. We’ve got our good, full turn. We’re letting our hips rotate, we’re letting our shoulders rotate as we go back. Let’s go ahead and hit a shot, and the big thing to remember here, is we want to be synching all this up to when we get into the straight line release.

In the Top Speed Golf System, we talk about how that club wants to release about 45° in front, or roughly four feet in front of this golf ball. That’s our hips, our shoulders, our arms, we’ve got all this separation earlier in the swing where my hips are leading, my shoulders are back.

Now we need to time that up, my upper body needs to catch up to my lower body. That’s going to get us the speed, and then we can come all the way on to that good, full finish like we’ve just been working on.

Put these keys together, work on these exercises. Again, we’re going to do five reps of each of the exercises. Those are really going to help over time.

I recommend doing those every day, it only takes a few minutes, for those of you that are working to get a bigger turn going back and through. It’s really going to help you with your speed and power.

There we go guys, good luck on your golf game, work hard, and I’ll see you all soon.