Why You Need This:

In this video, you’ll discover how to get PGA Tour swing speed by using your body to generate massive power.

This video is part of my Power Turn course…

…that focuses on how your hips and your shoulders need to get a full turn…

…to create pro-like club head speed.

But in this video, you get a unique view of the power turn…

Because you’ll see some of the best players of all time…

And how they use the power turn to generate power.

Also, a Top Speed Golf member created sketches focusing on the hips and shoulders…

So you’ll see a recreation of those sketches for a cool new look at the angles of the power turn.

Mixed in with this power turn discussion, you’ll see overhead views of some of the greats.

The first pro you’ll see is Gary Player…

Followed by Greg Norman…

and then finish up with power hitter J.B. Holmes.

You’ll see how all these great players load their hips…

And shoulders to create massive power and speed.

Then we’ll tie it all together with a simple drill so you can start to ingrain these power moves.

So check out this video now to learn the power moves of the pros…

And to start blasting your shots like the pros!

What's Covered: The mechanics of the hips and shoulders to generate power.

Golf Pros Featured: Gary Player    Greg Norman    J.B. Holmes    

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 14:44

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, welcome back to Top Speed Golf and our power turn section. By this point we realize that the hips and the shoulders need to get a good full turn going back and going through to create some club head speed.

But in this video, we’re going to take a very unique view at this. We’re going to take a look at some of the best players of all time. I had a member recently that sent me some sketches asking some questions about the hips and the shoulders.

I thought that would be a great thing to recreate for you guys, and to look at it from just a completely unique perspective and talk about how the hips and shoulders work to create massive amounts of club head speed.

Let’s go ahead and get started.

Let’s take a look at the hips here first. At address, this is looking from an overhead view, so we’re looking down right at the top of my head, if you can imagine a player standing here.

This would be the target line, with the target somewhere way out in the distance to our left. Then we’re looking down at the golf ball in front of us.

So our belt buckle, or our hips would be facing roughly straight ahead at address. That’s why I have 0° at address right here. Now as we rotate to the top, we have to let the hips start to move and that’s going to allow our shoulders to separate even more.

At the top of the swing I usually say about 45° hip rotation, anywhere in this range 40° to 55° is a pretty good ballpark number.

So if you’re really, really flexible, you may get a little bit less hip rotation, but because your shoulders can separate so much from your hips and you’re still going to get a good, full, shoulder turn.

If you’re not quite as flexible, maybe you go on the outer limits of this, 55°, you could probably even go 60° or 65° if you really wanted to get a lot of power, and to rotate the hips back. That’s going to allow you to get more of a shoulder turn as you’re making the top of your swing, and eventually get some more power.

There is a zone here, it’s not that we have to hit one exact number, we’re just looking for a ballpark area to be in so that we know that we can get the speed that we want.

 

Now in the downswing, as we’re about halfway down in the maximum lag position, so when our left arm’s pretty much parallel to the ground, that’s when we talk about in the lag section how we’re going to get the maximum amount of lag we can.

 

Now in the downswing, as we’re about halfway down in the maximum lag position, so when our left arm’s pretty much parallel to the ground, that’s when we talk about in the lag section how we’re going to get the maximum amount of lag we can.

Our hips have already started to rotate to the left, and they’re back here roughly pointing toward the golf ball again. Again, our belt buckle pointing toward our golf ball.

Then as we come all the way through to the finish, now we want to get those hips and the belt buckle to be facing down toward the target.

You could be anywhere from almost to pointing at the target, if you’re not very flexible maybe 85° all the way around to 100°.

You’ll see some pros that are nice and flexible with their hips rotating all the way on through to a good, full finish, where their belt buckle is actually pointing a little bit to the left of the target.

That allows you to carry that momentum as you’re coming through the shot. Let’s go ahead and take a look at this from a pro’s perspective, and we’ll see exactly how this would work in this chart.

All right, so let’s go back to a little back in time here, and we’ll take a look at Gary Player from the overhead view. This is his address position, we’ll notice that he sets up with his hips a little bit open.

That’s completely fine, everybody’s going to have their own little inner idiosyncrasy, he liked to get a little forward shaft lean, and set up with the open, and that’s why I give these ranges rather than saying you have to be exactly 0° or just picking some random number like that.

As he goes to the top we’re going to see that he’s going to rotate just like the good players do, and he’s about that 45° of rotation as he’s gone to the top.

So his hips have loaded up, and then as he comes into the downswing and starts to get in the maximum lag position here – let’s go about right there – that’s where he’s going to be maximum lag, somewhere around in here, he’s going to be roughly pointing with his belt buckle to the ball.

He’s actually a little bit more open than that, pretty flexible, so he’s kind of on the left side of that range of where the hips would be in the halfway down position.

Then as he releases his club, we’ll go ahead and go down to the straight line release, now we’re going to see the hands, arms, body, everything out there in front. So we can see that now the hips, the shoulders, everything is at 45° out in front.

Hips, shoulders, club, the whole thing is out in front. Then all the way around to a good, full finish, take it all the way around. Notice how he’s pretty flexible here, and we’ll go all the way to the top and we’ll see how his belt buckle is nice and pointing toward the target.

So a great position to be in, belt buckle toward the target. We saw him meet the exact criteria that we talk about in the Top Speed Golf System.

At address, roughly toward the ball. 45°, there’s a range in here as we’re going to the top. Then as he starts the down swing maximum lag, it’s going to be back to the ball and then all the way to a good, full finish here as he comes to the end.

All right, so now that we’ve got the hips down, let’s add the shoulders to this. As we set up at address, the shoulders are going to be roughly 0° at address. Again, there’s that kind of range we could be in.

We don’t have to be directly toward the ball, we could be a little bit open if we get some forward shaft lean, that kind of thing.

The big key here is as you load up to the top, if you took a line between the shoulder sockets themselves, and took a line perpendicular to that, I want to see that chest get at least 90° of turn, all the way back to a lot of the pros are going to be getting around 120°-125°, that’s a big shoulder turn.

So I think the PGA Tour average is something like 118° of shoulder turn, pretty good amount of shoulder turn there. Then as you come into the downswing, we’re going to go ahead and as…remember when we stopped in the maximum lag position, our hips were already pointing toward the ball.

Now with the Gary Player, especially his was actually a little in front of the ball, the shoulders are going to be about 35° to 55° back. So again, the shoulders are trialing behind the hips at this point.

As we get out to the straight line release everything’s going to be about 45° in front, and then as we finish, this is a big one, I see a lot of people that struggle with this, because they’re kind of contorting and slowing their body down instead of rotating on through the shot.

At the finish, even those of you who aren’t very flexible, if we get those hips to rotate around, we’re going to get at least 125° here at the finish all the way up to 180°.

So if we look at a lot of the pros as they finish their swing, their chest shirt buttons are actually facing directly behind them from where they started. Let’s go ahead and take a look at a pro taking this into action.

All right, so here we are with one of the greats of all time, Greg Norman, we’re going to see that his shoulders are a little bit open at address, that’s completely fine. Again, there’s a little range that you can be in, he’s probably got a little forward shaft lean and likes to open the shoulders a bit.

I would guess that the hips are a little bit more closed than that, so almost pointing out toward the ball with the hips.

Now as he goes to the top of the swing, we’re going to see those hips are going to rotate back and then his shoulders are going to get at least to 90°. If we go shoulder socket to shoulder socket, even though his left shoulder is trapped by his hat here, we know it’s about right there.

If you took that line, we could see if we drew one perpendicular to that, he’s past 90° by a pretty decent amount there.

So that’s really going to allow him to load up, and then let’s go ahead and stop him in the maximum lag position in the downswing, and we’re going to see that he’s very similar to what we’ll see with all our pro golfers.

Again here in maximum lag, we’re looking at his shoulders. Go one more frame, there we go. His hips are almost square, and his shoulders are still lagging behind quite a bit.

So his shoulders are still waiting behind the hips, so his hips are almost square, the shoulders are lagging behind that, so he’s creating a stretch there, and that’s going to be released out to the straight line release point.

Let’s go ahead and take him roughly there was where the straight line release, now we’re going to see the shoulders, the hips, and the club, everything is moving out in that direction, that 45° in front.

Then here’s the real key, we’ve got to let everything rotate all the way on through around to get that good, full turn.

Now we can see that his chest has rotated all the way on through, chest is pointing back behind his body from where he was at address, and he’s got that good, full rotation going all the way back and through.

Big hitter JB Holmes get a massive amount of power, we all know how far JB hits it, sorry for the slightly askew camera angle. This red line is showing about where he’s lined up.

But again, we’ll see here at address, pretty much the hips and the shoulders, both pointing straight forward toward the ball, and a good range there.

As he goes to the top of the backswing, we’re going to see a good powerful turn with both the hips and the shoulders for him. So let’s take it all the way to the top. Now we’re going to see this 45° turn, roughly, in there with the hips.

The shoulders are going to go a little past 45°, again we’re going shoulder socket to shoulder socket. That’s going to be a little past 90°, excuse me. So he’s got a good, full turn loaded up. Isn’t known for a real long backswing, kind of stops it very short.

Watch as he starts his downswing, as he gets that left arm kind of parallel with the ground, and that’s when he’s going to have the maximum amount of lag in the downswing. We’re going to see the same position that we saw with all these great players.

Here now the hips are pointing back almost to the ball again, roughly in that area. But the shoulders are still really loaded back, so he’s saving up that shoulder angle for the last second.

He’s going to come on through to the straight line release, everything’s going to be coming out in front. Let’s go back a couple more frames, sorry I skipped over that.

Everything’s going back in front, and then as he comes all the way on through, he’s going to really let that release all the way around.

So look at his shoulders here now, this is the one where I talked about the maximum range, where his shoulders are actually pointing completely behind where they were at address. That’s really going to allow him to rotate on through the shot.

Now one misconception, two misconceptions that you’ll see from this video that I want to pay attention to that are really going to help you guys out is, number one the left foot as he’s making his downswing, starting his downswing, is pointing forward, almost to the ball.

Watch what happens as he finishes his swing, so as he rotates all the way on around, look at the left foot now. Let’s go all the way through to the finish. Now we can see that the left foot is pointing out almost to the target, it’s really opened up.

So all good pro players, you watch all the big hitters, they’re rotating that foot toward the target to allow the hips to rotate on around there.

There’s no way that we can get our shoulders to be facing this far around without opening up that left foot, because our hips aren’t’ going to be able to rotate that far through unless we let that foot rotate open.

For those of you that are a little bit less flexible out there, that are looking to increase their range of motion a little bit, instead of having this left foot facing forward, it’s OK to open up that left foot a little bit.

That’s not going to hurt anything, all the pro players are doing that anyways, they’re just doing it as they come through to the finish.

One final misconception that doesn’t have to do with the power turn, but I also think is very, very important to realize, is just how this left wrist works.

We’ll see here how he’s a little bit bowed, just like we talk about in the move section. As we continue to go on down through the swing, we’re going to see that he’s bowed at impact.

So his left wrist, I know a little bit tough to tell here, but his left wrist is a little bit bowed at impact. But watch what happens after he comes through impact. Let’s go ahead and fast forward a little bit.

Now the left wrist is flat, there’s your straight line release, then as you’re coming on through, watch how the left wrist is folding back up. Completely fine to let the left wrist cup and fold back up after the swing has happened. That’s going to allow you to naturally come on through the shot.

So JB Helms, great powerful turn, creates a ton of speed, and really gets a pretty powerful action there. If we can incorporate a little bit of this in our game, maybe we’ll start ripping those shots out there, 320 like JB does.

All right guys, so now we’re ready to do a drill with this, to really feel this pressure and to feel this rotation throughout the swing. That’s going to be so crucial in getting a lot of speed.

What I want you to do is to start out with an iron, put it across your shoulders here. I’m just going to hold this across my shoulders, and I’m going to get into my posture.

Now from here, if I want to rotate my hips back, what I have to do is I have to put some pressure down and out into the ground. Whenever I push down and out, it would be like pushing this way as I’m rotating back, that’s going to push my body back up that way.

So if I want to get a good full hip turn, should turn, as I go to the right, I need to feel some pressure into my right foot early, that’s why you’ll see pros start to get a little bit of a bump to the right.

They’re going to push down and out, that’s going to push my body back in up. Newton’s law of every action has an equal and opposite reaction means that – it sounds complicated – but basically that means it’s going to push my right side back as I make the backswing.

I’m going to get these, the shoulders, rotated enough to where as I make my full turn, I’m going to get my club pointing outside of my right foot, right down here.

My shoulders are going to be staying in their posture, and fully rotating. To look at it from this direction, again I’m pushing this way with my right foot to get loaded up.

As I shift in the downswing, now I’m going to push with my left side, it’s going to push everything back up this way, and I’m going to rotate all the way on through to a good, full finish all the way on around.

I need to pair these things together. Go ahead and do about 100 repetitions, push with the right, good turn, as I’m in my downswing hips are square to the ball, and my shoulders are staying back like we talked about.

Then all the way on through, getting my chest pointing the opposite direction. Do about 100 reps of those, really feeling that motion.

Then we can go ahead and make a swing, where we recreate the same thing. Pushing with the right, here’s my lag position, my hips are starting to square back up, and we’ll come all the way on around. There’s all the way on through.

Get this right foot to really come around, and like I talked about with the left foot, go ahead and let that pivot on around like that. So your left foot can actually turn out if.

If you’re a little bit less flexible it’s OK to rotate open your left foot to allow you to come all the way around there also. Really get that right arm coming up almost by your chin, to get all the way around there.

So once we’ve done that a few times, about 100 times first pausing, then doing nice, fluid swings, focusing on those key checkpoints, rotating all the way through the shot, now let’s go ahead, let’s rip a driver.

So I’ve got my FlightScope out here, let’s put a good aggressive swing on one, let’s what kind of damage we can do.

All right guys, hit that one OK, a little bit off the toe. Felt like I made a good full turn back and through. Let’s see what the yards end up with.

So 319 total distance, 116.7 as far as the club head speed. So pretty good hit, I’ll take that for sure. Work on that good, full power turn, and you guys are really going to pick up some distance.