A-Z of Power
ABC | DEF | GHI | JKL | MNO | PQR | STU | VWXYZ
P is for Physical Conditioning
Why your waist size affects the length of your drive.
A study of 16 college golfers published in The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research found that after training three times a week for 11 weeks all of them showed improved strength, power, flexibility and clubhead speed.
Oh, and just in case you’re currently muttering ‘well, they’re young college golfers’, a second piece of research published in the same journal focused on males aged 35 to 58 discovered that each and every one of them saw significant increases in his club speed, ball speed, carry distance and total distance after working out three times a week for eight weeks. If you want to really rip it, you’ve got to lift it.
Q is for Quality of Strike
It’s no use swinging it hard if you can’t hit the ball out of the middle.
How much power do you waste if you miss the sweetspot? Why do your mates swing half as hard as you, but hit it twice as far? It’s all about the quality of your strike, as top swing instructor and Trackman expert Chris Moss reveals…
How much do off-centre hits waste clubhead speed?
It depends which side you miss on. Trackman data has revealed that the toe travels around 5% quicker than the centre of the club and 10% faster than the heel of the club.
So does that mean shots hit off the toe actually travel further than ones hit off the sweetspot?
Yes and no. While the vast majority of shots hit off the toe of the club will go nowhere near the same distance as one hit off the sweetspot, you can hit an extra-long bomb if you catch the ball about half-an-inch high and to the right of the sweetspot.
Why is that?
It is all to do with the speed, launch angle and spin rate, but it is probably easiest to explain with actual statistics. I recently put together a video demonstrating the difference between a heeled shot, a sweetspot shot and a hot spot shot. The heeled shot had a clubhead speed of 114.6mph, a ball speed of 167.2mph, a spin rate of 4,162 and a total distance of 259 yards. The sweetspot shot had a clubhead speed of 115.2mph, a ball speed of 172.5mph, a spin rate of 2,697 and a total distance of 302.4mph. And the hot spot shot had a clubhead speed of 117.2mph, a ball speed of 174.8mph, a spin rate of 2,599 and a total distance of 308.4mph.
So why does everyone go on about the sweetspot?
Consistency. In terms of the numbers, the sweetspot gives you best set of results as it is the place on the face that offers the best rebound speed and energy transfer (known as coefficient of restitution). These factors mean the sweetspot gives you the highest ball speed in relation to your swing speed.
So should we work on trying to hit the ball in the sweetspot or the toe?
Neither. If an amateur golfer wants to hit the ball further, they should work on increasing their launch angle and decreasing the amount of spin they put on the ball.
How do you do this?
It is all about shallowing the swing’s angle of attack. Most amateur golfers swing down and to the left with their drivers. This means they are losing speed, because they are hitting the ball with the heel, and imparting lots of spin on the ball, because they are delivering a glancing blow.
So fixing this means more distance?
Yes. Any golfer who can get his or her angle of attack close to 0° will achieve a better quality of strike and this will lead to a better energy transfer and distance gains of up to 20 yards.
R is for Rotation
Tour coach Jonathan Wallett helps turn your body into a powerful coil.
Some golfers at your club will have fast and flashy swings, but still be relatively short hitters – and that is because they are not laying the foundations. Building forces allows you to deliver them in the form of clubhead speed later on and that process starts with the backswing. This sometimes gets overlooked when creating power as you are moving the clubhead away from the ball, but this is where our “power potential” comes from. The key is not how far back you can go (listen to your body and don’t force it), but turning your upper body while keeping your right side strong. This will create force through the ground in the right foot and leg which is vital later on in the swing.
Key feeling
Imagine you are pushing the spikes of your right shoe into the ground. This will help you maintain a sturdy right side and give you more power.
All right
Turn your right foot in slightly and you should feel an increase in resistance and torque through your right side. This is the feeling that we are looking for during the backswing.
Load up
Focus on driving your left knee in on the way back while keeping your right side strong, with the sturdy right hip in a similar position to address. This is called loading up the right side.