Home Based Backswing Tips To Increase Club Head Speed

Check out how you can increase club head speed, and ramp up your game - right from home!

 

So you're stuck at home.

 

But there's no reason that your golf game needs to be stuck too. 

 

There are a number of things which can help us increase club head speed with our driver, to have it moving faster through impact. 

 

And you can do alot of these right from home!

 

Let's begin!

 

First, backswing rotation is one factor which can increase club head speed. 

 

This is because the greater the range of motion we can have in the backswing, the further our body rotates and the further the club travels.  This in turn increases the probability that we’ll create more club head speed as we swing through.

 

Think of it this way – when we address the golf ball and move our driver back a few feet from the ball, regardless of how strong we are or not, we will certainly not generate much club head speed like that.  But it will ring true conversely if we give a greater range of motion away from the golf ball, a larger range with our club head, hands, upper body and lower body.

 

We can increase the range of motion by having the lead shoulder (i.e. the left shoulder for us right-handers) above the trail knee, at the end of the backswing.  It doesn’t have to be directly above that knee, but the idea is to try to be as close to that as possible. 

 

Here, if you’re more flexible, you possibly don’t need as much rotation through the legs to achieve that top of the backswing position; but for those of us who are less flexible, we’ll likely need a lot more rotation through the legs.

 

The quick summary on the first to-do to increase club head speed with your driver: Have the lead shoulder above the trail knee at the top of your backswing and allow your lower body to accommodate that with how much it rotates. 

 

Remember, the point here is to have a greater range of motion in the backswing.

 

The second factor to work on to increase club head speed, is to focus on what we do with our body through impact. 

 

It is not uncommon to see some of us create the forward bend (i.e. flexion) at address and when we finish our golf swing, we still have some of that forward bend present – this means our chest is pointing down and our head is much closer to the target than our belt buckle. 

 

What we want to do instead is to move from the forward bend form into an extended position at the end of our swing – what this means is to finish off with our belt buckle pushed out and hence much closer to the target than our head, and we’re actually arching backwards such that the buttons on our polo are pointing more upwards towards the sky.

 

When we’re swinging, it happens with quite some speed and force, and we move very quickly to extension where we would have used our feet to push us up into the desired end position – when we do that, we apply a force to the handle which will have an effect on the club head speed, which will cause it to swing out the golf ball with just that bit more energy.  Here, the key point is to have our body going from flexion to extension through impact.

 

The last factor we’ll cover here, on how to increase club head speed with your driver, is to loosen those wrists so that we’re able to use those to transfer the energy throughout the golf club. 

 

Of course we have to hold on to our driver pretty tightly since the club can well be travelling at 100 miles an hour or more (dangerous and definitely expensive), but if we hold on too tightly, we’re locking up those wrists.

 

Here's what we can do to practise loosening those wrists... 

 

Take your address and stand up with your club held in front.  Keep the grip end of the club as still as you can, and rotate just your wrists to make little circles with the driver head.  If you were to up the tension through your fingers and grip the driver a bit tighter, you can still make those moves because your wrists stay fluid and in motion. 

 

If your wrists were locked, the circles are going to be much bigger and the movement will be much jerkier; you might even feel like it’s coming a bit more from your body instead. 

 

Remember, fluid wrists for practising baby circles; fluid wrists mean the conduits through which energy can flow to the club, are not choked up.

 

Practise the above moves and simple exercises at home, especially during the current “Circuit Breaker” situation in Singapore or lockdown for our fellow golfers in other countries – don’t worry and don’t be shy, not every one of us will be able to do a backswing rotation like a LPGA or PGA tour star at the first few tries or all the time, but the key is to practise, go play around with these moves a bit and find out what works for you.

 

Most importantly, please remember to stay at home as much as you can, and stay safe everyone. 

 

We remain contactable via email, Facebook or the phone.  We hope to serve you in person at our Smashing Drives store as soon as things turn for the better, and which they will.