Quote:
Originally Posted by killer  ...whenever I swing the club it just feels labored ...I need to know what you feel, and when in the swing you start to feel club head speed generating. |
Unfortunately, the answer is never. Speed is not felt. In fact, it is better to feel as if you didn't really try.
When you say you feel like you labor, this is doing 2 bad things: creation of tension and mis-timing.
Tension causes a lack of elasticity. You do need some tension to hold simple balance, but that is about it. Nothing outside that. Have you ever tried to hit a shot that you just allowed gravity to take over? You still put your body into the known correct positions, but to generate the needed acceleration, you just let the force of nothing more then gravity do it's thing.
This is the feeling I get. Its very relaxing and satisfying. Simple balance and pow, like a whip cracking at the ball.
This brings me to the second bad thing, mis-timing. To generate more power/clubhead speed, you have to have proper timing. It is SO easy to get out of sync when just one item in the sequence tenses up...god help you if you have 2 or more. You end up looking like you forced it out there, wobbled in balance and wonder why the harder you try the shorter it goes..makes no sense!
So here's what a whip has to offer...simple acceleration with minimal effort. Starting the handle of a whip creates an energy wave down the whip. It has a constantly decreasing circumference to the tip. This energy wave travels down the chord and increases in speed until it reaches the tip where it breaks the speed of sound and that is what you hear...and mini-sonic boom. All that from a 40 mph starting throw.
If the whip has any stiff point in the chord, the wave is broken and it has to start over at that point...never reaching it's potential.
The golf swing is the same thing. Your legs are the handle. Let them simply start to rotate their full action of letting your weight travel from the back foot to the front while rotating your hips.
Your hips now get to be thrown around your spine. The hips can help a bit. Use your torso to stay balanced and get the rest of the body rotating toward the target.
Your shoulders are now going. They have some power of their own. Get them to rotate and fire.
Arms, wrists and hands are all now at that prior effort's mercy. They just make contact. Slight adjustments is all they have time to do...maybe a high shot has them slightly timed one way, a fade let's them relax and drag through...draws have them swinging on an inside-out path...etc.
What is essential is that you do not focus all your effort on one item making it the point of maximum power...starting the swing there. This is the stiff part of the whip. Each part of the swing needs to be elastic enough so the action prior causes it to begin it's action. It can add it's only little bit, and that causes the next in line to begin it's action...and so on.
Here's the fun part. You can think about it, but you can't force it. It has to be a completely natural sequence. You are going to be stronger in certain parts of your body then another guy, so your natural points of acceleration will come at various places, but what has to be the same is that you still have the same sequence.
-------
Ok, so you go out to the range, relax, hit 20 balls, and they go all over the place...I mean everywhere. 30 yd hooks and 20 yards slices. BUT...you felt something...a sense of whipping action that you never felt before. You try it again, just thinking about that one thing...not caring where they go, but only interested in that one feeling. You realize that you CAN feel greater speed being generated because you just nailed one. IT went straight and with the most power you have ever created. That is the one you want. Don't worry where it goes yet, but about the feeling of whip affect.