By Kim Jeong-kyoo
Korea Times Golf Columnist

Creating a big turn and a wide swing arc during the backswing is essential for longer distance off the tee, but it is not easy for average golfers who are less flexible to attain this. A good alternative is to swing as if playing baseball. It encourages a swing that is flatter and more around the body, enabling you to hit a draw.

Set up with a slightly closed stance and swing the club around the body. Position your hands, at the top of the backswing, not much higher than your right shoulder.

Your closed stance and flatter swing plane enables you to increase your body turn away from the ball on the backswing, encouraging you to produce a lower, more penetrating ball flight. You will gain extra yards of roll.

One thing to guard against is to avoid looping the club outside away from your body at the transition from backswing to downswing. You need to initiate your downswing by slightly sliding your left hip to the left toward the target so your hips occupy more space at impact than they did at address.

Otherwise, you are apt to come into impact on a steep, cutting angle, failing to ideally loop the club inside.

The key to an efficient baseball swing is to maintain a flatter swing plane during the entire swing and it's essential that the club stay on the lower, more around-the-body plane both going back and coming down.

To this end, be sure that at the early stage of the downswing your right arm and hand assists your left arm pulling down the club until when they stay ahead of the clubhead. If you do this correctly, you will create a halfway down tug-of-war position.

To hit the ball powerfully, you need to ensure through impact that your right hand and arm start to push the club through toward the target as a reaction to pull.

Also importantly, you need to avoid trying to hit hard with the right hand. Instead, you need to focus on pulling with the left arm, while pushing hard with the right arm and hand through the ball.

Trying to hit hard with your right hand results in an out-to-in swing path, forcing you to loop the club outside away from your body.

Just focus on pushing with the right hand through the ball. That helps establish a few key ingredients of a powerful swing.

Above all, the right hand movement in the baseball swing allows your upper body to ideally stay almost in the same place at impact as it was at address. When pushing something hard, you instinctively keep your upper body behind the ball.

Besides, focusing on pushing with the right hand through the ball enables you to finish on balance with a nice and high follow-through, meaning you've made a good shot.

Swinging as if playing baseball eventually leads to eliminating the hitting impulse and keeps you from throwing the club from the top on a steep, out-to-in swing path. That encourages you to start your downswing from the ground up without throwing the club out away from the body from the top with your right hand and shoulder.

So, just play baseball, focusing on pushing the club with the right hand through the ball. You will hit the ball farther and straighter on a more consistent basis.