How to Add More Power to Swing

By T.J Tomasi

Universal Press Syndicate

Two factors determine how much power you ultimately deliver to the ball at impact: rotation and leverage. Rotation is the process of efficiently turning your body away from the target and then unwinding your body to release that energy. Leverage is the up-and-down movement of your arms as they create the two key 90-degree angles that multiply your power.

If you're not getting the distance you deserve, chances are that one or both of these two factors is breaking down somewhere along the line during your swing. Let's start with rotation.

How about a little coil with that rotation?

Perhaps the single most common mistake that amateurs make when it comes to rotating their body is that they don't create coil. They may understand that they're supposed to rotate their upper body around their back leg in the backswing and their front leg in the downswing, but a closer look reveals that they're simply swaying or overturning. You can't generate power by leaning one way and then another. It doesn't work.

Keep this concept in mind: There is a turn in every coil, but not a coil in every turn. Coil is created when you turn one part of your body "against" another part. Turn your hips 45 degrees and your shoulders 90, and your ratio is 2-to-1. Turn your shoulders 90 and your hips 90, and there is plenty of turn but no coil -- and very little power.

How can you learn to put a coil in your turn? Start by using the various parts of your body as "landmarks" during your swing.

Your first landmarks are your legs. Each leg is a post in the ground. For a right-handed golfer, your upper body rotates to the right around the right post (your right leg) in the backswing, stops at the top, shifts weight to your left hip then rotates around the left post (your left leg) and up into the follow-through.

Your next landmarks are the buttons on your shirt (which represent your sternum). During the backswing, your buttons should turn behind the ball. At impact, the buttons should point at the ball. And at the finish, they point at the target.

Buttons back behind the ball, then at the ball, then at the target ― that's rotation.