The Secret To Lag 2

Everybody is looking for more distance in their game. So let me give you one of my best-kept secrets … a concept that was critical to my winning the World Long Drive Championship. It’s the source of that feeling you get when you make an effortless swing. It’s the way you make use of the Big muscles in your body.

The concept is called leverage, and I’m going to use this golf cart to make my point. In this video I’m going to talk about power in the golf swing: where it comes from, how to use it, and why you are losing it.

This golf cart’s about out of juice, and that give me a perfect opportunity to demonstrate a couple of power concepts that will help you get more distance with your drives … and with every club in your bag.

I love helping golfers take their game beyond technique. There ‘s a big difference between trying to plug you into a specific swing method and teaching you core concepts in simple and cohesive way so you can learn not just WHAT to do to get more distance, but WHY, and HOW to feel it in your own swing.

Because the only way I succeed is by teaching you what to do in your own swing, how to feel the change in your swing, and then how to replicate that change so it sticks.

This puts YOU in control of the continuous improvement to YOUR golf game.

Everybody is looking for more distance in their game. So let me give you one of my best-kept secrets …
A concept that was critical to my winning the World Long Drive Championship. It’s the source of that feeling you get when you make an effortless swing.

It’s the way you make use of the Big muscles in your body. The concept is called leverage, and I’m going to use this golf cart to make my point.

If I stand here flat-footed and push against the cart, not only will I not move it, but I’ll actually push myself away. I’ll have backward momentum. But if I set my weight correctly … on the inside part of my right foot … I can put a lot of power into pushing this cart or in the case of the golf swing, into driving toward the target.

This is something you should try for yourself to understand the feel.

Find a wall or door jamb or any immovable object and get yourself into a position to push against it with your shoulder. Pay attention to your foot, and where you are pushing from.

That’s your action spot. That’s your leverage point. That’s what you should feel at the top of your backswing and that’s the push you use to start your downswing. Driving toward the target with your lower body, from the ground up, using your leverage position on the inside part of the ball of your foot is the key to generating more core speed, more club head speed, and that feeling of effortless power.

Now, in a minute I’m going to head over to the range and show you a simple drill to help you use your leverage position and get effortless power. But before I do I want to let you in on another power secret:

This is something I’ve never heard any other analyst or TV instructor talk about, but it is something you’ll see with every player who drives the ball a long way.

There’s a second leverage position that comes into play at impact. It’s your upper arm against your chest.

Now maybe this doesn’t get much air time because it so instinctual. When you go to push against something heavy you instinctively keep your arm against your chest. You don’t get your feet all leveraged and then swing your arm out to push. That would activate the small muscles around your shoulder, and they’re just not very strong. In the golf swing that would be the equivalent of stopping your core rotation at the ball. As your body stops rotating your arm swings free. But if you stop your rotation too early you only have the small shoulder muscles propelling the club through impact.

Long hitters, on the other hand, keep their core rotating toward the target, and as they do so the upper arm stays naturally against your chest, which puts all the strength of the big muscles in your legs and back into impact. The arm swings free after impact, releasing toward the target.

At 6 feet tall I’m kind of an average-sized guy, and in Long Drive I’m actually one of the smaller competitors. But I consistently out-drive golfers bigger and stronger than me because I’ve learned how to get the maximum use of the power in my core and big muscles.

You can too, now that you know how to use leverage. Let’s head over to the range and I’ll give you a simple drill you can use to increase the power in your swing … without swinging harder.