swing easy or hard

[shanee]

i recently had a lesson and began working a more on getting the club coming down a little more vertical and its helped my ball striking and consistency. one thing i struggle with on the golf course in my high school matches is power. its hard to compete from the back tees driving the ball 230 and having fairway woods and hybrids into every par 4 while other guys are hitting mid to short irons in. during my lesson when i was doing starting the downswing correctly and the day after at the range i was seeing a huge improvement in power exactly what i was looking for. increasing my irons yardages by almost 25 yards and hitting my driver around 255-260. Lately however i seem to still be hitting the ball straight but the power that i gained has seemed to vanish.

The reason that i think this may be happening is have some what started back in the habit i was trying to fix of dropping the club to the inside at the top of my backswing losing some of my power but not to the same extreme as before. the question i had about this is are there any tips or drills that people can offer to try to get the club to come more straight down from the top and not drop bellow the plane at the top resulting in inconsistency and flipping. Will try to post a video as soon as possible

my other question is one about power. i know most people say the old "swing easy hit it long", and light grip pressure and such but i find i hit the ball equally ell with a light grip throughout the swing as i do with a light take away and a firmer grip pressure during the downswing, it just feels more confident at impact. so my question is should i try to swing more rhythmically and with a light grip throughout the swing like most people suggest to do. or should i dont what feels more confident and swing harder at the ball. i hit the ball the same distance with both methods?

[Blades4me]

Hmm, interesting. Not being able to see your swing 2 things cross my mind as to why you are losing power, 1) flipping and the other, possibly, 2) casting.

Practice your lag, trying not to unhinge your wrists until your hands are at belt level. What I noticed was that after I learned how to bring my hips thru the shot it seemed like the arms and hands were just along for the ride and the club seems to drop into the slot effortlessly.

Here, IMO, is the good news--yes it is frustrating to have to use hybrids or fairway metals when others are using mid and short irons, BUT you are getting a lot of pracitce with those clubs, which I bet your competition doesn't practice much. Play to your strengths, play your game. When you watch others too much you will try and play their game.

Maybe instead of thinking "swing easy, hit it long", think nice FULL swing with good rythm & tempo. Personally speaking, if I don't have tempo, I have a hard time striking the ball well. I like to use a lite grip b/c then I don't have a tendency to hold on to the shot and my wrist unhinge easally making for a smooth turn over.

Having been a junior golfer I know that its all about being long off of the tee. Eventually you will figure out that length means nothing w/o accuracy, and in the end its the least amount of stokes that count.

Golf is a crazy sport. One day its like you can't do anything wrong and the next day it seems like you are back to square one. Good luck with your game--the other good news is at your age things will only get better whereas I'm at the other end of the continum, lol.

[The Recreational Golfer]

I think being young, you should learn to hit the ball as hard as you can while keeping your swing under control, like this:



Go to a PGA tournament if you can, and you'll see that while pros look on TV like they swing easy, in real life you can see that they hit the ball HARD.

[Leftygolfer]

Swing hard IMO. I added distance by taking a more athletic view to golf and just going after it. If you can hold your finish you are fine. Swing as hard as you can and do that IMO.

[bunkerputt]

That's a pretty easy question to answer. Swing as hard as your swing will allow so that you can still make solid contact. If you have a technically good swing, swing hard, bad swing, swing easy. The reason is a bad swing needs time to make compensations so that you can still make solid contact, which is more important than clubhead speed. As far as any muscular effort goes in the golf swing, prefer to do something 0%, or 100%, but in between only if you have to in order to make up for some swing faults, which nearly everyone has. It's much easier to identify 0 and 100 than it is 80, or 85, or 75, or whatever other number people say. That's why Hogan liked to rip it hard at 95+%. Most pros say 85% or so. Folks like Raymond Floyd say 70%. Most average Joes would do well to swing <70%.

It sounds like you might unwind your upper body too early, from what you are describing. So caveat emptor: learn to hit the ball with your pivot and try to use your legs and hips to hit the ball harder. I like to feel like my lower body (particularly the right knee for a righty) is heavy and powerful and my arms are just plain heavy (think wet noodle). As far as grip strength, squeeze it as hard as you can without allowing tension to travel above your wrists. For some strong guys, this is incredibly heavy grip pressure. The reason is, you need to keep the wrist snap, but the tight grip will let you control the clubface, which is going to determine the initial direction of the ball WAY more than the swing path.

Good luck.