Declining returns of swing form

**bones75** · November 17, 2015

Hi all. I'm a 40 year old golfer who's played for 10 years, but only been serious the last 3 where I've played or practiced at least twice a week. Basically my question is how important is fitness, more specifically, strength? Don't know how to say this without sounding (1) arrogant and (2) like a person who thinks he's something that he's totally not, but.. I've been told my swing form looks near perfect. I have a super slow looking swing, and have been complimented a million times about how my form looks like a pro. the problem is, I'm just not long. I'm 6'0" and skinny.. and when i say skinny, i mean SKINNY. (like you can see all my ribs through my chest)

I'm not super short, I can still carry my drives like 220 (240-250 w/ roll), and bang some out further than that, and people are often amazed how long I drive based on how slow my swing looks. I also have decent control on fades/draws w/ all my clubs (roughly 50% success rate of doing what I intended), and spin the ball back on my wedges (though not excessively where's its a control problem), and have a pretty good short game. The problem is I can't really play the tips, cuz I just don't have the distance. I have shot in the 60's from the whites (~6,000 yards), where I'm hitting wedges into 60% of the greens and can reach the par 5's in two, typically shoot high 70's low 80's from the blues (~6,600 yards), but am consistently shooting high 80's from the tips (~7,100 yards) where all my friends play.

So of course, my form needs improvement (as we all do), but maybe the next best way to improve my game from here is to work out? And I'm just not a work-out kinda guy. was a long distance runner when I was young, and never really lifted weights in my life.

Am I fooling myself thinking my form doesn't still need improvement and take more lessons (I have taken 20 or so the last 3 years)? Or do I just need to eat a sandwich and hit the gym?

My index is tied directly to what tee's I've been playing lately, so I don't really know what I truly am.

I have never been a distance junkey, just want to be a better golfer and make more money in our nassau's, but at this stage, I'm wondering if gym time will yield better results than lessons and range time.

Thanks, JB.

and "yes". EVERYBODY says i have a grandpa game. Short, straight and consistent.

**boogielicious** · November 17, 2015

Welcome to the forum @bones75

There are exercises you can to to improve your core strength to improve distance without changing form. Check out our Fitness Section. Lots of stuff there.

**Patch** · November 17, 2015

I have a couple of decades on you. As far fitness goes, imho it is the golfer's legs that are most important. Upper body and core strength are important also, but with out leg strength, it's tough to get the full benefit of the other two.

Among other things, again imho, the golf swing requires balance to be effective. With out leg strength balance is a bit on the iffy side. If a golfers wants more swing speed for distance, they need to work on keeping their balance through out their swing.

I know skinny people who absolutely crush the ball as far as distance goes. I have seen 6'6" 300 pound guys do the same. I use to watch a young 14 year old lady knock the ball 230 yards. I just have to believe it's all about balance in the swing.

I too have a grand pa swing which gives me more distance than it looks Like it should. I swing as fast as I can with out losing my balance. My swing is slower than most. For my age I still have decent upper body strength. However, it's my leg strength that allows to to continue play this game.

**Club Rat** · November 17, 2015

Welcome JB to TST.

Improvement comes in many manners, distance is certainly a benefit for those who can control keeping their shots on the play ground and avoid penalties. Proper swing mechanics can improve both distance and accuracy. Fitness will help along with endurance and preventing injuries. Reading your comments, improving your tempo would increase swing speed as you indicate your swing looks super slow.

Other thoughts which may help you beat your buddies on the longer courses, play to your strengths, avoid giving holes away, never give up on any hole.

**Jon Hoover** · November 17, 2015

Its all about your flexibility and not so much about strength. Look at Justin Thomas on the PGA tour 5'10" 145lbs and average driving distance is 302yrds. Now I won't say that bulking up won't help as its a matter of physics, but you should be able to hit the ball plenty long with the frame you have. I think you just need to work on nothing but increasing your distance for awhile sure you swing might become more inconsistent as a result but you can work that out once you have gotten more club head speed.

**Lihu** · November 17, 2015

1 hour ago, bones75 said:

Hi all. I'm a 40 year old golfer who's played for 10 years, but only been serious the last 3 where I've played or practiced at least twice a week. Basically my question is how important is fitness, more specifically, strength? Don't know how to say this without sounding (1) arrogant and (2) like a person who thinks he's something that he's totally not, but.. I've been told my swing form looks near perfect. I have a super slow looking swing, and have been complimented a million times about how my form looks like a pro. the problem is, I'm just not long. I'm 6'0" and skinny.. and when i say skinny, i mean SKINNY. (like you can see all my ribs through my chest)

I'm not super short, I can still carry my drives like 220 (240-250 w/ roll), and bang some out further than that, and people are often amazed how long I drive based on how slow my swing looks. I also have decent control on fades/draws w/ all my clubs (roughly 50% success rate of doing what I intended), and spin the ball back on my wedges (though not excessively where's its a control problem), and have a pretty good short game. The problem is I can't really play the tips, cuz I just don't have the distance. I have shot in the 60's from the whites (~6,000 yards), where I'm hitting wedges into 60% of the greens and can reach the par 5's in two, typically shoot high 70's low 80's from the blues (~6,600 yards), but am consistently shooting high 80's from the tips (~7,100 yards) where all my friends play.

So of course, my form needs improvement (as we all do), but maybe the next best way to improve my game from here is to work out? And I'm just not a work-out kinda guy. was a long distance runner when I was young, and never really lifted weights in my life.

Am I fooling myself thinking my form doesn't still need improvement and take more lessons (I have taken 20 or so the last 3 years)? Or do I just need to eat a sandwich and hit the gym?

My index is tied directly to what tee's I've been playing lately, so I don't really know what I truly am.

I have never been a distance junkey, just want to be a better golfer and make more money in our nassau's, but at this stage, I'm wondering if gym time will yield better results than lessons and range time.

Thanks, JB.

and "yes". EVERYBODY says i have a grandpa game. Short, straight and consistent.

Welcome to this site.

My son is built thin like you, except he possibly has wider shoulders and a bit shorter? He's driving farther than what you described, but it's because his timing is really good. He gets that last bit of kick at impact.

BTW, how are you a 10 HC as you've shot in the 60s?

**bones75** · November 17, 2015

You guys are awesome. Yeah, I played with this guy that was a red-shirt at a D1 school who was built just like me, but was smoking his drives 50-60 yards past me. But he was also 20 years younger than me, and I have always just chalked it up to youth when I see guys like that. I figure I'm at the age where I should start considering keeping the flexibility I have vs getting more flexible (although I'm probably being too paranoid about getting older.. turning 40 has it's mental barriers granted).

@Patch: I also basically only use my mid & lower body in my swing (this change took me from a 25 index three years ago to ~10 today).

Will check out the fitness section, but it sounds like fitness (not necessarily just bulking up) and speeding (while maintaining) my tempo may be what i should focus on for awhile. (I also get a ton of compliments on my "tempo", it's just a slowwwwww tempo).

@Lihu: How am I a 10 index if i've shot in the 60's? Two reasons, and I'm wondering if anyone else is like this:

(1) To be clear, i did say I "have shot in the 60's from the whites".. i.e. I don't regularly score that well, but I've gone under par twice and shot 72 once from the whites, which i play ~6 times a year when my dad visits from LA. My low round from blues is 77, avg 83 (blues are 600 yards > than the whites on my home course) and my low from the tips is 80, avg 86. These are also all on my home course (100+ rounds), which if you give me a wedge on approach, I'll very rarely go over par.

(2) my index does directly correlate to the tees I've played. Despite index's factoring in ratings & slope, when I spend a few months playing from the blues (and sometimes the whites), my index drops by like 4. Then i switch playing groups and play primarily from the tips and my index goes back up ~4 strokes. I actually question the index system based on this, cuz I think you can tank ur index by playing whites. My current index is actually a 9.2 but it has varied between 8-11 this year and I just put 10 as a representation when filling out my profile, as I'm also insecure representing a lower-than-it-should-be-index based on one primarily one course over and over again.

**Lihu** · November 17, 2015

32 minutes ago, bones75 said:

@Lihu: How am I a 10 index if i've shot in the 60's? Two reasons, and I'm wondering if anyone else is like this:

(1) To be clear, i did say I "have shot in the 60's from the whites".. i.e. I don't regularly score that well, but I've gone under par twice and shot 72 once from the whites, which i play ~6 times a year when my dad visits from LA. My low round from blues is 77, avg 83 (blues are 600 yards > than the whites on my home course) and my low from the tips is 80, avg 86. These are also all on my home course (100+ rounds), which if you give me a wedge on approach, I'll very rarely go over par.

(2) my index does directly correlate to the tees I've played. Despite index's factoring in ratings & slope, when I spend a few months playing from the blues (and sometimes the whites), my index drops by like 4. Then i switch playing groups and play primarily from the tips and my index goes back up ~4 strokes. I actually question the index system based on this, cuz I think you can tank ur index by playing whites. My current index is actually a 9.2 but it has varied between 8-11 this year and I just put 10 as a representation when filling out my profile, as I'm also insecure representing a lower-than-it-should-be-index based on one primarily one course over and over again.

It's very strange that a golfer with your ability to hit straight and far enough to get scratch doesn't know his real handicap? I would think that at least one or two people complementing you on your professional swing would have stated that your handicap is not where you are claiming.

If you are winning money and want to win more, then I would advise taking martial arts lessons to protect yourself.

As to your question of gaining more distance, it's just a matter of getting your timing down. Look at someone else who was in San Diego and on the internet. Skinny as a rail and a nice easy professional swing as you described. . .

**bones75** · November 17, 2015

@Lihu: Thanks for the video! Somehow it's inspiring, but maybe cuz it feels personalized to me based on a response to my post! I will say this, i am definitely skinnier than that guy, but maybe not by a ton (believe it or not!).

I don't know what to tell you regarding my HC. I don't get accused of sandbagging more than anyone else, but i do tend to win more $, but that's just cuz I think a lot of my friends are actually reverse-sandbaggers (if that's a term).

I play by the rules, and am dutiful in entering my scores, looking at my spreadsheet: w/ 14 of my last 20 rounds from the tips (74.2/129), my avg score from the tips is 86.6 and from the blues (72.3/126) is 84.3. Doesn't that support a 9.2 index? The whiles incidentally are 69.9/121. Shoreline Golf Club, Mountain View (I just moved to Carlsbad two weeks ago, havne't played yet, but will play Aviara on Saturday. let's see how my home-course-grown index stands up then :)

**bones75** · November 17, 2015

@Lihu: watching your video makes me think that more lessons may be the key to more distance. Like you said timing. My coach suggested I do a K-vest (sp?) and trackman session, but I kinda felt he was just trying to upsell me (more expensive lessons) and up until recently felt other larger fundamentals needed more work before any finer tuning w/ deeper data analysis. Do you think this is something worthwhile for my game? Again when playing tips, i'm hitting 3 and 5 woods approaches into many par-4's, and my partners are hitting 5-7 irons. Same on some par 3's. (granted i'm more accurate w/ my 3-wood than many of them are w/ their 5 irons).

**mvmac** · November 17, 2015

6 hours ago, bones75 said:

So of course, my form needs improvement (as we all do), but maybe the next best way to improve my game from here is to work out? And I'm just not a work-out kinda guy. was a long distance runner when I was young, and never really lifted weights in my life.

One thing to do is make sure you're hitting up slightly with your driver. Most of it has to do with how you set-up to the driver, more info on that here.

**bones75** · November 17, 2015

All very helpful thoughts, but trying to bring this back to my original question. I'm a family man and don't have that much time to exercise (outside of playing w/ kids), so w. the time my wife gives me I golf once a week and do 6-9 holes or hit the range on another day. I feel like I'm plateauing as a golfer and think distance may be my next big thing to work on. If my sole focus is be a better golfer, should I continue this (with lessons here and there, taking tips from TST etc..) or should i spend less time on the course/range and more time working out/fitness etc.. I know no one can truly answer this but me, just looking for guidance based on what i've told about myself so far...

**WUTiger** · November 17, 2015

8 hours ago, bones75 said:

... Basically my question is how important is fitness, more specifically, strength? ... . I've been told my swing form looks near perfect. I have a super slow looking swing, and have been complimented a million times about how my form looks like a pro. the problem is, I'm just not long. I'm 6'0" and skinny..

Make sure you know the difference between strength and power. Strength involves the ability to do physical work, while power measures the degree to which you combine strength with speed to enhance a particular athletic move.

Check out the site for the Titleist Performance Institute. TPI has lots of tips on workouts that will build your golf power. http://www.mytpi.com/

We also discuss the power topic in our Exercise and Fitness forum.

**Psyber** · November 18, 2015

If you can see your ribs you need a few things. The main one is diet. You need to consistently get the calories up to at least 3k a day to start and implement some weight lifting. Something easy like the strong lifts 5x5 would be a great start. Maybe get a coach if you can't nail the form down on these lifts just from videos. I can't promise you this will make you hit further but I bet it will help if you're that weak and you will look much better.

**SavvySwede** · November 18, 2015

Swing speed is more dependent on muscle fiber type and neurological conditioning IMHO. Training for sveral years as a long distance runner has conditioned your muscles to fire in a different manner and you probably have a higher ratio of slow twitch fibers then the norm. You can train yourself to swing faster with lightweight training clubs.

**rkim291968** · November 18, 2015

I am short and with shorter wingspan. I have been doing golf specific workout for 11 months now. I have gained probably about 10 - 20 yards. I say "probably" b/c in that 11 months, I worked on swing form & upgraded my clubs as well. I keep doing the exercise for my health even though I don't think the workout is still adding distance.

I would encourage you to do the workout in any case. It can only improve your golf & health. What do you got to lose?

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