Longer Drives - Generate More Power With Your Shoulders

So you have your accuracy under control, or at least under control enough to use a fairway wood or driver off the tee. Now what you want is more distance! On just about any hole that allows you to hit a wood off the tee, being closer to the green or pin on your second shot allows you to use a lesser club on your next shot. The lesser the club, the more control you should have when approaching the green.

There are many aspects to a golf swing that impact the distance of the ball off the tee. I will only focus one though at this time which is the amount of distance your shoulders turn on your backswing. Turning your shoulders is like winding a spring, the more you turn (obviously to a certain point) the tighter your body becomes "coiled" and the more speed and power you will be able to summon on your downswing.

This is something you shouldn’t try on your first warmup swing of the day. I suggest starting your round or practice session, as always, with side-to-side arm swings. Start with your elbows bent and your hands fist-to-fist. As you start to loosen up extend your hands and elbows until your arms are straight out. Perform this exercise/stretch with an arc that is parallel to the ground, and then again with an arc that is more perpendicular to the ground (along the same arc as your actual golf swing). This stretch should warm up your shoulders and get you ready to exaggerate your swing.

Now try out your swing with a club. Focus on bringing your leading shoulder to the left side of your chin (for righties). Hit a few balls and then focus on bringing your leading shoulder so that at the pinnacle of your backswing, it is directly underneath your chin. Finally, if you are able to do the above with any consistency, try bringing that leading shoulder past the bottom of your chin.

Doing so will, again, create a greater distance for your club-head to travel on it’s downswing which will give you more time to generate more speed. If you think of your body as a spring it will be coiled as tight as possible and ready to release and explode through the ball resulting in more distance.

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