Does the game of golf every seem really confusing? Do you sometimes hear conflicting information on how to swing the club club? Are you seeking the best golf swing tips out there?
If so, you are not alone. The golf teaching industry is filled with different approaches, philosophy and beliefs in what is the best way to swing a club. We strive to provide you with our best six tips, but first a quick explanation on some fundamentals and no not the same old fundamentals you are used to hearing about (grip, stance, alignment, posture).
There are many great golfers that have various grips, stances, alignments and posture – so those truly are not fundamentals. There is no one perfect model that will work for everyone. However, there are some truths that should guide everything that you do with your golf swing.
What are the actual fundamentals of the golf swing?
- 1 – Can you hit the same spot of the ground consistently?
- 2 – Can you control the direction your ball curves?
- 3 – Do you have enough power to play the course? Read about SuperSpeed Golf and the amount of speed we gained!
Many smart people have studied thousands of golf swings and have come up with the fundamentals listed above. These fundamentals can be accomplished with a weak grip or a strong grip.
Aiming left like Lee Trevino or aiming right like Arnold Palmer, swinging past parallel like Sam Snead or stopping well short like Jon Rahm. The point being, don’t get stuck on the “old school” fundamentals and instead look at the swing tips below that will help you accomplish the “new fundamentals” in the game of golf.
I believe these are the three questions every golfer must ask as they evaluate their game. All great golfers can control their low point, control the curve of the ankle and have enough distance to play a course. Each of the tips below are setup to help golfers on one of the three areas listed above.
Top 6 Golf Swing Tips to help your game today!
- 1 – Shift Your Weight vs Staying Center – Onsides (1)
- 2 – Focus on Your movement vs Focus on The Target (2)
- 3 – Turn Your Hands Over vs Skip the Stone (2)
- 4 – Stay Down on the Ball vs Explode up through the ball (1)
- 5 – Power comes from your hip turn vs power comes from your hands (3)
- 6 – Keep Your Hands forward when chipping vs Right hand under (1)
1 – Shift Your Weight vs Staying Center – Onsides (1)
I believe one of the biggest swing thoughts that can get you in trouble is the thought of shifting your weight forward on the downswing. Instead focus on staying more centered and “onsides.” Onsides meaning that your left shoulder and your head are behind the ball at impact.
The number one fault in many amateur swings is being ahead of the ball which causes you to throw the lag in your swing too early. This results in an inconsistent release and a loss of power. When you learn to stay behind the ball, the proper release can occur and you will gain distance. In my experience, when a golfer is focused on shifting their weight, they tend to get ahead of the ball and “offsides.”
With force plate technology and the measuring of where the weight is at impact, some professional golfers still have a significant amount of weight on the back foot. Or there are golfers that follow the stack and tilt and keep their head more centered, the weight forward, but they stay behind the ball by tilting. The main learning is that the weight of the best pro golfers vary, but they are forcing a weight shift forward. Read our stack and tilt review!
Bobby Lopez on Staying Onsides:
What Drill Can You Utilize to Help you Stay Behind the Ball?
Try putting both feet together or dropping your back leg behind you. Setup your smart phone from the caddie view and take 10 swings. Focus on staying still and allowing your arms and body to move more naturally. Once thought you could use is the thought and motion of skipping a stone across the river.
Flamingo Drill:
2 – Focus on Your movement vs Focus on The Target (2)
Too many golfers see the ball as the target, instead of a spot in the fairway or green as the target. This can result in once again an early release of the club and your body getting ahead of shot.
Shawn Clement does a wonderful job of helping golfers understand the importance of keeping the mind focused on the target instead of the 100 swing thoughts that run through a golfers head, such as, turn far enough back, shift your weight, clear your hips, move your left shoulder here – instead be very precise with your target, step back see it, and then step up and hit the shot towards the target. He talks about the human as a “gravity genius.” Give your mind the task and get out of the way of your body. Read our review of Shaw Clement!
What Drill Can you Utilized to Focus on the Target?
Every shot that you hit at the driving range following the steps below:
- Pick a target in the distance, maybe a tree or a flag.
- Find an intermediate target several inches ahead of the ball.
- Stay behind the ball and focus on your target.
- Step up to the ball, find your immediate target and swing in that direction.
- Allow the arms to swing freely and let your body react.
Shawn Clement on Remaining with the Target:
3 – Turn Your Hands Over vs Skip the Stone (2)
The conscious thought of turning your hands over might be the worse swing though of all time. Every golf magazine in the 90’s told golfers, they had to do this to hit a draw. Nothing could be further from the turn. In fact, you can hit a draw with an open club face to the target as long as the face is closed to relation to your path. Think about that for a second!
When you were a kid and were skipping stones across the river did you think about what your body and release was doing at every point. Absolutely not! You simple took the stone, selected your target and let it go. You then adjusted based on the outcome.
Make golf simple once again and do more athletic moves. The thought of turning your hands over, can result in bad contact, bad control of the curvature of the ball and great inconsistencies. If you want to think throw the club head towards the target, this is a better option.
What Drill Can you Use to Get Away from This Swing Thought?
Go down to the river and skip stones. See how naturally you do it. Or go play catch in the backyard and see if you think about when you are releasing the ball. Of course you are not thinking about it, but simply following the natural motion that you would. To prove to yourself that you don’t need to turn your hands over, one other drill you can do is to put 70% of your weight on your front foot and hit half shots and hold your release a bit. Swing a bit to the right and what the ball have a nice simple draw.
Skipping A Stone for a Better Swing:
4 – Stay Down on the Ball vs Explode up through the ball (1)
I am sure you have been out golfing, hit a bad shot and your playing partner says, “you lifted your head.” Have they ever considered the success David Duval and Annika Sorenstam had with lifting their head. Now I understand that they are professional golfers with years of training under their belt, but keeping your head down too long can actually result in poor contact hurting your distance and ball striking. I
Instead make a free flowing natural motion through the ball and allow yourself to come up and finish your swing. George Gankas is a wonderful instructor who has helped many golfers and he promotes the extension and pushing up through the ball. With the driver especially, you want to put the ball just on your front foot and hit up and through the ball.
What Drill Can you Use for the above tip?
Hit some shots with your eyes closed to allow yourself to feel the natural motion. Don’t worry about where the ball goes. One way to see the improvement in your swing is to use your smartphone and capture your before swing and then take another video of your swing when your eyes are closed. I bet your release will be better and you will be less ball conscious.
George Gankas Release:
5 – Power comes from your hip turn vs power comes from your hands (3)
Trick question – who do you think has great hip speed, LPGA or PGA Tour Players? If you said LPGA tour players than you are right. However, the average swing speed is on average 15 mph slower with the driver for the LPGA golfers. So what gives? This shows that the majority of the speed in a swing comes from your hands and arms. These are the fastest moving parts in any golf swing.
This isn’t to say that the hips and shoulders don’t have a role, but ultimately the speed comes from the arms and hands. It has been estimated that close to 85 to 90% of the speed is from the arms and hands. You can increase this by the feeling of swing faster not harder. As we move our bodies, most times it will feel like we are swinging faster because it takes greater effort. However, you aren’t actually swinging any faster. Read our post on how to break 90!
Test This On Your Own
Get a speed radar and measure three different swings:
- Swing first with locking your arms and hands out and just moving your hips (slowest)
- Next, swing with moving your body and arms. (second slowest)
- Third, swing with just moving your arms and hands (second fastest)
- Finally, swing with move your arms and hands fast, but not restricting your body (fastest)
To train your hands and arms, hit plenty of half shots and learn to activate your hands and get that right hand controlling loft.
6 – Keep Your Hands forward when chipping vs Right hand under (1)
I am sure you have seen a video suggestion that to hit a solid chip to put the ball back in your stance, weight forward, hands forward and hit down into the back of the ball while holding off the release. I am also pretty sure you have done this and chunked several shots or have lifted up early and bladed one 40 yards past your target that was just 15 yards away.
This old school method has been replaced by utilizing the bounce of the club and even allowing the right hand to release under. This actually adds some loft and some major margin for error. Chipping can be one of the most intimidating parts of the game, especially once you have started to struggle. This new approach, used by many of the PGA tour allows you to relax and let the natural motion take place.
It is very similar to throwing a ball underhanded to someone across the room. If you were going to this, you wouldn’t put your weight forward and hold off the lease. Instead, you would naturally take your arm back and let your hand release freely.
Monte Scheinblum on Chipping:
What Drill Can You Use to Feel This Chipping Motion?
Take a golf ball and stand 15 yards from your target. Start by throwing 5 balls underhand and then take this same release, put the ball around the middle of your stance and let the club slide right under the ball with the right hand releasing.
Overall – 6 Swing Tips to Help Your Game, Now!
The game of golf can be confusing. THere are many contradicting pieces of advice that we have read and viewed over the years. I would say, to follow the KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid). There are so many wonderful instructors out there that are onto the idea of natural movements and keeping it simple. Get rid of the curse of trying to get into different positions.
To Read More About the Top 5 Online Golf Instructors that I would recommend visit:
