Give up Hoping to Muscle that Golf Club into your Shot

I believe every player has had the experience of trying to strike their ball a little extra and attempt to muscle the ball further down the fairway.  The outcome, even when their shot stays somewhat straight is that the ball lands shorter than the normal drive.  Then when we're attempting to merely swing easy with "soft" hands, we hit our shot much more than typical.

A lot of people, especially most of us that snap up our golf clubs and head to the golf course, do not really think the way we may use physics to our golf swing.  About half way throughout the explanation and our eyes glaze over.  But when we are able to employ a few simple physics principles we may be able to hit our ball a greater distance through much less effort.  Top-level players utilize such concepts, of course, but they exercise it naturally through years of trial and error with the golf swing.  Most of us would rather not commit the time for experimenting.

Approximately 1200AD a siege apparatus called the Trebuchet was created.  It would hurl rocks along with objects much farther than anything previous to its time, plus it was really a relatively smaller weapon.  I often went to watch them showcased near the Tower of London, and all of their power came from centrifugal force.  And because the power came from this force it was quite easy to launch those projectiles accurately.

It might take some visualization, but the Trebuchet is really similar to what the swing movement should ideally look like, only upside down.  The very movement with the Trebuchet is really the same as the golf swing which utilizes no wrist torque whatsoever.  We want a centrifugally powered golf swing where the only function of the hands, wrists and forearms is always to be certain that the club head gets square for a clean contact on the ball.

Now where does this centrifugal power supply come from?  Clearly for the most power we want it to arrive from our most powerful groups of muscles, and that is our core.  If we will get our hips to make the correct movement timed aided by the hands returning the club into hitting position using maximum force, club head velocity goes up and yardage increases.  This occurs when, to put it simply, your hip move starts your swing, the hands wait for an instant at the top while the core muscles builds centrifugal force, and then the hips end at 90 degrees with the target.

It is said that golfers can be divided into two groups regarding their swing: the hitters and also the swing golfers.  Swing golfers depend solely on centrifugal force for golf club velocity, and don't rely on the wrists and hands.  Hitters rely on the wrists and hands for power.  There are no pure golf swing players or pure hitters, but nearly all players need to try to get more to swinging their golf club.