Tuesday, February 8, 2011

How to hit the ball far

Every golfer strives for a 300 + yard drive. To explain how to hit it far I am going to turn to the reining world long drive champion, Jamie Sadlowski, whose personal long drive is 445 yards. To put it in perspective, Im happy with a drive of 280 yards. The most surprising thing about Sadlowski is that he is only 5'11 and 165 lbs.
In order to hit it far the most important thing is to create lag between the club head and your hands (the picture below is a prime example) Theoretically the most lag you could create (for a right handed golfer) would cause you to hit your right shoulder. In order to create lag it is imperative that the golfer initiate the downswing with a lower body rotation. This is the most difficult thing for an amateur golfer to grasp. The downswing is not started with a swinging of the hands but with a rotation of the lower body. This cause the club head to lag behind the hand creating lag which equals power.



11 comments:

  1. I always have difficulty holding the shaft of the club.

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  2. Live and learn haha. The picture is awesome, I wonder if they have filmed a golfer drive and put it on time warp...

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  3. they use something on CBS when they broadcast tournaments called the swing vision which slows down the swing substantially. It captures the whole swing without any distortion of the club

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  4. so do they try to make more bendable clubs to enhance this?

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  5. I forget how technical this game is some times.
    Pretty amazing.

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  6. @ FP no, if you are referring to the graphite shaft, the faster the swing speed for a golfer the stiffer the shaft needs to be. Most pros use an extra stiff or XX-stiff. If the club gets to whippy it will be difficult to hit the ball straight.

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  7. @T_I_M I think its the most complex movement in any sport

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  8. Wow. I had no idea there was so much involved in golf.

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  9. It was definitely harder than it looked haha, couldn't even hit the ball first time i tried

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