Stop Rushing Your Downswing - Secret to Effortless Power in Golf

Rushing the downswing is a really, really common problem. I know I've struggled with it in the past, and there's a very, very good chance that you have as well. Well, I'm going to teach you the techniques that have really helped me, helped all my students, and this is really the key to creating effortless power in your golf swing that's got rhythm, that's got timing, that's got flow, and it just feels really, really smooth. So let's start with a little demonstration. I'd love you to do this. Grab one of your longer clubs. I've got my two iron, doesn't really matter what it is, but we've got two ends of that club. We've got the top here and we've got the bottom here or the club head and the grip end. So if I simply hold the grip end of the club and move it this way and this way, what we're going to find is throughout this motion, the club head is always following. So the grip starts and the club head is following. And what we get is this really smooth movement. This never feels rushed. It never feels jerky. It never feels there's any forces that don't really belong in the right place. It feels effortless. And I can start to create more speed and more movement. You'll see the club is traveling higher. Therefore, it's got more speed at the bottom and it just feels really easy. It feels smooth. It feels effortless. That's what we can tap into in the golfing. I want to ask you a question. Let me know in the comments what your answer is. When you start the golfing, what starts the movement? Is it the club head that starts or is it your body that starts? Well, in that little demonstration where we did with the golf club, think of it in this way. The top of the club, I want you to think of that as your body. And the bottom of the club, that can stay as the club. So when we see someone like Tiger and we see people like Rory, what we'll often see is that there's an initial pressure shift away from the golf ball. We see that with Rory more so than Tiger. And when we look at Tiger specifically, we will see his body complete its turn before his arms and the club complete their turn. So when we relate that to our little demonstration, we said that this was the body. We see Tiger, the body starts, the club follows, and then the body will finish its movement away before the club. And what we end up with is this beautiful rhythmical movement. So in great golf swings, the first thing that happens, we don't really see it, but it's there, is there is a little bit of a pressure shift. The body is starting that movement, not always what I see with the golfers I help. Very often, there is like an obsession with the golf club. We've got to get the golf club moving. We're focused on the golf club. Maybe it's because you're thinking about your takeaway or your club face position. And very often the club head moves first. So watch what happens when the club head moves first. Often it becomes snatchy. We don't engage the body. And very often the club's kind of swing finishes before the body finishes. And it's almost as if the club drags the body around. So that would be more club starting and then dragging the body. The issue there is what's going to start down. First is going to be the club. And when you do this little demonstration, hold the golf club at the top, move the club head back. Now try and move the club head down with a bit of force. And I can tell you what you're going to feel. You're going to feel that the top end here wants to go backwards. So as I try and force the club head down, notice how the opposite movement happens with my grip. So we get the opposite movement. So if that's my golf swing, I'm going to get this snatchy move away. Then the body turns. Then the club starts down and I get the weight falling back. It feels all over the place. It feels rushed. It feels terrible. It creates bad strikes. This is going to give you a completely different feel. So you're just simply going to take a setup. I've got a 7-iron here. You might want to tee the ball up if you're doing this in practice. And very simply, you're going to take your feet from their starting position together, and you're going to plant the foot and feel that you move pressure onto that leg before the club moves away from the ball. The other way you could do this, and this is probably a little bit easier to do, is start with the club target side of the ball and make sure that the golf club is never behind the ball when you start your swing. So we don't want to do this. We want to go step, turn the body. So the first thing that's happening here is the body is moving. The body is moving. We start to get this natural flow where the club follows and flows behind. So I'm going to hit a shot. I'm going to show what that would look like. I'm not going to go at full speed, and I'm more trying to tap into what this feels like as opposed to the actual result of the shot. So club starts here. Step, club stays, pressure, and turn. With a pretty simple understanding, really simple drill, and a little step drill, is we've got you to go body first. So what do we do after we've got the body to go first in the backswing? We've got to get the body to go first in the dowsing, and we start to get this beautiful lagging motion where the arms lag behind the body. Then they can start to accelerate, and we can start to get that flow and that rhythm and that timing. So I'm pretty sure you can guess where we're going with this. We're doing the same thing, but on the opposite side of the golf ball. So we can do them separately, and then we'll put them together. So this time, we're going to start from behind the ball with the feet. We're going to make our backswing, and then before the club has finished, you're going to step. So what we're seeing here is the downswing is started with the body, not with the golf club. Because if it starts with the golf club, you'll find it almost impossible to get that pressure to that lead side. So the same thing again. I'm going to go pretty low speed. Step happens in the water. I think I just changed my aim, but I don't mind because they're feeling great off the club face. It's feeling smooth. It's feeling rhythmical. The downswing certainly doesn't feel rushed. I just happened to have lost two range balls. So we've got to put those together now, and all we're going to do is we're going to do those two exercises together. Do this without a ball to begin with. It's going to feel much easier to you. So step, swing, step, swing. That's your drill. Start off separately. Backswing first, then downswing, so you can separate those movements. But ultimately, we go step, swing, step, swing. It's going to feel smooth. It's going to feel rhythmical. It's going to feel great. And what we've got is this versus this. And just do that. Just do that little exercise because honestly, it's going to be completely eye-opening for you. You're going to feel how that second one probably feels more like you're golfing. So let's go ahead. Let's see if I can do this one without losing a ball this time. Step, swing. I mean, that feels amazing. That feels so good. It's not quite reached the flag, but the strike was great. It felt rhythmical. I could probably hit that shot and talk to you because it feels effortless. It feels like I could talk to you. Now, many of you are going to feel your golf swings are lots of tension. There's aggression. It's rushed. It's over in the blink of an eye. Try that. It's going to completely change how your golf swing works. It's going to give you effortless power and your downswing won't feel rushed.