Do you ever feel the timing of your swing is just off and you can’t seem to get in a flow? It’s like you catch every red light driving through town or when someone pulls out in right front of you and decides to drive below the speed limit.
Sometimes your swing just feels out of sync, and the quicker you find a way to get back on track, the smoother the rest of your round will go.
When a swing is off, timing it can be a challenge. It’s like you’re casting the club at the start of the downswing, applying too much force to the club, and you lose all the energy of the club before you reach impact.
Poor timing can also feel fast from the top of the swing, where you’re trying to create too much speed too soon or too early in the downswing. It will feel jerky, and by the time your club gets to the ball, all of your energy is gone.
When your swing is feeling its best and in sync, it usually feels fast and powerful, where you can do no wrong. The speed of the club is accelerating on the downswing and reaches its peak speed at the bottom of the downswing and through impact. You can feel the whip and energy of the club head as it passes thru the ball.
A good checkpoint to make sure you get back in the groove is, after impact, make sure your arms are extended and you’ve released the energy of the golf club properly. This point is usually about 3 or 4 feet in front of the ball. To practice a well-timed and powerful release of the golf club, you can visualize this point or put a marker down as a reference.
A few things to look for when you’ve properly released the club through impact are that all of your weight is on your left side (if you’re a right-handed golfer), your hips are open, your head and spine are stabilized, and your hands and arms are extended with no flipping of the hands.
A good reference point to see if you timed your release properly is you should be able to see your hands and arms even with your belt buckle as your arms are extended through impact with the ball.
When you’ve released the energy of the club properly, you will feel like the club has swung through the ball or you’ve let the ball just get in the way of the speeding club head. The speed should feel like it is traveling fastest at the bottom of the swing arc and after you’ve hit the ball. You should also feel this energy keep your hands and arms extended all the way around to the finish of your swing.
So the next time you’re feeling out of sync, improve the timing of your release with a better through-impact position, and you’ll drive through more green lights with fewer unnecessary stops in your swing.
Peter Harris is the director of Golf at the Fore-U Golf Center in West Lebanon. His column appears weekly in the Recreation page during the golf season.