Titleist Tips: Learn to Swing the Golf Club in Sequence

For many golfers, the game gets much easier when you learn to overcome the common impulse to HIT the ball with your hands and arms. The hands and arms play an important role in the golf swing, but as Titleist staff instructor Skip Guss explains in this video, your desire to hit the ball can cause you to fire the hands and arms too soon. Though this effort can feel powerful, it actually results in a loss of potential speed as well as poor impact conditions. The reason? It breaks the kinematic sequence - the most efficient way that we can move athletically to transfer power through the golf club and to the golf ball. The kinematic sequence is like a chain reaction, several stages of motion building force and accelerating on top of the other. As Skip teaches, in the downswing, the most efficient way to release all the energy you store up during the backswing can be described as Shift, Turn, Swing. You shift weight laterally into your lead leg to initiate the downswing. Then your rotate, uncoil your body to deliver the hands into the hitting zone. And lastly, you swing the hands and arms to release the club through impact. Moving your body in this specific order accomplishes a number of great things. It makes use of ground forces and leverage to produces the greatest club speed you’re capable of generating. It keeps your body balanced throughout the motion, leading to a golf swing that is easy to repeat. It promotes a consistent low point in your swing - after the golf ball - which is particularly important for solid iron shots. And it creates lag and forward shaft-lean at impact, allowing you to hit the ball farther by “turning your 8-iron into a 6-iron,” as Skip says. Practice the wall drill that Skip demonstrates and see how a better understanding of proper sequence will improve your ball striking.