Are you ready to find the sweet spot more often, hit longer drives, and be more consistent with your golf swing? If so, we have five proven golf swing tips to help improve your game fast.
Let’s face it, golf is a complex game and the swing is a constant work in progress.
Perfecting your golf swing indeed takes time and practice, but there are a few simple tips to keep in mind that can make a big difference quickly.
As legendary ball striker Ben Hogan said, “Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.”
Today, we’ll help you overcome some of the most common issues so you can hit it more consistently and lower your handicap – fast.
5 Golf Swing Tips For Better Ball Striking
1. Start With the Grip
If you want to develop a more consistent, repeatable swing, it all starts with the grip. How you grip the club will have a direct impact on your path, clubface, and overall strike.
There are three types of grip positions; weak, strong, or neutral.
In an ideal world, you want a neutral to strong grip position, as it will allow you to square the face at impact for a straighter ball flight. Plus, it might even help you hit a perfect draw, one of the most sought-after shots in golf.
A weak grip makes it much more likely to hit a slice, as you’ll take the club too far inside and likely get steep on the downswing. Assuming you’re a right-handed golfer, the biggest change you’ll want to make is your left hand feeling more over the top of the grip.
If you’re looking down at the grip, you want to see 2–3 knuckles of your left hand. This will help you control the clubface more and improve your ball striking fast. It might take some getting used too but will pay dividends for the rest of your golf career.
2. Better Ball Position
Once you have your hands in a good position on the golf club, another overlooked area to hit it better is ball position. Each club in the bag has different length and loft, which means they need their own position in the stance for a proper swing arc. Otherwise, you’ll hit a lot of fat or thin shots.
Here is the proper ball position for different clubs in the bag:
- Driver: Ball off your front foot with a slightly wider than shoulder width stance to build a good base.
- Fairway woods: One ball back of driver position, under the logo on your left chest.
- Irons: One ball back of fairway woods for mid to short irons. Long irons/hybrids should be about the same as fairway woods.
- Wedges: Middle of stance, directly under the buttons of polo.
3. Speed Up Your Tempo
Once you have the right setup position and grip, the golf swing gets a lot easier. The next thing to check is your tempo – how fast you swing the golf club.
This is one of the biggest differences between the everyday golfer vs. the professional. Pros swing the club in about one second, while amateurs take 2–3 to complete their swing. Swinging faster creates more clubhead speed, which leads to more distance and oftentimes a much smoother transition.
When you speed up your backswing, you will have a much better rhythm to your swing. This will lead to a smoother transition (less of a “jerky” motion) and likely add distance to your game immediately.
To learn more tempo, check out the Easy Tempo Technique from Sir. Nick Faldo for fast improvement.
4. Stop Swaying
Another key difference between pros and amateurs is how they move their bodies on the backswing. Pros rotate around their body, while a lot of everyday golfers laterally sway to try and create more power.
The sooner you can stop the sway, the sooner you can hit it longer and improve your contact.
Think about it like this – if you laterally move off the golf ball 1–2 inches, you’ll need to get back to your starting position on the downswing. Then find a way to get your weight to your lead foot and simultaneously fire the hips (more on this in tip number five).
Needless to say, this is nearly impossible to time correctly as the golf swing happens so quickly. But when you rotate and keep your body square over the ball, it’s much easier to unwind and generate power.
A lot of times, swaying is a result of lack of flexibility and tight hip muscles. Make sure to check our golf exercises guide to help you build a stronger body for more power, better fundamentals, and hopefully avoid golf injuries.
Also, here is an easy drill to fix this issue:
- On the range, grab a small golf bag that holds the practice balls or a golf club stand.
- Put it about an inch away from your trail hip.
- Hit some short irons and wedges without touching the bag or stand.
- Having something sitting there will force you to rotate vs. sway. If you do bump it, then you get instant feedback that you’re swaying instead of rotating properly.
5. Lead With the Lower Body
The final golf swing tip to help your game fast is to lead with the lower body on the downswing.
Too many golfers unwind with the upper body instead of the lower body, which leads to a steep downswing. This can result in a lot of fat or thin shots, not to mention much more likely to hit a slice as you don’t create much lag.
While the SF1 Driver can help fix a slice with your driver, you need to start the downswing with your lower body to generate more power, too. Study after study shows that the longer you hit it off the tee, the lower your scoring average (even if you miss a few more fairways).
From the top of your backswing, you want to feel like you’re pressing down on your lead foot. This will help the ground act like a springboard to push off and use the power of your legs.
Once you get the majority of your weight to your lead foot, then you can unwind the hips. Too many golfers fire the hips without getting their weight forward, which leads to spinning out of the shot.
These Five Tips Will Improve Your Golf Swing in No Time
Use these five proven swing tips to build a more consistent, repeatable golf swing.
It’s our goal to help every golfer be the best version of themselves they can be, with helpful tips, professional instruction, and high-quality training aids.
If you want more advanced tips so you can swing like Tiger in 2000 (arguably the best version of his swing ever), read our full guide here. Or, check out Scratch Club – an all access pass to dial in the six most important areas of your game.
