- Adam Bazalgette, back here in Naples, Florida,
Two-Time PGA Teacher Of The Year Award winner,
long-time David Leadbetter Associate
and founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
Today, how to do something we all wanna do,
how to increase your club head speed.
Stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
Well these days I'm lucky if I can get
up to a 100 miles an hour with the driver
but we all want to maximize our speed
and increase our potential for speed.
Now most people violate the significant law of physics
that is directly correlative to that.
I'm gonna show you that in this video.
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So the law of physics in question
is called moment of inertia,
and what it states is that
anything you are trying to rotate,
there is resistance to rotation
and the more the weight is spread away from the center.
Now you've always heard it said,
"Hey a wide swing's a powerful swing".
That isn't really true at least
not in the wrong parts of the swing,
I'll show you that in just a moment.
A classic example you've doubtless visually seen
a moment of inertia in action,
is when you get a tightrope walker
they have these huge long poles.
What's the purpose of that?
It spreads a lot of weight away from their center
so they don't topple as easily,
or they don't rotate as easily.
So if you're wide at the wrong points in the golf swing
you're gonna significantly reduce
in speed in your swing and add drag.
Let me show you a great player in action.
So, Sergio Garcia a lot of fun to watch.
Now watch Sergio, you can see the club head goes
just off the screen there as he goes back.
So picture that as the width of his circle going back.
Now watch as he uses moment of inertia coming down.
Watch how narrow the circle is coming down,
so what was out here is now in here,
really close to his body center
and that's so little resistance
to creating speed when you can do that.
He creates width right down at the bottom.
That's good width, that's a good straight left arm,
the club head's a long way from his body there,
but he keeps that club as close as possible to him
to make it easy to create speed.
Not just golfers either,
let's have a look at the baseball player here.
Look how close that is to him,
look how narrow his circle is as he comes down.
And it's only when he gets right to the ball,
pow does it get wide.
But look at the narrowness of that circle.
Okay, impressive stuff there.
Now how are you gonna get that into your game?
Well it's much like skipping a rock.
So I want you to realize this isn't something
you've probably never done before in any other context.
If you skip a rock, you move forward,
you move this way, the arm bends,
gets closer to you, then you've got
a lot of power to make the thing go out there.
You could snap a whip or snap a towel,
we've done a lot of over the years in our videos.
Let me just give you a couple of thoughts here though.
One, a mental pitfall to this,
and I'll address that towards the end of the video,
and two, let's check out this possibility.
Perhaps if you work on getting your circle
or the arc of your swing wider on that side,
it will really help you lead
to being narrower on this side.
That's what you're looking for.
Let me show you a great visual example of that.
Long-hitter extraordinaire Dustin Johnson.
So there's the long-hitting Dustin Johnson
cranking another ball off the tee.
As we watch the start of his downswing,
you see the hips fire forward,
you see the wrists load.
So you can see how narrow the circle is there.
But if you look at how wide the circle gets,
that's complete that on the front side of the ball,
it's way wider on the front side
then it is coming down.
So his circle has much more space on this side
than it does on that side.
A great mental picture and a sure path
to getting a lot of club head speed.
So mental pitfalls,
I mentioned at the beginning of the video
there's a mental pitfall.
I'll tell you what it is,
it's that thing right there.
I've been at this thing forty years playing golf,
teaching full-time nearly 30.
When people lock onto that ball,
they prioritize a good hit and they aim for it,
they're locked out of making any real changes
like we're talking about.
So start out, get super gumpy-ish and soft,
more than you'd be in a regular swing.
Feel that forward motion, this kind of motion
feel the club react to that and get closer to you
and feel that freedom out there.
And you notice my eyes and my body,
my mental awareness is over there,
it's not down here.
You're gonna have to feel it on the scale initially.
When you do this you'll find that
is not that difficult, okay.
There's the load,
there's the freedom.
Next thing I'll aim for the single tee
there's no ball on there.
Little bit more specific,
a lot less straightening of the ball.
Let me just rehearse that.
Liked it, liked the feel of that there.
Carefree and loose.
If I was really playing,
I'd be probably a little firmer
and more disciplined than that
but you've got to feel something on a big scale
to make it happen on a small scale.
Of course then down goes the ball,
and again you gotta check yourself mentally
when that thing's there am I suddenly attracted by it?
Do I aim at that or can I feel the same things in my swing?
And just forget how good contact is temporarly.
So we get set up here,
I'm gonna be extra loose,
my goal's narrow to wide.
Kinda hit that one off with the neck of the club a bit
but I felt the sort of the things I wanted to feel.
You can do this if you'll just be patient with yourself
and you'll free your mind up,
give yourself a chance to work on it.
Well I hope you found that helpful
hope it's gonna help with your club head speed.
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Thanks for your time.