Acceleration in the Golf Swing: The Simple Cure

When it comes to speed, all golfers know it’s crucial in the game. The speed of their swing and the speed of the ball are directly related. The former translates into the latter, which impacts the distance in which the ball travels.

We all know that golf is mainly about two things. The first is the distance and the other, is the direction of your golf ball. So, if you get the distance and direction correct on every shot, you’ll ace the game. To have a major impact on distance, you must take care of the speed.

What’s closely tied to speed is acceleration. Every golf shot starts from a moment of stillness, the address position. From there, you must accelerate the club to create speed as it not only helps you gain distance but also helps regulate and control the distance.

Let’s talk about it in depth:

What is Acceleration?

Acceleration is the capacity of an object to gain speed. And, in the golf swing, it’s the rate at which the club goes from motionless at address to top speed.

The opposite of acceleration is deceleration. It is the rate at which an object reduces speed.

At some point, every golfer needs to decelerate if they want their swing to stop. But, sometimes deceleration also happens before impact and that’s when it becomes a major issue.

Overall, acceleration makes it easier to control distance and hit the ball far while deceleration makes it more difficult to control distance. The latter leads to worse contact.

Why is Acceleration Important

You might remember hitting a shot that’s thin and ended up blading across the greens. Well, you might be surprised knowing that’s a result of a deceleration of the club head before impact. While those shots travel farther than we anticipated, the added distance is nowhere helpful.

Here are a few benefits of acceleration:

• Provides you with distance and control.
• It’s easier to control as it works with the natural movement of the swing.
• It helps muscles remain relatively relaxed.
• It leverages the law of physics to hit the ball.

Let’s do an exercise. Think about an object dropping from about 5 feet in the air. It is going to accelerate toward the ground because of gravity, isn’t it?

Now imagine the top of your backswing. Likewise, your handstand golf club is up in the air and must drop, or travel down to reach the golf ball.

And, the most efficient way to do that is to work with gravity, not against it. That’s when acceleration will come to motion organically.

Now deceleration as discussed above, is much more difficult to control. The only way your club can decelerate during your downswing is when you work against gravity. It takes fractions of a second after you’ve accelerated to start decelerating.

Why Deceleration Happens

Following are the reasons/causes why a deceleration happens:

• It happens when a player thinks they’ve swung too hard or too far for the desired shot.
• It also takes place when a player is startled in the backswing.
• When the player notices a swing flaw that they want to stop or correct.
• When the player doesn’t trust their choice of the correct club.

Deceleration due to Swing Flaw

One thing that you can’t control in the game is a bullhorn being blown in the middle of your backswing. This makes the golfers startled right in the middle of their swing.

So, they try to slow their swing down to minimize the distance the ball travels. This increases the likelihood of hitting the ball fat or thin, which is worse than hitting a slice.

But, instead of reacting to the swing flaw, you can notice where you made the mistake(s) in the swing.

Too Long of a Backswing Causes You to Decel

When you try to hit the ball a certain way, but halfway you start doubting or slowing down makes you hit a shot that’s worse than the shot you would have hit otherwise.

Hitting the Wrong Club

When you choose the wrong club, you decelerate without even knowing. To cure this, you must accelerate through impact. And that is only possible when you trust. So, trust in the club chosen, trust in gravity, trust in the distance the club will travel, and finally, trust in the swing.

The Deceleration Cure: Accelerate Through the Ball

A common myth is you need to swing harder to accelerate through the ball. But that’s not the case with a golf swing at all. Instead, you just need the speed to increase.

Here’s how:

Focus on relaxing your muscles. Focus on firing your core and hip muscles through impact to create speed that translates to acceleration and distance.

Acceleration Drills

Following are some drills you can do to practice acceleration:

Clockwork Pitching Drill

1. When on the range, take each wedge and practice hitting shots where you stop your backswing at 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.
2. Then, note the distance each one travels without trying to dictate it.

Note that you don’t swing the club, and instead try to lean into gravity with this one.

Pendulum Drill

In this drill, pay attention to how far the club naturally follows through when you hit partial shots when you pitch or chip.

This will give you a good indication of your acceleration/deceleration through impact.

Impact Bag Drill

A training tool known as an impact bag can be very helpful in creating acceleration. You can also use a towel/pillow as an alternative.

Here’s how you can use an impact bag drill:

1. Put the impact bag where a golf ball would be.
2. Take some swings into the impact bag.

Just by looking at how your club made contact with the bag, you can tell whether it was an acceleration or a deceleration.

Final Thoughts

Now go out there and make sure that with every shot you’re accelerating through impact. The more you accelerate, the more consistency you will have in your distance, direction, and quality of impact on all your clubs.