Power. Every golfer wants more of it, and the game itself is obsessed with it — for good reason. The more distance you have off the tee, the easier the game becomes. Sure, you need to keep it between the goalposts, but a good coach can help with that. The question golfers have when it comes to distance is relatively simple: How do I get more of it?
Here to help with that is GOLFTEC’s Director of Instruction Nick Clearwater, alongside fellow GOLFTEC teacher and professional long drive contestant Brad Skupaka, with a couple small adjustments you can make that will boost your backswing turn the next time you go play.
And before we get going, we wanted to let you know that GOLF.com and our partners at GOLFTEC are teaming up to help get a swing evaluation at a GOLFTEC near you, which you can sign up for right here or below!
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And in the meantime, two tips to help boost your backswing turn:
1. Flare your trail foot (and knee)
In order to hit the ball longer, you need a bigger backswing turn. And to do that, you need to turn. But that can be a problem, Clearwater explains, because many golfers have limited hip mobility.
Thankfully, there’s an easy workaround to this problem.
“A good way to make yourself effectively more flexible is to turn them about 20 degrees, maybe even more than that,” Clearwater says.
This alone will help increase your backswing turn, but pairing it with another move can bring it to another level…
2. Straighten your trail leg
With your setup adjusted, now it’s time to make a backswing. As the club moves away, Skupaka says you’ll want to feel your trail leg gradually straighten.
“Doing this adds some flex into your lead leg, which makes it easier to turn the hips,” he says.
This one-two punch will help you turn more on the backswing for a bigger, more powerful backswing.
