Improving tempo?

[Jay845]

I have watched Confessions, NSA, and Soft draw and all of them have improved my ball striking immensely. One area that I continue to struggle with is my swing tempo. I have a tendency to get very quick with my transition. When this occurs, my ball striking gets quite erractic.

What are some drills, tips, or images you use to improve you swing tempo?

 

[fronesis]

In addition to what Brian discusses in SD, for me, trying to add a little bit of float-loading is great for my tempo, especially the transition.

 

[Jim Kobylinski]

I have watched Confessions, NSA, and Soft draw and all of them have improved my ball striking immensely. One area that I continue to struggle with is my swing tempo. I have a tendency to get very quick with my transition. When this occurs, my ball striking gets quite erractic.

What are some drills, tips, or images you use to improve you swing tempo?

Practice hitting your favorite short iron 30 yards less with the exact same swing and full backswing/full swing.

Also, usually when players get quick with their transition it is because they want to hit the ball further and they don't speed up their backswing to match their downswing. If you are going to swing that much harder on the downswing make sure you make the backswing that much faster so tempo stays similar from back to down otherwise bad things can happen

 

[Richie3Jack]

For me, I like to check my takeaway first. If the takeaway gets a bit quick then I tend to get quick on the startdown.

If that's fine, then I personally concentate on the pressure in my hands. I use the pressure point on the lifeline of my right hand, up against the left thumb. The pressure should be at its greatest at impact. If it is at the startdown, then I'm getting too quick and all hell breaks loose. I want max pressure at impact because the clubhead speed and hand speed will be at its max at impact as well. Jim's suggestion is a good as well.

A lot of it is just an impulse to really kill the ball instead of trying to get it so you are 'putting everything into the ball.' That's why I don't like that 'swish drill' that many people use, where the grab the club up by the neck and try to make the club 'swish' right around impact. It's too much of a concentration of clubhead speed and I find that very difficult to control and working on other things like pressure much easier to execute.




3JACK

 

[puttmad]

Jay,

Have you tried counting?

There are a few schools of thought on this but the best I've found is the "three" count...

That is, 1) for the forward press (if you don't do one in actuality, then do one mentally), 2) is the top of the backswing and 3) is the finish (not impact)...

It is basically a one second count, i.e. "one thousand one"....the f/press takes a second, the backswing to the top takes a second and from top to finish takes a second, which will mean that from top to impact takes approx 1/3rd of a second, which is perfect....

 

[Kevin Shields]

Make some swings holding the club only with your pincer fingers.