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Speed is changing the way golf is played.
Bryson DeChambeau has been the tip of the spear in the quest for endless speed and distance. In less than a year, he went from 175 to 190mph ball speed and won the US Open. Now, he’s swinging at more than 200mph when he hits a drive just right and even competes in World Long Drive competitions.
Naturally, if you’re like most golfers you want to learn how to increase swing speed too. Because more speed means longer drives, shorter approach shots, and hopefully, lower scores.
Plus, swinging fast and hard is fun. There isn’t much more satisfying than seeing your hard work pay off as you bomb a drive down the fairway.
But how do you actually increase speed?
Let’s break it down…
First, why is speed so important?
Because extra speed makes golf a little easier. When you have more speed, you hit it longer off the tee and have shorter approach shots. Which makes it easier to get on the green and closer proximity to the pin… which should lead to lower scores.
Plus, speed helps with hitting from the rough too. When you find yourself in tough lies, speed will help your club move through the rough and get the ball to the green. More speed will also help create more spin with wedges too.
Before teaching you how to increase speed, it’s important to establish your base speed. Invest in one of the following golf gadgets so you can regularly measure your swing speed to see if you’re making progress.
Or, you can invest more in a high-quality launch monitor like Flightscope Mevo or Voice Caddie SC300.
Make sure to read the average PGA Tour stats from Trackman to compare your numbers. Once you’ve established your base swing speed with different golf clubs, let’s get into the best ways to increase your speed.
The most popular way to increase swing speed is through speed training with weighted clubs and other training aids. The goal is to retrain your muscles to adapt to the new speed and make it normal.
The company that helped put speed training on the map is SuperSpeed Golf. Their system comes with three weighted clubs and a regular practice schedule to increase speed over time. I’ve personally used them for years and can say first hand, they work!
According to SuperSpeed Golf, you can “Increase the speed and power of your golf swing by 5% to 8% in as little as 4-6 weeks of regular practice.”
That 5-8% extra speed can result in 5, 10, or 15+ yards on your drive. Which will leave you with a shorter club into the green!
These clubs work great and they’re trusted by over 700 tour pros. Plus, they have different sizes for seniors, ladies, and juniors.
Click here to buy a set today.
While conventional speed training will help increase speed, there’s a lot more you can do. Here’s how Preston Summerhays (whose dad Boyd coaches players like Tony Finau and Taylor Gooch), gained 18mph more speed.
According to Golf.com, his dad told him to go to the range and swing as hard as he can. “His training regimen was simple: for three 30-minute sessions per week, he went to the range and swung as hard as he could.” Clearly, it worked well as he went on to play in multiple Korn Ferry events and even the US Open.
You can do the same as long as you go to the range with one intent – don’t worry about accuracy. When you have solo speed sessions on the driving range, focus only on swinging as hard and fast as you can. Who cares where the ball goes, it’s about training your muscles and rewiring your brain to swing faster.
After reading that Golf.com article, I decided to take my launch monitor and start training like that two times per week. Less than a month later, I saw noticeable gains in my clubhead and ball speed!
But I also made some mistakes and wanted to provide some tips to make the most of these sessions:
Don’t forget, power comes from the ground up.
Yet, so many average golfers swing mostly with their upper body on the downswing. This kills distance! When you don’t use your lower body enough, you will never get the most speed and distance from your game.
In the same Golf.com article from the previous strategy, Preston outlined the importance of ground force. “My body found out that to get that power, I dip a little bit and then use the ground really well… it just naturally happened when trying to swing fast.”
The good news is that you can start doing this at your next driving range session. Try to push off the ground to increase swing speed.
While the training methods above will help increase speed, don’t forget about equipment too. Your clubhead will play somewhat of a role with speed, but your shaft is even more important.
If your shafts are too heavy, it’s hard to swing fast enough and increase speed. Conversely, if they’re too light, it’s hard to maintain any sort of accuracy.
The best way to test if your shaft is helping or hurting your game is to use a launch monitor that tracks spin rates. According to this article, “The spin rate of a driver generally ranges between 2,000 and 4,000 rpm, while the average, cleanly struck wedge shot spins at about 10,000 rpm.”
Switching shafts can help you add more speed without changing your swing. Schedule a fitting at your local golf store to test your shaft vs. other ones to make sure you aren’t losing speed due to your equipment.
Finally, if you want to learn how to increase swing speed you need to improve your physical conditioning. Golf is not easy on the body as it’s a very unnatural movement and adding speed makes it even more taxing.
To add speed, you want to focus on strengthening your body and increasing flexibility.
Tiger Woods changed the landscape of the game when he made working out a normal part of his routine. No one else was doing it at the time, but now almost everyone is on board (except maybe John Daly).
Needless to say, you can increase swing speed as you strengthen your muscles. Here are five golf exercises that will help add strength and speed.
Lastly, don’t forget to keep up with your flexibility as well.
Not only will being more flexible help you avoid injuries, it will allow your body to make a bigger turn which can add more speed. The easiest way to do increase flexibility are:
The better you treat your body, the more it will help you out on the golf course.
More speed can make golf a little easier and lead to hitting it further than you thought possible. While I’m confident all of these strategies will help you out on the quest for distance, remember two things:
Stay patient, trust the strategies above, and make sure to measure your speed to get the best results.
Is one of your goals adding more speed and distance this year?
Let us know in the comments below!
