The Relaxed Golf Swing

If someone were to bump you while you were swinging a golf club, that would throw off your swing and you’d hit a poor shot. You accomplish the same thing by putting tension anywhere in your body when you swing.

Tension forces movements to go in unintended directions, or prevents certain movements from happening at all. The solution is to stay as relaxed as possible during the stroke.

But just what does it mean to be relaxed? Many people think that relaxation is a limp, lifeless state. Nothing directed or powerful can come of that.

There is another kind of relaxation, though, and it is more than the absence of tension. It comes from the mind and is the source of a person’s maximum speed and power in movement.

How do you get it? Essentially, when the mind is feeling an infinitely rapid motion, it becomes relaxed and the body follows naturally.

I go into great detail about this in my book, The Golfing Self.

Once you have that feeling of infinitely rapid movement, swing the golf club, not at a ball, but just swing.

Monitor your body and if you felt muscular force anywhere, then think “relax more” and swing again. Remember it is your mind that you are relaxing.

If you still feel tension somewhere, think “relax more” and swing again. Pay attention to your hands. That is the first place we put tension into our swing, and the last place from where we remove it.

Remember, we’re not lifting weights here. We’re swinging a golf club that weighs less than a pound. Keep going until any feeling of physical force and muscular tension has been eliminated from your swing.

At this point, your muscles are moving freely and efficiently. The club will contact the ball with all the force and speed you can supply.

Now go hit some balls with that swing and see what you think.