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Faster Not Harder!

Harder brings on thoughts of tension, so how does one swing faster?

By Quite The Chap
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Harder brings on thoughts of tension, so how does one swing faster?

This is an interesting question, I don’t believe there are any ‘tips’ to swing it faster, I think that needs to take place with specific training. BUT I do think that there are steps that can be taken to keep you loose and free swinging.

The last thing you need to deal with is tension. Tension will suck out all possible ways to swing the club faster. Tension can start in the feet. In the hands. At the beginning of the takeaway. A lot of the time it starts in the space between your ears. Here are some simple ways to keep you tension free.

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Quite The Chap
Quite The Chap

Colby Johannson has been a lover of golf ever since his departure from diapers. He took his talents to Arizona to play college golf but his dream of pursing an acting career pulled him to the West Coast. After a successful decade in front of and behind the camera, Colby's love and talent of golf has remained a constant and is what lead to the creation of Quite The Chap.

20 Comments

  1. Bob Pegram

    August 31, 2019 at 7:34 pm

    It is impossible to ad any significant clubhead speed with the hands. This article here explains why:
    http://www.tutelman.com/golf/swing/handhit.php#shaftbend
    The reason clubhead speed increases when the wrist uncock is delayed is that it stores up additional centrifugal force that is released at once during impact. It is like cracking a whip. The legs, hips, and torso motions are where the centrifugal force is generated. The hands save it and then release it. All your hands should do is keep the clubface square so all that force sends the ball straight where you want it to go.

    Reply

    • Tom Campbell

      March 13, 2020 at 7:53 pm

      Colby,

      Thank you for enlightening us with your 60 second tips. They are, in a word, SPECTACULAR.

      I have gotten more from your tips, like todays about swinging faster, not harder………your tips are a lot of common sense that when one thinks on them they make right on the money.

      Honestly, I get more from you than I do from all the big name pros.

      Thank you,

      Reply

    • Hughes Norton

      July 5, 2020 at 9:16 am

      Quite the Chap: really enjoy your videos. But swinging faster without confusing swing thoughts is simple.

      Check out “Tour Tempo.“ Just match your takeaway, start of the downswing, and impact to the tones. It will seem way too fast at first, but the body quickly adjusts. Higher ball trajectory, more distance. All without ANY thoughts about swing positions or anything else.

      It WORKS! Do your viewers a huge service — shoot a video about Tour Tempo.

      Reply

    • Kent Kaiser

      July 6, 2020 at 6:47 am

      Best swing thought I’ve ever heard for a driver is to “Sling it, don’t swing it.” It connotes a freer, more rhythmic motion that prevents tension in the body.

      Reply

    • Kent Kaiser

      December 4, 2020 at 4:58 am

      The best “swing thought” I’ve heard to help swing faster (not harder) is to “sling it” not swing it, especially with the driver. It promotes the feeling of staying loose and relaxed while letting your natural athletic instincts take over while executing the swing.

      Reply

  2. Raymond CHASTEL

    September 1, 2019 at 5:45 am

    At age 85 ,I fight to keep up distance .I concurr with what is said in the video and the above comment :keep your wrists completely loose .The speed being created by centrifugal force ,build it up smoothily by starting with a big left shoulder turn ,left shoulder comes beneath the chin ,then bring back this left shoulder to it’s initiai position SMOOTHILY while pushing off left instep .

    Reply

    • Jane

      September 1, 2019 at 4:23 pm

      I am a 85 woman who plays 18 holes of golf 3 times a week. I like Raymond’s reply. I like your vedios.

      Reply

  3. Andre Gelinas

    September 14, 2019 at 2:54 pm

    Colby, Really enjoy your video. Always look for them. Educational with some humour! Great!

    Reply

    • Quite The Chap

      September 16, 2019 at 12:27 pm

      Thanks Andre, much appreciated!

      Reply

      • Kevin G

        January 24, 2020 at 12:08 pm

        Simply the best way to swing faster without swinging harder is to REMOVE THE WORD “HIT” FROM YOUR VOCABULARY! After all, they don’t call the best golfers in the world ball “hitters,” do they. They’re called ball “strikers.” You’ll never hear a golf commentator say “That was a purely “hit” shot.” They say, “That was a purely “struck” shot. The key to more speed with even LESS effort, is to change your goal from hitting the ball, to completing your swing to it’s finish with no regard whatsoever to “hitting” the ball.
        A golf ball weighs one and a half ounces. Someone who weighs 100 pounds, outweighs a golf ball by over 1200 times the static mass. The strike of the ball will not slow down your club head one iota. What slows you down, is thinking “hit” the ball. If you make “hitting” your golf ball your goal, you WILL slow down as you approach impact. You won’t want to, you won’t be trying to, BUT YOU WILL! What you think, is what you will do, regardless of whether it helps or hurts you.
        Ever watch the Olympic sprinters? The 100 meter dash? What you will see 100% of the time, is that they actually slow down as they approach the finish line. They “pull up” as they reach that white line. The reason for that is, they consider that white line the “finish.” In other words, that white line is their “goal.” What I can guarantee, is if they moved that white line to 105 meters, and used a laser at 100 meters that the runners couldn’t see to time them, I can assure you, all of their times for the “actual” 100 meters, would be faster.
        So, the key to “speed” in your golf swing is to STOP THINKING THAT HITTING THE BALL is your goal. Maybe you don’t think you currently do that, but if you are not consciously thinking “finish my SWING,” then you absolutely are thinking the former. Human nature, I’m afraid. Just the word “hit” itself, creates anxiety and tension and nothing kills speed like tension.
        The key to swing speed is to remove the ball as any sort of goal. Sure, you want to strike the ball, but you want to view the ball as no more than a “guide” to where your club is supposed to be swinging THROUGH AND PAST. Right now, I venture to say that most of you unconsciously think of the ball as a “stop sign.” If you really want to go faster, think of the ball as a “through sign,” and you WILL swing faster. When you do swing through and past, you’ll feel the difference immediately. It’s unmistakable and quite frankly, glorious. Rinse and repeat.

        Reply

  4. Pete

    November 7, 2019 at 11:54 am

    One thing I notice on the video for Swing faster not Harder……qtc hands are Not at his front/right thigh as he had said to do in a previous Rx video. What’s up QTC?

    Reply

    • Quite The Chap

      November 12, 2019 at 4:07 pm

      Hey Pete, I get what you’re saying. In this video you’ll see that my ‘trigger’ is to move my hands forward towards my thigh right before I take the club away. I don’t usually start with my hands there but I move them there before my takeaway.

      That being said, when I’m filming, I don’t always adhere to my own advice. GOOD CATCH!

      Reply

  5. Rusty Carr

    January 3, 2020 at 12:19 pm

    The end goal that we all want is some combination of increased distance and accuracy. To get increased distance we want some combination of increased ball speed, center contact and optimal spin/launch angle. Increased ball speed can come from a faster club head speed at the potential cost of reduced center contact. Reduced tension is great advice for getting increased club head speed while minimizing accuracy loss.There are also many other ways to get increased club head speed (e.g. wider or longer swing path, faster hip rotation, eliminating casting, proper movement sequencing). There’s no way to know if any of these measures can work for yourself without feedback. My short answer for how to swing faster not harder is to get on a launch monitor and measure your swing speed AND your distance and accuracy numbers to determine which techniques work best. If you’re good enough to determine swing speed, ball speed, launch angle and spin rates by just watching the ball flight, you probably don’t need any coaching to increase swing speed. And we should probably point out that the fastest way to discover what is slowing your swing speed down and which technique improvement will get the most results is to get help from a PGA pro.

    Reply

  6. Daniel A Howie

    March 13, 2020 at 7:08 pm

    Money says your glasses didn’t stay on your hat brim when you hit the golf ball.

    Reply

    • Quite The Chap

      March 23, 2020 at 1:15 pm

      Ha ha ha, they do tend to fly off when I forget they’re there!

      Reply

  7. Sue A. Kropornicki

    December 3, 2020 at 7:24 pm

    Love all your 60 sec. tips, I have saved all of them.

    Reply

  8. Will Skeat

    December 3, 2020 at 11:46 pm

    Wow, what a worthless clip that was. That was right up there with Dustin Johnson’s tip on how to hit a fade: “Remember to hit a fade.”

    Oh, and Bob P. – you obviously know nothing about dynamics, neither does the guy whose website you cite.

    Reply

  9. Craig Cline

    January 2, 2021 at 9:30 am

    Love your tips, Quite the Chap — and the humor you inject them with. Best wishes in the new year, and remember to “Keep it simple!”

    Reply

  10. Bob Dignan

    March 2, 2021 at 11:02 am

    I have a slightly different take on this question. I am 77 years old and have recently been working on getting back some swing speed. What I think I have found is that I cannot force it; I need to build it. This is the same on every swing and also over time. I have some physical issues that make it difficult for me to swing really hard (not to mention keep a harder swing under control). The most noticeable one right now is pain in my left wrist. If I get at all jerky, the pain is accentuated, so I have been working on smoothing out the process. There seem to be three keys to this. One is lag, which is well known and generally highly sought after by many golfers. A second is swing length, both in the back swing and the follow through. The third is less discussed but still well known. I have heard it called “shallowing out” the club shaft in the down swing.

    The most difficult of the three for most people is adding swing length. A longer swing provides more time to build speed, but it also can become unwieldy. Golfers may also try unwise and unnecessary contortions to achieve longer swings, especially on the back swing. trying to get to a “full finish” they may lose their balance. It takes a lot of time to build a longer swing, but I still think it is worth the effort.

    Gaining lag should be easier. This can be a matter of merely learning to “feel” the club head in the down swing and allowing it to be “dragged” through impact. You can start by doing this chipping or even putting. It should feel like the club head is “released” after impact (whatever the actual physics may be). As you gradually lengthen the swing, while maintaining this feeling, you will get more speed with less effort. At the same time you can build confidence in the direction of the shots.

    I think for many golfers, “shallowing” the club may be something they have not tried or don’t understand. Hence it may be a good source of both speed and accuracy. Many golfers “come over the top” in their down swings. There are all kinds of reasons for this, but the results are often shots like violent slices, pulls or even pull hooks, not to mention even more disastrous results like shanks. Shallowing the club means that the “plane” of the swing drops on the downswing. A typical slicer may have a right to left downswing, because knowing that he tends to hit the ball to the right, he tries to pull it to the left. To cure this he may try taking the club back further inside. Often this results in the club getting to the top of the backswing at a position that is too far inside. Unless a concerted effort is made to prevent it, the club will tend to “loop” to the outside from this position on the way down in reaction to the inside movement on the backswing. This requires stopping or almost stopping the motion of the club going back and forcing it down to the inside. While this can be done, it is easier to start the club back straight or even a little to the outside and just let it “loop” down and to the inside. An example of this is Jim Furyk’s swing, which has an obvious loop. It seems like Furyk’s loop is greater than necessary (although it has certainly worked for him), but it is not a bad move to copy in order to get a feel for the movement. While Furyk is the most obvious example, most good golfers have this move in their swings to some extent, either consciously or unconsciously. The amount of the loop can be easily adjusted once the feeling is acquired. Again, starting with smaller swings, even chipping or putting, is the best approach. Starting with putting may be enlightening, especially for golfers who have tendency to pull putts.

    Reply

  11. John Rosenthal

    April 20, 2022 at 8:24 am

    What about speed training tools – can’t they help you swing faster?

    Reply

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