Anne Van Dam on Hitting It Long (Video)

Back on April 24 I did an LPGA post called LA Women about the LA Open. On my Twitter account Alfred Mol dropped me a note about Anne Van Dam, one of the rookies on Tour. Since Anne is tied for the lead at the MediHeal after the first round, I thought I'd post this video she did about hitting long drives.



Anne gives two tips here. (I like when players make it simple!)

The first is something you have probably heard before -- namely, that you need to hit up on the ball when it's on a tee. That means you have to play the ball a bit further forward in your stance because if you hit down on the tee shot, you won't get the height and reduced spin you need in order to get distance.

But it's the second tip that may surprise you, and it's actually good advice for any club when you want to get distance. As Anne says, most weekend players try to swing fast from the top of their backswing... but that's wrong. You don't want to try and swing really fast until you're halfway down!

There are a number of reasons for this. Anne mentions that you'll lose all your speed if you try to create it at the top. That happens because you'll tend to release all your wrist cock in the top half of your downswing if you do. Waiting until late in the swing lets you keep that wrist cock longer.

By waiting until the bottom half of your swing to consciously speed up, you also give yourself a better chance to get the club on line and hit the ball where you want it to go. That's because your body is already in position at that point, so your legs don't twist your body around too soon or too late. You not only get more clubhead speed but you make better contact.

A side effect of this is that you're less likely to stand up and hit the ball thin. When you wait until late in the swing to speed up the clubhead, the effort of getting your wrists to uncock tends to make you move slightly down toward the ball and "stay down on it" better.

This is a case of letting the natural physics of the golf swing work in your favor, so you do the right things automatically. It's a great tip from a player with four LET wins and a big drive. You can read a bit more about her at this post on the LPGA site.

Trust me, Alfred is right. You'll want to keep an eye on her, especially this week.