Mike Malaska on Creating Relaxed Speed (Video)

This short video includes a drill to help you create more clubhead speed by eliminating excess tension from your arms and shoulders. It's pretty self-explanatory.

One quick thing to point out here is that when you start eliminating excess tension, your tempo, rhythm and sequencing become more important. By that I mean that you have to learn to work with your body rather than trying to force it to behave a certain way, because that tension is created when you try to make your body do something it doesn't necessarily want to do!

Bear in mind that your swing may actually feel a bit slower when you begin eliminating tension -- Bobby Jones famously said he felt as if he had all the time in the world to make a swing when he was moving properly. That's because, in order to create clubhead speed, the clubhead has to catch up to and swing past your hands at impact. If it doesn't, you don't get the multiplied speed that comes from the length of the shaft. Your arms and hands should cause the clubhead to accelerate through impact but, if your hands continue to lead the clubhead past impact, you haven't created the full amount of clubhead speed you're capable of.

I know that sounds like the opposite of what most instructors say but if you watch slow-motion video of the pros hitting the ball, you'll see the clubhead catch up to their hands at impact and move past as the ball flies away. Don't let the description of how the arms and hands START the downswing become your expectation when the downswing FINISHES and the clubhead actually hits the ball.

Try Malaska's drill. That may explain it better than anything I write here will.