Several months ago I published a post on gaining your maximum distance by swinging with relaxed arms. Let me more specific here about what that means.

In 1969, a British engineer named David Williams published a book titled The Science of the Golf Swing. In this book, Williams analyzed a stroboscopic sequence photograph of Bobby Jones’s downswing.

Among other things, Williams determined that the speed of Jones’s hands in the first part of the downswing, from the top of the backswing to hip-height, was 34 feet per second, and in that interval the clubhead moves from nothing to 50 feet per second.

From there to impact, Williams found that the hands continue to travel at 34 feet per second. They do not gain any speed. The clubhead, however, increases its speed to 165 feet per second, or 113 miles per hour. This change is not all due to the arm swing. The effect of a hinge and of centrifugal force count, too.

But the point here is that, since the acceleration due to gravity of a falling object is 32 feet per second, all you need to do is drop your arms from the top as a gravity move. You don’t need to add force of your own.

Relaxation? The more relaxed your arms are, the easier it will be for your hands to drop by the force of gravity alone.

None of this means that you let your arms go limp; that’s the wrong kind of relaxation. Your arms maintain the shape of the swing while letting them be pulled downward by an outside force. Once you get it, you might be amazed at how fast the clubhead is swinging through impact with so little effort on your part.