The Importance of Golf Swing Tempo

The golf swing tempo can be defined as the speed of your swing from the time you take the club away till the club head reaches impact.

You want to engrain a feeling of the backswing being the same speed as the down swing. This is what gives you rhythm and timing.

A good analogy is to imagine your swing as the rev counter in your car. When you rev the motor up the needle moves smoothly towards the red line and as you let the accelerator go the revs come down at the same speed.

You want to generate your club head speed at impact in a similar fashion to what I have described above.

A smooth build up of speed is what is needed in the backswing in order to gain speed at impact, where it counts the most.

I learned a phrase at a young age and it has stuck in my mind ever since, “ more haste less speed.” This certainly holds true to the golf swing tempo.

Some players are naturally fast swingers, for example Nick Price, while others are slower like Ernie Els.

Both are correct according to their builds and strength and both swings are executed smoothly delivering maximum speed at impact where it counts the most.

Another great player that comes to mind who has a good tempo to copy is Phil Mickelson, he makes it look so easy.

Good rhythm and tempo is easy to achieve but harder to maintain. You need to work on it all the time. Resist the temptation to swing hard and try to maintain a maximum swing speed of 80 percent of what you are capable of.

I know for a fact that Ernie works on his tempo all the time. When he is not playing great he spends more time on his tempo.

You will actually be surprised at how far you can hit a ball without trying to. Go through the motions as best you can and finishing on balance is the best way. Think of a swing speed of 80 percent of what you can do and will see the improvement.

A very good tip…

When you practice, try and hit every club in your bag the same distance. If you hit a wedge 90 yards, then use each club in your bag, swing full, and hit each one 90 yards.

This will immediately give you a good sense of timing, tempo, and rhythm.

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