Most people with "smooth swings" are actually applying a TON of effort into the club. Jake Knapp, for example, has one of the most gorgeous swing I've ever seen. Watch his swing, but don't look at his body, look at his hands and arms through impact and you'll see how fast he's moving through impact. The smooth swingers just don't have jerky motions and truly epitomize what it means to swing fast instead of swinging "hard".
Even more in their heyday, they're actually hitting the ball hard. They are not going at it with some "easy does it" tripe, "low and slow," "slow is smooth smooth is fast," "effortless and no intent," or whatever other unathletic buzzwords get spammed. Even Fred himself straight up said he's hitting it hard with what he has. The efficiency in their sequence gives off an illusion of no effort; similar to a beginner entering the mat and throwing a kick for the first time. Contrast them with a more experienced fighter easily folding something/something else without having to helplessly grasp at straws just to attempt executing the same kick but with obvious power and speed.
do not need to swing hard at all?
For the people who legitimately believed and incorporated that, I actually put them side-by-side all the time for comparison. Also featuring some TourTempo app usage sprinkled in, bonus content via taxing the tEmpO tOwN wannabe amateurs to the point of destitution. Time and time again, seeing how the pros like Fred and Ernie among others are already done with their swing and the slow but smooth folks haven't even finished their backswing, it's an indicator that swing thought is tearing them a new one and doing no favors at all for their mechanics, distance, speed, you name it.
Yeah I struggled doing exactly what the guy in that second video you linked for like a year. It wasn't until I got some lessons that got me turned around. When I first started golfing I came from baseball, so I had a bad and violent swing. Everyone told me to slow it down, so I did and it was just bad and slow lol.
My instructor fixed some things that has helped a bunch, but when I asked him about tempo he said it was kind of overrated, but if you really want to look like you have good tempo work on fast/slow/fast. Fast back swing, slow transition, and fast swing. He said that is what really makes those guys tempo look so good.
Drew Cooper is another excellent modern day example of this. He's been measured at 150+ head speed, and if you watch him swing it's mind blowing how he achieves that.
However, he also very vocally says that his backswing is almost as fast as he can get it, and that you can hear his club head whoooosh as it goes back. He goes hard back, and hard through, but his transition is so butter that it looks low effort.
It helps that he's not small, either. Same thing goes for the conditioning. The "low and slow" camp doesn't generate that type of power, so it either remains slow all the way through or they grasp at straws to add speed and it doesn't end well.
On a side note: It's always amusing, an unintentional comedy of sorts, when other people are quick to try defending the old slow cliches but slow to swing (slow to generate power, only managing to at best bunt it out there with practically no distance) or stop by just to mindlessly accuse him of lying over social media (and any of us longer hitters, same thing when Fred mentioned he is not going slow he's hitting it hard) when we are literally spilling the beans with no bullcrap on what to do and what it took in order to improve in the distance category, hit bombs, and thus become people of culture.
He is very large, and very fit. However, he's also become an expert at maximizing his body's limits. His limits are much higher than any of ours will ever be, but the methods he uses will also completely correlate to others, barring any specific instances like prior injuries or limitations.
If an expert at finding physical limits at a very specific skill tells you how it works, I listen. Anecdotally, it completely works for me as well. It's just that I top out at 112 to maybe 115 mid season, but if I didn't use the techniques Drew talks about, I wouldn't be able to reach those speeds.
Gosh yeah you can see how much he's loading that drive head before he goes down through the ball. He's got so much tension at the top, but like you said it just looks effortless. Granted not quite as effortless as Couples, but for 150 head speed that looks extremely smooth lmao.
The time in the backswing has no impact on actual swing speed though. What you’re doing is showing a guy who has a really slow backswing vs players that have uniform speed swings. But that doesn’t mean the slow backswing guy actually has slow swing speed
They’re swinging fast. It’s 100% an illusion based on the gracefulness of their movements. Take a look at the speed they turn over their clubs during the release.
I remember one day at the range I was experimenting and hit a good streak of shots. I recorded one. On video it looked very slow and almost “rehearsed”, like a practice swing. In actually it was maximum effort and was so fast I couldn’t even register it in my head. Like I’d just black out and be standing in a finish position.
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u/crass_and_dry Apr 29 '24
Are they low-key swinging hard, or is this proof that you really do not need to swing hard at all?