Another favourite coaching saying of mine is, “You have to use your big muscles to deliver power, remembering you always want to fall into the category of effortless power, not powerless effort!” Which is why if you were to stand on a range and watch a tournament player, you would see poetry in motion or power and control in near perfect harmony. But how do they do it? That’s the question asked by the onlookers. It’s very simple, they use all of the right muscles in the correct order. This drill will help you unlock the power which has been waiting.


The great thing about the drill is that it will remain a constant throughout your golfing life. You can see the picture (Right) that really is the nuts and bolts of the move. There are four stages to the drill which I will separate for you because you will definitely need to do these in order. They are not easy, this is a challenge!


Stage one: find a spot in your garden, on the range, or wherever you feel comfortable discovering this move. It needs to be sunny because you are going to use your shadow as the feedback for the move. Make sure the shadow is right in front of you and easily seen. Place a club across your shoulders/chest area (as pictured) and get into your golf posture. Now rotate your shoulders, mimicking your backswing so that your shoulders turn to a 90 degree angle where you can’t see the stick/club and the shoulders have all but disappeared.


Stage two: Make the shoulder turn, as above, whilst keeping your head still. There should be no up and down action, or side to side. Important point here, the more still the head stays the better the turn. Perfection is no head movement at all.


Stage three: Now the difficult part begins and your flexibility and coordination is really tested. If you struggle with this you will get an idea of where your body requires some attention. Make the same backswing keeping the head still and your right knee (if you are left handed, read left knee) as still as possible. Any movement of the head or the knee lowers the quality of the movement. If you keep the right knee still and put a full shoulder turn in, you will now start experiencing the ‘coil’/‘torque’ at the top of the backswing which so many people like to talk about.


Stage four: Rotate the shoulders back to the ball, keeping the left knee (left handers read right knee) as still as possible so that your shoulders continue rotating and your chest faces the target.


Repeat this move as many times as you can, over the course of the year. I would imagine you will feel at the beginning like this is an unnatural move. You are correct, nothing in golf feels natural at the start, it will only feel natural when you have repeated it so many times it becomes automatic.