The tempo could be an essential part of the golf swing.
If your tempo is not great, your golf game will be very inconsistent.
The tempo of the swing is a difficult concept for many new golfers to understand.
In order to swing the golf club with the right tempo, you may need to practice a few drills before you will have the concept down.
The golf swing tempo drills we have provided will help both new players and seasoned veterans get a better feel for how they can use tempo to improve their golf game.
Golf Swing Tempo Drills
1. Eyes Closed
Have you ever tried swinging a golf club with your eyes close?
We know golf can be hard enough without having to close your eyes, but closing your eyes and swinging is a great way to work on your tempo.
When your eyes are closed, your body will have to adjust and react in different ways.
Most of the time, people are a bit more cautious when they are swinging with their eyes closed as they don’t want to fall over.
Falling while having your eyes closed and swinging a golf club would be a bad combination.
Many golfers are going to hold back a little bit on their speed in order to be able to get to a great balanced finished while swinging with their eyes closed.
When you first try this drill, you do not need to hit a golf ball.
Simply practicing this motion will be enough to get the concept down without striking golf balls.
As you get better at this, you can start actually striking golf balls.
In addition to working for a full swing, this concept of keeping your eyes closed is also something that works on the putting green.
Your tempo is a concept which applies to all areas of your game, the short game, the long game, and everything in between.
Try learning how to make putts with your eyes closed.
Chances are your stroke will be much smoother, and you will stop trying to direct the ball into the hole.
Practice this drill the next time you go to the driving range or are chipping in your back yard.
You will like the results you get if you can stick with it.
2. Feet Together
Golf professionals will tell you that it is almost unbelievable to think of all the swing fixes golfers can stumble upon by putting their feet together when they swing.
Keeping their feet together while swinging helps players to feel grounded, balanced, and stable.
The idea of putting the drive out there 350 yards comes off the table, and people start focusing on solid contact.
Putting your feet together is a great way to work on both tempo and balance.
We would start this drill the same way you started the eyes closed drill.
Put your feet together and take some three-quarter swings.
Having your feet together will help you control the speed at which you can swing the club.
If you try and take the club back too far or swing at the ball with too much force, your golf swing is going to get kind of out of control.
Keeping your feet together will eliminate some extra movement in your swing, and it could end up fixing a few other errors should you have any.
This is a go-to drill for many players who start to slice or hook the ball as well.
If you have never tried this golf swing tempo drill, you should head to the range to try it today.
3. Weighted Golf Club
A weighted golf club comes in two different designs.
One way is to purchase a weight which can be attached to the club.
This will be something similar to the donut you see players using on their bat in the on-deck circle in a baseball game.
This weight on the end of the club helps you slow things down and work on perfecting your tempo.
The other way you can accomplish this is by swinging with a training club that is built specifically for this purpose.
These training golf clubs are a great choice for golfers who know a specific drill is not going to be enough to get them to swing correctly.
The weighted golf club is good not just for tempo practice but also for working on building up your strength.
Since the weighted club is heavier than the other golf clubs in your bag, you will build up your golf muscles.
When you put a club that is not weighted in your bag, you will find that you can swing it quite a bit faster.
This helps to increase swing speed and then eventually get you more distance.
Overall, working with a weighted golf club can be a great way to improve upon your game and start lowering your golf scores.
4. Pause at the Top
At the top of your golf swing, you will find kind of a gray area called the transition.
This is where players need to transition from the backswing to the downswing.
When the backswing ends and the downswing begins, players tend to have some trouble figuring out the best speed for this to happen.
This, in turn, leads to some issues with the tempo of the golf swing.
We highly recommend starting a drill where you pause at the top of your backswing.
When you pause, you can then make sure your golf swing starts down the way you want it.
This transition is important, and sometimes all it takes is an extra little pause at the top of your swing to get it on the right track.
Many golfers will find that the pause naturally helps your tempo to even itself out.
When you are doing this pause at the top drill, you can pause for however long you feel necessary.
Some golfers completely stop and then try to start things back up again.
If you do this, we don’t recommend hitting a golf ball.
When you pause for a long time, you lose a bit of momentum and may hit the ball a little funny.
Ideally, you will want to have this pause at the top be more of a feeling than an actual pause.
The feeling will be that you are swinging back, giving yourself a second to collect yourself and then swinging back down again.
When you can get this feeling in place, you will have a much easier time feeling the fundamentals of a great golf swing tempo.
5. Counting Drill (123-1)
Many studies have been done about the golf swing.
Timing has been tested, and tempo has been tested, and as always, golfers are trying to find the perfect formula or combination.
With the way golf is, everyone is always looking for the next best secret.
However, after much study and time spent, many golfers believe a proper sequence or tempo for the golf swing has been discovered.
The majority of great players are swinging back in a three-count and swinging through in one.
Some golfers are starting to have this idea of saying, “one, two, three,” as they swing the club back.
Then, from the top of the swing, the thought is just, “one.”
In other words, your backswing will end up taking about three times as long as the downswing.
This counting drill is a great way to practice, and you can start even with a shorter golf swing.
We recommend trying this out with something like an eight iron.
You can take a full swing and think, “one, two, three,” on the backswing and then, “one,” on the way down.
Try to hit about ten balls with this tempo, though, and then hit ten more without thinking about it.
You should feel as though you have a little more control over your swing and the ability to finish in a balanced and secure position.
6. Perfect Takeaway
Last but certainly not least on our list of golf swing tempo drills is the perfect takeaway.
When you take the golf club back, the takeaway needs to get your tempo started at the right pace.
If you take the club back too fast, you will end up getting your golf swing tempo off to a poor start.
This means that you will then have to make up for it somewhere along the way.
In fact, if you follow our 123-1 drill, you will understand that a slow takeaway is much more important than a fast one.
The slower you take the club back, the easier it is going to be to get your swing started off correctly.
When a golfer whips the club back really fast, they usually manipulate the clubface, and they very often cause the club to get off the correct plane as well.
If you want to perfect your tempo, you have to perfect your takeaway as well.
The swing thought of low and slow is a very good one and one that many golfers can greatly benefit from.
Start this concept with your irons and then bring it along to your driver as well.
Another thing that low and slow will teach you is that you can get quite a bit more extension in your swing.
Your arms will stay outstretched, and you will have lots of width in the swing itself.
Why Is Golf Swing Tempo So Important?
Golf is a game which requires quite a bit of precision.
If you are not very particular about how you hit your golf shots, you will find that you won’t be all that accurate.
When your golf swing tempo is off, some of this precision gets lost.
You will end up swinging the club off of the plane and missing the sweet spot by a bit as well.
In addition, your body, arms, and hands can all be misaligned when it comes to the timing of your shots.
Essentially, golf swing tempo is going to be the glue that puts all of the parts of your golf swing together.
With the golf swing tempo in place, the golfer can use all of those great mechanics they have been perfecting to hit great shots.
Some golfers are born with naturally great tempo.
They seem to have an internal rhythm that helps them swing the club the proper way.
However, the golfers who are not born with this natural tempo will have to put a bit of time in to figure this out.
We have always found that practicing your short game is a great way to get your swing tempo down.
The more you practice, the easier it is to feel as though you have control over your golf shots and your tempo in your full swing.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you now feel as though you can head out to the range with some idea as to how to practice your golf swing tempo.
Although you will have to spend some time on these drills, they will undoubtedly pay off in the long run.
If you are running short on time and need something to do at home, the weighted golf club tool is a great choice.
You won’t need to be at a driving range to use this, and it provides a tremendous benefit to players.
Give yourself time, establish a great tempo, and then run with it.
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