Have you ever noticed how touring professionals appear to swing with almost no effort, yet generate incredible distance off the tee? The difference between their swings and yours likely comes down to one critical element that most golf instruction overlooks entirely.
The secret is in the release.
Want to feel this in YOUR swing? Try a free AI-powered golf lesson → — GOATY gives you real-time voice coaching, pose tracking, and instant feedback on every rep.
The vast majority of amateur golfers have never been taught how to properly execute a golf club release, and this single gap in understanding could be costing you massive amounts of effortless clubhead speed on every single shot you hit.
Is this the look of a proper golf club release or an inefficient body release? Find out in the video.
If you are serious about wanting to hit the ball farther than you ever thought possible, you absolutely MUST watch this video. I break down how to properly release the golf club from a biomechanics perspective, showing you the science behind why the pros make it look so easy. You can also get a free AI swing analysis to see exactly where your own release pattern stands relative to the elite model.
You will discover that there is one extremely inefficient way to release the club that is widely taught in mainstream golf instruction today, and there is a vastly more efficient method that produces effortless speed through the hitting zone without taxing your body.
When you are ready to hit the ball farther than ever before with the least amount of effort and strain on your body, then read on to learn the biomechanics behind the proper trail arm release...
It is absolutely critical to understand the fundamental difference between a body-driven release and a release that relies on the rotation of the arms and hands. These two approaches produce dramatically different results in terms of both clubhead speed and consistency at impact.
You may have been told that a body release is more accurate because it supposedly removes timing from the golf swing by minimizing hand involvement. Of course, when you examine the actual physics of how the golf club moves through the hitting zone, this claim simply does not hold up.
"Hello. Excellent vid! This vid explains to me more of the release or it just clicked for me about the release! Now I'm releasing much much more efficiently w/ straighter shots. Hit the sweet spot consistently! It takes some of the timing out trying to square at impact and lets it come naturally. Take a lot of the thinking out and let RST do what it is designed to do. PLAY BETTER GOLF! THANK YOU AGAIN!"
Alvaro Quiros - hands fully rotated over, right shoulder back - clubhead speed = 124 mph.
-Glenn C. | July 30, 2012 | Hawaii
Rory McIlroy - right hand over left, right shoulder back - clubhead speed = 118 mph. Note that Rory is rotated more than Tiger and Quiros, he also has less clubhead speed.
Tiger Woods - right hand over left, right shoulder back - clubhead speed = 124 mph.
If the body-driven approach were truly superior, every single golfer on the PGA Tour would be aggressively ripping their bodies through the hitting zone the way you see in Hunter Mahan's golf swing, or what the GOAT Model mimics in his practice swings. Fortunately, as you will see below, the elite players are not actually doing this in their real downswing and release sequence.
In this video, you will see the simple and remarkably obvious reason why releasing the arms and hands makes far more sense from a physics and biomechanics standpoint than trying to drag the club through with body rotation alone.
To get a better feel for just how prevalent this efficient trail arm release pattern is on Tour, take a look at the release mechanics of these long bombers:
Now, it is YOUR turn to learn how to release the golf club like the pros. If you want to see how your current release compares to the elite model, try a free AI swing analysis before watching the video, so you can track your improvement afterward. Let's get started!
"You do such great explanations of swing elements, I have 'aha!' moments with each new video...Having the body rotation stop is going to be a departure from how I envision a golf swing. But with each video/concept so far I have had exciting improvements in my swing and my game. Thank you!"
The club has a lot of momentum at impact
-Piper S. | June 30, 2012 | San Francisco, CA
Video Transcription: Right Arm Release
The club face is still very open
The release of the golf club is where the big payoff comes from. That helps us get a lot of speed with very little effort, and it helps us square the club face and get the club face turning over so we get a nice, flat, straight ball flight. It helps take spin off the ball and flattens out the trajectory.
But that release, a lot of golfers don't understand exactly what it's doing through impact, so I want to talk about that today. There are two basic ways, if you take it from a very big perspective, to release the golf club.
One way is that, once the club's at impact - from here the club's going to keep moving whether I want it to or not - there's a lot of speed, there's a lot of force at work here, so it's going to keep going. I need to allow that club to keep moving in one of two ways.
I either get here and I turn my body - the club's still moving, so I'm working along with the club - I'm not going to stop at impact; there's too much force there. If I turn my trail shoulder, the club still moves.
Turning without releasing
But now you look at it from down the line, what's going to happen is that club face is still very open. It hasn't released this way. That costs me a lot of speed, because now my body and the club are moving at a more constant rate of speed.
In order for that club to move - in slow motion here - my shoulders have to turn as fast as I want the club to move. You can imagine your body can't turn that fast, nor would you want it to. It's not very efficient. It takes a tremendous amount of muscular effort to keep the body going, and it puts a lot of stress on your lead hip, lead knee, spine, and so on and so forth.
There's way too much stress on that. You can feel this for yourself. Just get into impact and then turn and don't release the golf club. Now you're going to feel that it's a lot of work to do that.
The opposite way is rotation. When we talk about the release of the golf club, I define it as rotation of the arms and hands and the club, not rotation of the body. In fact, I want the body to come to almost a dead stop so that the club can release, because it's going to move way faster than your body ever can, if you allow it to.
The club moves much more than the body
We're going to look at it. Here's the first one. You can feel this for yourself. I feel a lot of strain on my hip, my body. The club is moving at a very slow rate. No matter how fast I move, the club can't really move that fast.
Versus, I get my body to stop and I come down into impact, and I let my forearms rotate over. You can see how little my body has moved here, but the club has moved another three or four feet. That's the definition of efficiency.
Not only that, but now as I come down I can start to get a lot of speed without a lot of effort. That's what you see a lot of Tour pros do. They look so efficient you say, "God, they don't look like they're really working that hard."
It's because they have a very efficient release. From this position to this position their bodies have barely done anything. In fact, they've actually stopped to stabilize the body so that the arms can release and have some support from this big structure in order to get a lot of speed and control out of the swing, versus the body and all these angles moving and changing all the time.
That's what most golfers do; they try to rotate their body to hit the ball, when this is way more effective and way more efficient, as you can imagine. From here, where the club is three or four feet outside of the ball, to here, to here, my arms have barely done anything. My body has barely done anything.
All I've really done is rotate my arm into impact. Which one's more efficient? Taking every muscle I have in my body and shoving it through and delaying the release of the club - because if the body's turning, the club can't release - if the body stops, the club has to release.
The palms rotate and release
You can either work with physics or you can work against it. It's your choice, but obviously one's way more efficient than the other.
As I'm coming through, my hands actually come in very soft. This is not like a forced flip rotation. I'm just stopping my body and allowing my arms to do this. You can see my trail palm is facing the camera. I come into impact, they're now parallel to each other and perpendicular to the camera, and now they rotate and release on the other side.
That's mostly this motion. Kind of like a forehand in tennis or ping pong. This is way more efficient than this ever will be. It's basic physics and biomechanics 101. Obviously, one takes way more work.
What you're learning to do is get your arms to be rotating. It's not just a flip here at impact. They're gradually rotating throughout the entire golf swing. This is really, really important. We've talked about it. There's a video called "Squaring the Face Early," and I talk about how the face starts to square at the top of the downswing. You don't come into impact and then try and flip it.
That's what most higher handicaps do. They come in with the face really open and then they try and flip the face over really quick so the rate of rotation through impact is very, very fast, whereas a good player is squaring it early and that rotation is very gradual and constant.
It's not that you're trying to flip your hands over really fast. It's a gradual rotation throughout the entire downswing, is the best way I can describe it. When you do that, you're going to start practicing getting your arms to release, and the best way to do that is just to train it independently of everything else.
The right shoulder is a pivot point
Don't worry about your backswing. Make short little swings. Preset yourself at impact, go back for a little, short swing, and then come through and rather than turning your body, try to keep the buttons on your shirt and your belt buckle facing your video camera. Just rotate your arms this way.
Both arms are rotating, so we talk about that Lead Hand Release Drill, the 5 Minutes to the Perfect Release. This is the lead hand releasing, and the trail arm releasing.
It's critical when you're doing this that the trail shoulder acts as a pivot point. You don't want it moving. What you want is your trail shoulder to stay in place, and your trail arm to move across your body. In order for that to happen, it has to rotate. I'm just grabbing my arm and spinning it this way. You can see my trail shoulder is very quiet.
That rotation is what's moving the club during this phase of the golf swing, so when you're doing your drills keep that trail shoulder in position and move your trail arm.
Now, your trail shoulder is going to move a little bit. Don't just glue it there, because then you would start to flip it. It has to move a little, but it's going to feel like it's not moving to you at all, and you're just rotating the club back and through here.
You're going to start to feel how efficient your golf swing can be. In fact, just hitting these little, short shots, you're going to be able to get a lot of speed with a very, very short swing because you're finally going to understand what the release and all that clubhead speed comes from. To measure your progress and track exactly how your release improves over time, try a free AI golf lesson that evaluates your mechanics in real time.
With the left arm stuck to the chest, both have to rotate through
Your hands are going to be the fastest moving part of your body during the golf swing. You don't want your hands moving at the same rate as your body.
That's why we don't want the lead arm glued to your chest as you come into impact. If your lead arm is glued to your chest, then your chest has to rotate through impact with it, and again we've got that whole problem of your body now has to rotate at close to the same speed as your hands for the club to go anywhere.
Now, if I let my lead arm move independently of my body, I've just got to release it. I put those two together, my arms can move way faster and with almost no muscular effort, relatively, compared to your body for sure.
Just go out and practice this rotation, releasing the club this way, and see how your impact will improve a ton. You'll feel like your body is really quiet, and you're going to start to be able to control those impact conditions, those impact alignments, and start getting a lot of clubhead speed with very little effort.
Watch part 2 now to see how you're moving your body in the opposite direction of the pros!
