Tips for Her: Accelerate after impact

Editor's note: Each week, Megan Padua, a teaching professional at Maidstone Club (East Hampton, N.Y.) and Belfair Plantation (Bluffton, S.C.), and one of Golf Digest's Best Young Teachers, offers tips and advice for women golfers.

By Megan Padua

If you swing as hard as possible from the top of your backswing, you're wasting energy. Conserving energy and unleashing it at the correct point--through impact--leads to a more effective transfer of power.

Try it: Make a practice swing away from the golf ball and try to generate the greatest amount of speed right after impact (see photo, above). If you visualize the fastest point of acceleration being after the ball, your club will gain speed through the shot. Most people try to swing hard by pulling the club down quickly from the top of the swing, throwing the body out of sequence and decelerating through impact. But when you accelerate through impact and just after impact, the club will create a swoosh sound and you'll get to the finish position with ease.