subject: Golf Tempo - How Important Is Great Tempo in Your Swing? [print this page] Golf Tempo - How Important Is Great Tempo in Your Swing?
Before we go any further we first must define what "golf tempo" really is. This is the fluid motion, speed, and rate of your swing as you go back, then through the ball, and finish the swing. The best golf swings have always been those with great tempo and most golfers that play very well you will hear them mention that they had great tempo or timing that day in their swing.
So, how do you achieve the proper tempo for your swing and why is it so important? In the golf swing is you are off by just a fraction of a second on your timing you could easily leave the face of the club open a little bit or closed a little bit. This could cause you to curve the golf ball in a way you were not expecting and this could be the reason you are hitting more chip shots than you would like or have longer putts than you want.
To get to a proper golf tempo you need to make sure you feel very relaxed and understand that it should take you about twice as long to finish your back swing as the rest of the swing should take you. So if the golf swing is 1.5 seconds long your back swing would be a full second of that and the rest would be a 0.5 seconds of that. This should make sense since the force to hit the ball is created from the top of the backswing and down through to the impact position.
A couple of good ways to practice this is to use what is known as a metronome. This will create a ticking noise in a rhythm that you set. If you can learn to swing with this tool you can create a great golf tempo for your swing. Also, keep in mind that the way you walk and act on the golf course dictates your tempo as well. If you are in a hurry all day you are probably going to swing to quickly and if you are waiting all day you will probably swing to slowly.
