The reason so many people struggle to maximize their power with the golf swing is likely because they’re not set up in the proper manner in which to do so.

It is also a reason you’ll find all sorts of professional players who contort themselves coming into impact – they manage to get the power they want to generate, but at a cost to consistency and/or physical health.

When you look at the impact position of people who can generate that power & precision, you will notice something:

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I have drawn what I call “power lines” on some impact pictures, but see if you can spot what I’m referring to here below:

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If you missed it, I’m talking about the line you would draw from the top of the leading lever (the left or leading shoulder) down to the club head.

If that line goes down the arm and through the hands, then down the shaft, you can congratulate yourself, as you have created that “power line” through impact:

With the irons, it is optimal to have a vertical power line from the leading shoulder down to the club head where the shaft reaches vertical.

These still pics were taken from the iron swings I posted yesterday:

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The irons of course meant to be swung so that the club head impacts the ball before the swing bottom (vertical shaft position), but as you can see above, I’ve got the power line through all three of my swing bottoms and the club head has just impacted the ball.

When you can swing down and through the swing bottom without any compensations or manipulations, and your ball is positioned properly, you will get maximum compression and loads of power into that ball.

That is how I could fly a ball onto a 245 yard green with my 5 iron while just hitting balls to see how straight and long I could hit them, and when you look at my power line with the driver:

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… the difference you will see is that the power line angles slightly backwards.

Of course, the reason for that is because optimal impact with the driver is with the shaft leaning slightly backward as seen above – and when you have that power line appearing right at impact, that ball is gone.

You can see why Jack Nicklaus, even if he was a tad taller and quite a bit heavier than Ben Hogan, his distance advantage wasn’t just from his physical specs compared to Hogan’s.

It was also this:

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You can see that Nicklaus, when he really caught the ball, had the same backward-leaning power line as myself, compared to Hogan’s power line actually angling forward from the bottom – he may have been more accurate than Nicklaus, but Jack had the power line advantage.

And this, friends, is why you swing down and not at the target – your focus should be on getting that club to the swing bottom, not outward, because nothing that happens after impact will have any effect on that ball.

It all begins with the setup.

It all ends with the setup.