Hand speed is king in the golf swing. Just ask Tiger Woods. Mr. Woods has come back from a fusion of his lower back with a driver swing speed in the 120’s. The fusion has reduced his mobility or stretch he can obtain yet he is blasting it 300+ yards.
To get how to max your hand speed spend a few minutes watching a fastpitch softball motion. The legs hips core and shoulders are all moving in a linked motion to make the arms and hands rocket past the body.
Watch as the left hip and glute pulls the right hip around as the right leg pushes forward. The rotation moves up through the core towards the shoulders. As the right arm rips down toward the right hip all the big muscles start to slow down and the all the energy is transferred to the arm and wrist snap. This is the whip effect. The real speed is caused by the brakes, not the accelerator.
The second thing that most golfers get wrong is that the target is not the ball. The target you are trying to max your speed to is a line about 45 degrees forward of the center line of your body. To find this line, take your stance and feel stacked over your feet and hips. With the butt end of the club aligned with your sternum rotate your shoulders until your club and sternum are pointing 45 degrees forward of the midline of your stance. Let your body move freely to make the club point correctly. This is the target of your speed.
Now with your target in mind, we can start maxing out our speed. Start slowly at first and try to make the club fully extend to this target. Do not use a ball at first and do not move at more than 60 percent of your max speed. Experiment with where you need to let go of the club to max out at the target line. The point of letting go is where everything on your right side is slowing down to let the arms race past while the left side clears out of the way of the speed.
Use the image that the club head is loosely attached to the shaft and that you are trying to have it pop off as hard as possible at the target. As you build up speed make sure you let your left side clear and do not try and stop at the target line. Once you have got a good feel for the sequence add a ball into your practice. Again not going more than 60 percent of your max. Once you are comfortable with your ball striking start to add speed until you are at 80-85 percent of max.
The last piece of the puzzle is to manage how much lateral movement and left shoulder motion you need to get the ball flight you want. For now, just work on getting every bit of hand speed you can. Do not worry about flight or direction except that you should see a fairly neutral or slightly push draw flight.