Power to your elbow

One final word on distance for women. I’ve just been given a very old (1975!) golf book (The Complete Woman Golfer, by Vivien Saunders - amazing what turns up in the charity shop!) which has at least one comment I haven’t seen elsewhere, viz, that for a woman to hit distance she has to consciously use her strength to damn well hit the ball. Men will naturally use a lot of power, hence all those exhortations to use a relaxed swing and not try to hit the ball too hard. But for women of average physique and athleticism, that’s not going to be enough. This rings true with me. I spent a long time trying to learn a decent serve in tennis. I didn’t think my action was too bad, but where was the speed? Answer, I wasn’t hitting the ball hard enough! The same goes for golf. You have to get a decent swing, but when you think you can do it, give it some wellie!
Okay, maybe I'd better qualify that, i.e. giving it wellie as in 'producing speed through impact while maintaining the tempo of the swing' rather than 'hitting it hell for leather', as we know that's rarely a good idea. (You can see I have all the jargon. Think I've been reading too many golf books!)