When it comes to the golf motion, there’s one ultimate goal—and it isn’t perfect form or carrying the driver 320 yards. It’s achieving a functional swing technique.

To bring clarity to what functional swing technique means, we need to start on the other end of the spectrum and describe what doesn’t bring you toward that goal.

For you that land here. This article is a part of Forgotten Master Moves. You find the start page here.

Non Functional Swing Technique

No clear Power Concept = Often Over the Top

The first problem with golf technique is actually not understanding what you are doing. Ninety-five percent of the golf world is in this bucket. And the most important knowledge is about power: how do you create speed, and how do you accelerate that speed? If you don’t know this, then loads of other stuff will start to fill the vacuum.

The biggest problem in golf, the over-the-top (OTT) movement, comes directly from not answering these questions.

Instead of unleashing centrifugal force, OTT students will automatically resort to the chest for power, which causes a massive disruption of the motion. From there, it just spirals downward.

Two-Way Miss = Non Functional Swing

So you’ve got a pretty neat motion, but you’re two-way missing.

This comes from manipulating the downswing arc toward the golf ball too much. You do have some kind of power understanding, which means you aren’t coming over the top.

But this creates a negative spiral in the following way: the inside-out path and push toward the target put your body in angles that only make matters worse.

You step into a body falling back and away from a power zone. Whenever you try to force speed, you’ll snap hook it left—or block it right. Sounds familiar?

Modern solution? Induce body rotation in what I call the black zone of golf—the very hard-to-think area in a swing.

Old-school solution? Put yourself in kinder, steeper body angles and let the club do the work for you.

Inconsistency in Ground Contact

This ultimately comes from the same origins as above. Your body angles have put your natural low point way before the golf ball, which means every single swing you make is a rescue mission to avoid chunking it.

Get the low point after the golf ball and you’re golden. Easy to accomplish? Kind of. You just need knowledge.

Not Functioning Under Applied Pressure

I’m not talking about day four of a major here, but just general pressurized situations that appear in golf. Your technique becomes too difficult, and you can mostly only master it on the range.

This is where I’ve spent like five years figuring out how to teach swing technique that can be achieved through simpler brain tasks.

You want to tie your mechanics to simpler emotions and feels so you can accomplish something rather difficult with easier intentions.

My best golf feels like a big Paris wheel with a follow-through feel. That’s how hard the mechanics should feel to accomplish.

Not Functioning: Byproduct of Not Understanding Your Motion

I just want to mention this again. If you actually understand your core golf swing, you’ll feel much more secure in golf. Sure, you’ll miss loads (we all do), but you’ll know why and what to do about it. This creates security in itself.

Functional Swing Technique

Functionality, from an end-result perspective, means you can actually rely on your motion—that your ball striking is your stable ground.

Bob Rotella says, “Trust your golf swing.” Well, that’s a heck of a lot easier if you actually have a functioning motion.

So, let’s break it down: the components you need will be discussed below.

Adequate amount of Power & Speed

I’m biased toward old-school golf since I like the power package. You basically use the swing arc size and some swing arc efficiency intentions (abstract rather than mechanical) to simplify power creation and acceleration in a “body understanding” manner. I call it, to quote Chris Como, clean power.

No matter what you’re doing, if you understand how to take speed off and add speed, you’ve got an understanding of how it works—it’s paramount to your journey toward trust.

Impact Zone Understanding – Knowing your Misses

You should know enough to understand what actually goes on in the striking area. If you understand your misses, you can build mental images of how things work.

As an example: If I thin the ball with a slightly open face, I know that I’ve added grip pressure and manipulated toward the target (the extreme version would be a shank). If I over-hook it with an otherwise nice motion, I’ve had my face too shut in the backswing, and so on.

When you understand this, you will continue to build trust in your own motion.

Impact Zone Understanding – Taking one side out of play

With these understandings, you can start to form a smart action plan to take one side out of play in your golf life. I’m talking course play here.

You can start relying on, for example, never missing left, and just make your life so much easier.

It all comes from shot-shaping skills and your ability to master both curves. BUT it comes with some responsibility. When you influence path, over time it will drag your swing into positions that eventually move you too far on a spectrum of impact-zone values…

Non Injury inducing Tendencies in a Functional Swing

If your swing is creating aches and pains (outside of building nice calluses), your technique isn’t good enough in relation to your body strength.

Solution 1: Fix your body and strengthen it (always a good choice).

Solution 2: Understand how centripetal follow-through swing actions can create gentle pressure in the follow-through for you.

Solution 3: Get rid of injury-inducing body angles (e.g., excessive sidebend at impact).

There’s nothing more to it. I have it as one of my core principles in what I teach—Non-Injury-Inducing Swing Technique.

Simplification in Delivery

Finally, a functional swing technique needs to be easy to achieve. Whether it’s nailing 50,000 reps in a mechanical pattern or, as I teach, using abstract intentions to create mechanics, it’s the same end result: your swing needs to be 90% automatic.

Your swing feels and thoughts should be a stimulator of what you already know.

There’s no way around it. My longest swing change took six months and 50,000 reps to accomplish. My shortest (what I teach now) took 2–4,000 reps to get somewhat comfortable.

Once you have the “auto mode,” this is where you make it count. You tie your emotions and feels to simple overall feelings that make it accessible on the course and in pressurized situations.

Again, my best golf is played with the feel of a huge swing arc and some kind of end destination for my hands. Ninety percent is automatic, and roughly 10% is stimulated with each swing.

Summary – Functional Swing Technique

I hope this article somewhat gave an answer to functioning swing technique. I deliberately didn’t talk about numbers because we come in different forms and ages, and it’s really idiosyncratic.

I can say this, though: if you want to break par, you need 90+ mph clubhead speed with the driver (unless you’re a putting genius out of this world).

I teach and educate three fundamental release styles which in turn creates three different swing patterns in the FMM Swing Academy. When you find what fits you, your swing changes quicker than you might think.

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