The Senior Golfer’s Formula for an Easy Golf Swing

If you’re a senior golfer (or “experienced,” as I like to say), I can pretty much guarantee you’re making your golf swing harder than it has to be. The most common golf swing strategies don’t address the biggest issues impacting your golf swing.

Lost balance. A reduced range of motion. Lack of strength. Diminishing swing speed.

If you follow traditional guidance, you’re stuck constantly fighting the inevitable changes that come with “experience.” What no one tells you is that you don’t have to fight at all. You can adapt your swing to better suit this phase of life.

I’ve developed an easy golf swing for seniors, and I’m not talking about a watered-down technique that forces you to compromise on your goals. I teach this swing to all my experienced golfers, and many of them are using it to play the best golf of their lives… in retirement!

Stick around and learn how easy it is to turn back the clock on your own game.

The Senior’s Easy Golf Swing: Key Takeaways

Here’s the short version of everything you’re about to learn:

Your current swing isn’t working for you because it’s based on what works for young, professional players.
Find more balance in your swing by setting up with a wider stance and flared toes.
Allow your hips to turn on the backswing so you can achieve a longer swing when you’ve lost flexibility.
For even more length, take your arms straight up and back on the backswing instead of swinging low and around.
Use the Baseball Drill to practice all these concepts at once.
To find even more ease and better results, get coaching that specializes in instruction for senior golfers.

Now let’s dig into the details.

Why Is It So Hard to Hit a Good Golf Shot as a Senior Golfer?

I know your frustration. I hear it all the time from my golfers. You’re following all the best advice. You’re doing everything instructors and golf books tell you to do. Maybe you’re even using a strategy that used to serve you very well. But your contact and distance are only getting worse.

You might be relieved to know that you’re not the problem. Yes, you face more physical limitations as you age, but that only means you need different instruction. And you won’t find it in traditional golf wisdom.

The techniques everyone swears by are very good techniques, but they’re based on strategies used by the best golfers in the world. If you don’t have the same physical strengths as your favorite tour player, you’re not going to get the same results using their methods.

That’s why I developed the Vertical Line Swing System. It’s a complete golf system that centers on the abilities of everyday senior golfers. I’m about to introduce you to the easy golf swing that stands at the heart of the Vertical Line Swing.

Let’s start with the foundation.

The Best Setup for an Easy Golf Swing

We lose distance as we get older, and if you don’t accommodate for that change in stability, you’re guaranteed to lose even more swing speed. You’re not going to swing your hardest when you feel like your own momentum could knock you over.

So the first step in creating an easy golf swing is to give yourself a nice, solid base. To do that:

Widen Your Stance

If you’re still using the same stance width you had when you were thirty, you’ll probably benefit from stepping your feet a little wider.

How wide is up to you. Experiment and find whatever gives you a sense of stability.

Flare Your Toes

Turn your toes outward a bit in your setup. This adjustment offers two huge benefits for experienced golfers.

First, it contributes to that stable base we’re building. You’ll feel a lot steadier and more in control of your motion with flared toes.

The second benefit is that the flare allows you to turn your hips more. And that brings us to…

The Secret to More Ease in Your Golf Swing

You’ve probably heard that you should restrict your hips in your backswing.

You absolutely should not.

Like most traditional advice, this tip isn’t universally wrong; it’s just not helpful for senior golfers. You need a longer backswing in order to build speed and add yards. But if you’ve lost flexibility, restricting the hips severely shortens your backswing.

And it doesn’t just cost you distance. It destroys your rhythm and tempo. When you feel how limited your backswing is, you instinctively rush the downswing.

So let those hips turn. Feel your trail hip working back as you swing the club back. That’s going to allow for more turn in your shoulders and help you find a lot more length.

How Do I Know If I’m Turning My Hips Enough in My Golf Swing?

Here’s a checkpoint I give all my students:

As you turn, there should be a little more flex in the lead knee and a little less in the trail knee. If someone were to watch your swing from the side, they should see daylight between your legs.

What I love about this checkpoint is that you see it in action when you watch the greatest golfers of all time. Many of the most iconic golfers have had long careers in part because they perfected swings they could command in every season of life.

Hip turn is a big part of that formula.

The Best Swing Direction for an Easy Golf Swing

This is the core concept of the Vertical Line Swing:

Work your lead arm straight back and up on the backswing. You want a vertical swing direction, not the flat backswing you’ve probably been taught.

Again, it all comes down to flexibility. The “low and around” swing direction might have worked fine when you were younger, but now it’s a formula for a stumpy backswing.

With a vertical swing, you get a lot more length. And, having taught it to thousands of experienced golfers through both live coaching and my bestselling book, I can confirm that it’s the best secret to an easier, more effective golf swing in this phase of your life.

My Favorite Drill for More Clubhead Speed

As long as we’re making things easier, allow me to leave you with a drill that’ll make it a breeze to practice all these concepts at once.

It’s called the Baseball Drill because we use the positions of a baseball field as a reference. Here’s how it works:

Baseball Drill

Set up for your shot without a golf ball, closing your stance so your feet are aimed toward right field.
Take your swing, bringing the club straight up and back on the backswing and bringing it toward right field on the downswing.
Do a three-setter, repeating that motion three times before stepping up to the ball and hitting a real shot the same way, aiming toward right field.

So what’s the point of this drill?

Aiming your stance toward right field forces you to turn your hips, and from this position, your arms naturally want to go straight up and back on the backswing. It’s a great way to practice and solidify the techniques we’ve discussed without having to think about it.

And that’s good, because we’re all about making your golf swing as easy as possible.

Take This Concept to the Next Level

You’re gonna love what happens when you make these changes to your golf swing. It’s not just that swinging the club suddenly becomes easier; it’s that you rediscover that old spark of possibility.

You realize you can still improve your game, even as you lose some of the strengths you once had. That’s an incredible feeling—knowing you can advance and accomplish things you thought weren’t possible anymore.

And if you’re really serious about playing your best game, you should check out VLS Coaching. You get access to Live Coaching Sessions with my team and me, Live Tee Times with experts from all corners of the industry, unlimited personalized swing analyses from me, and loads more.

It’s a great way to elevate your game on your schedule and from the comfort of your own home. And the best part? You’ll only get guidance you can succeed with. No more fighting your body to pull off a tour player’s moves.

Click here to join us, and we’ll get started on the next chapter of your golf game.

About the Author

PGA Teaching Professional Todd Kolb is a five-time Golf Digest Best-in-State Instructor, Amazon Best-selling Author, and Minnesota PGA Teacher of the Year. In over 30 years of coaching, he’s worked with from newbies to an LPGA major champion. He’s currently the Director of Instruction for VLS Golf and USGolfTV and dedicates his efforts to helping the everyday golfer cut through overcomplicated traditional instruction to find solutions that actually work for them.