Golf Drivers-Your New Pal II

I rambled on a bit last time with getting you set up to the notion of using your driver and hopefully get you on a faster path to becoming good friends with your driver.

Let’s finish up.

Along with the low and slow take-away and not lifting the golf driver or cocking your wrists before they do so as a part of the natural motion of a correct golf swing, the must be some coordination and cooperation with your upper body and your hips.

You want these to parts of your body and your golf swing to work in harmony. So, as you begin your low and slow take-away you want to rotate your hips and your upper body in unison.

When your hips reach their maximum rotation away from the ball they’ll be at only about 45 degrees of what your ultimate shoulder turn will end up as. The key is (and I see this with so many that I work with) that you don’t want your upper body to get too far ahead of your hips or your hips not turn much at all.

If you don’t get your hips involved with the one piece take-away… they are going to eventually get in the way of the swing… force the club over the top of the swing path… and … well… bad things will happen.

Once you get to the top of your backswing your upper back will be coming close to actually facing your target… everyone’s flexibility is different… but the concept is you’ll create a natural torque between you feet, hips, and shoulders.

From the top of your swing you want to initiate the transition to the downswing by beginning your weight transfer with your feet and your leg drive from the inside of your back foot’s instep toward your front foot. Not… I repeat… NOT with your hands and arms.

The concept of making good contact with the golf ball with your golf driver is to think about sweeping the ball off the tee… not whacking at it. Remember in our lesson on golf swing help, I mentioned that with the driver, you will actually contact the ball on the slight upswing of your swing path.

If you’ve made a good transition with your weight from the top of your backswing and not fired the hands at the ball… you swing path approaching the ball will be on the same plane as your take-away.

Also, if you’ve accomplished the harmony of the one piece take-away and rotation of the hips and upper body, as you come into the hitting zone you’ll feel as though your body is behind the ball; your hips have rotated or cleared out of the way allowing the sweeping motion to take place.

Experiment when you are practicing with how high you tee up the ball.

I have found that when I work with people that if I tee the ball up higher than normal it at least makes them conscious of the fact that they are not going to be able to hit the ball with a descending blow… it’s tee’d too high! So, if nothing else if forces them to try to make contact with a sweeping motion instead of a ‘hitting’ motion.

Try it yourself on the range. If you’ve been hitting ‘at’ the ball, you’ll find this a bit awkward; but please stay with this concept until practice make permanent, and you’ll soon find a new friend in your golf driver.

Many times is the case that my friends over at Austad’s golf have great discounts and sales going on that really offer great value. You might want to take a quick minute to check and see what they have going on in terms of sales and discounts. Here’s a direct link to their golf drivers for ya.