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.

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Golf Drivers-Your New Pal

In our last discussion we talked about the tee shot and getting off to good start off. I may have this one a bit out of sequence for you… if so apologies… but today I want to discuss the golf driver and how to keep it as your friend.

First of all… and I speak with the folks I work with all the time… know when to use your driver off the tee. Tee box plus enough distance doesn’t always equal… pull my driver out of the bag and give it a rip.

Hey… even for all of us… sometimes your driver just refuses to show up. Remember… golf is a game of many parts and nuances… and it’s a game of scoring.

If you are not hitting off with your golf driver on a particular day… hit the club that gives you the best chance to put the ball in the fairway. This can be difficult I know… ego and all. But it’s the best decision for your game at that point in time.

Sure, hitting a good solid driver off the tee can set the tempo for the hole or even the day… but hitting bad drives off the tee with your driver can also set a different tempo and mood for the day as well.

Your goal with the any golf club off the tee is to get the shot in the proper location… the driver is no different. The goal of the driver is not unmitigated distance… we’ll work on your distance at another time. Getting the fundamentals of the driver and making consistent, solid contact that results in the ball landing in the fairway is the goal.

First of all, you must understand that since the driver is the club in your bag with the longest shaft it is going to be the most difficult to master. It’s just a physics thing… trust me. Knowing that the driver is the most difficult to and the most prone to error anyway will go a long way in keeping your frustration down. It’s tough club maintain a swing with… for everyone.

With the golf driver, you actually want to make contact with your golf ball on a slight upswing so as such you don’t want to do anything in your swing or mechanics that will promote hitting the golf ball with a descending blow.

With that in mind you want to position the ball just off the inside of your heel of your front foot. In other words, more forward in your stance than with your irons.

You backswing need to be low and slow… take the club back lower to the ground and maintain that low swing path until your arms begin the upswing naturally. Again, any type of lifting with hands or prematurely cocking of your wrist will only encourage a descending blow which is what we don’t want happening.

I can see that I’m getting a bit lengthy hear with the lesson, so what I am going to do is leave you with this thought process and mechanics and let you work on:

• Your approach to using your driver
• The set up to your ball
• The low and slow backswing with no premature lifting or wrist cocking

Let’s have you work on this and I want to next work with you on your hip and body turn and getting back to the hitting zone.

Befriending your driver conclusion next…