“Grip it and rip it.”
—John Daly
When it comes to satisfaction on the golf course, there’s nothing like hitting a drive right on the sweet spot. You might wonder what driving has to do with scrambling, but in fact the long ball is a vital element of managing your game, which is what this book is really all about. When applied wisely, a few extra yards off the tee can put you in position to hit par-5 holes in two or drive the green on a par-4. And on a day when everything is just a little off, making smart decisions on the tee box can make the difference between playing your second shot from the fairway or from the deep rough. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to get that valuable added distance from your driver. You’ll also learn how to make good club selection off the tee. The driver isn’t always the right choice, even when you’re playing for distance.
A big drive in a timely situation is one of golf’s oldest and best weapons. Bobby Jones played a control game but knew that par-5s could make the difference between an average round and a good one. When he stepped up on the tee of a reachable par-5, he could dig for something extra to set up an almost sure birdie. Long hitters have always captured the imagination of the golfing public. Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Jim Dent, John Daly and Tiger Woods all wowed fans first with their power.
The key to making the long ball work in your favor is to know when to reach for it. Start by looking for a wide landing area. It doesn’t matter how long a hole is—if your drive costs you a shot, then you’ve made a poor decision off the tee. At the 1999 British Open at Carnoustie, most of the players were hitting irons off the tee at the 467-yard par-4 17th. It wasn’t that they would rather have a 2-iron shot into the green than a 5-iron. It was simply that the punishment for an errant tee shot was too great. The 2-iron approach was favorable to a drop from the water and a 5-iron third shot.
Conversely, long hitters routinely “let the shaft out” at the par-5 15th at Augusta National Golf Club. That’s because there’s little penalty for a mishit shot. And the reward for catching it pure is great—a mid-iron or short-iron approach and a chance at an eagle.
Once you have committed to the long ball, there are a few adjustments you need to make in both your setup and your swing to increase your chances of hitting it long, right down the fairway.
Tee the ball a little higher than you normally would. In order to create maximum distance with the driver, you want to catch the ball slightly on the upswing and increase the launch angle for more carry. Teeing the ball higher will also prevent you from hitting down into the ball, imparting backspin and decreasing distance.
Widen your stance. The long-ball swing is going to generate more torque and more speed, so you need to have a stable foundation that will support the additional motion and speed and will allow you to maintain balance throughout the swing. Your stance should be slightly wider than your shoulders, with your weight positioned on the balls of your feet and slightly more weight on the right side.
Play the ball up in your stance, about an inch in front of the left heel, again helping to set up an impact position in which you are striking the ball just on the upswing. Your hands should be just behind the ball. Set up with your right shoulder lower than usual to help your body stay more behind the ball throughout the swing and into impact. Use a light grip pressure in both hands to encourage a longer, tension-free backswing and to encourage good hand action through the hitting area.
Finally, align yourself for a draw. A right-to-left shot adds overspin that will give you valuable yards on the ground. Close your stance slightly and align your body along the stance line. See the “The Draw” section of chapter 1 (page 8) for more information on drawing the ball.
Power begins in the setup, with a wide stance, the ball played forward and the hands just behind the ball.
The key to added distance is making a longer backswing that will give you more time to build clubhead speed as you swing down into impact. You also want to make as wide a swing as possible. You do this by increasing your upper-body turn while keeping your arms extended from your body. Greg Norman has a fantastic wide swing arc. That is one of the main reasons he is still able to hit the ball out there with the young players on the Tour. Some players, including Norman, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods, also “hover” the clubhead above the ground at address. They claim that this allows them to extend their arms more on the takeaway and also reduces tension in the hands and arms. Give it a try on the practice tee and see if it works for you.
As for the swing itself, you should swing at your normal tempo on the backswing. Maintain your wide arc at the top of the swing, with your arms extended and your hands as far away from your body as you can get them. The torque of your body and the arc of the swing are responsible for the power you will generate on the forward swing.
A wide arc on the takeaway helps initiate a strong turn and a long backswing.
At the top, your arms should be extended and your hands should be well away from your body.
Stay behind the ball with your upper body on the forward swing, and let it rip!
When you are really looking to hit the ball hard, you need to make a faster forward swing with arms and body. Be aware of your transition into the forward swing. The acceleration of the clubhead must be gradual in order to be controlled. Concentrate on maintaining balance—you want to swing through the ball as fast and hard as you can while still staying in balance. Stay behind the ball to set up an impact position where you contact the ball just as the clubhead begins to move upward, past its bottom point. Maintain your spine angle as you swing into the hitting area. It’s very easy to jump at the ball when you’re putting something extra into it. Your finish should be well balanced, with your weight on the outside of your left foot and your belt buckle rotated to face slightly left of the target.
SELECTING THE RIGHT DRIVER
No matter how far you hit the ball or what your ball flight tendencies are, there’s a driver out there that promises to give you 10-15 extra yards. The problem is that you have to find it. If you’re looking for a new driver, you need to take several design factors into consideration.
Start with the shaft. Matching shaft weight and flex to your swing is the single most important element in getting maximum distance. There are no standards, so shaft fitting is often a matter of trying many different combinations of weight and flex. For golfers who don’t generate high clubhead speed, an ultralight graphite shaft can be a great help. These shafts weigh in at just 45 to 60 grams, lowering the overall weight of the club and placing most of that weight in the clubhead. If you already have a good deal of power, however, ultralight shafts can disrupt your tempo and timing. Flex is a very individual matter as well. Don’t make the mistake of selecting a shaft flex based only on clubhead speed. While it’s true that faster clubhead speeds generally match up with stiffer shafts, the key to shaft fitting is how your swing loads and unloads energy. For example, Fred Couples often uses a 3- wood with a ladies’ shaft because it matches his rhythm and tempo.
Some clubmakers are manufacturing drivers in lengths of 45, 46 and even 47 inches. The theory is that a longer club will generate greater clubhead speed. While this is true on paper, swinging a longer club won’t provide extra distance if you don’t hit the ball in the center of the clubface. My advice is to stick with a more conventional length—43.5 or 44 inches—and work on the techniques described in this chapter to get your added distance.
Head materials are another factor you should consider in your driver purchase. Titanium is very popular among designers because they can use it to build larger clubheads with thinner faces while maintaining structural integrity. Titanium is significantly lighter than steel, so some manufacturers now supplement the titanium heads with tungsten or steel weights to lower the center of gravity of the driver and help golfers get the ball in the air more easily. Titanium by itself won’t help you hit the ball any farther, but combined with a longer, lighter shaft, some golfers—again, especially those with slower swing speeds—may find extra yards and more forgiving mishits. Of course, titanium is very expensive as well. This added cost and a lack of proven performance benefits have led to a resurgence of stainless steel drivers.
Finally, think about the loft of the driver. Many golfers simply equate loft with distance. If a driver with nine degrees of loft goes a certain distance, then a driver with only seven degrees of loft should go even farther. This line of reasoning is badly flawed. Loft is a dynamic function of the club. In other words, the loft of the clubface at address may not be the same as the effective loft of the face at impact. All the design features already listed can play into effective loft, as well as angle of attack on the forward swing.
My advice is to try as many drivers as you can. When you find one that consistently gives you good trajectory and accuracy, go with it. If you practice, you can always get a few extra yards when you need them. But a driver that gives you the confidence that you can hit the fairway is a dangerous club indeed.
Also, don’t forget that you have a choice of golf ball designs as well. Low-handicappers and professionals are more concerned with feel and spin for shotmaking control and tend to use softer wound or multicover ball designs. If you’re a mid-or high-handicapper, however, you should try a harder, two-piece ball that spins less. Reduced spin will help you hit it not only longer but straighter as well, since a two-piece distance ball reduces both backspin and sidespin.
Cover materials and thickness and the core of the ball all affect its playability. I encourage you to experiment with different types of balls in different weather and course conditions. If there’s an advantage to be gained, you should be familiar enough with equipment technology to gain it.
You’re standing on the tee box of a 300-yard par-4 with the wind at your back. You can hardly wait to tee up your driver and just let it rip. Well, here’s a secret—your driver may not always be the longest club in your bag.
When you’re driving with the wind and you want to get maximum distance, the best way to take full advantage of the tailwind is to get the ball high up into the air. In this situation, you are better off using your 3-wood.
Tee the ball just slightly higher than a nice fairway lie. The only setup changes you should make are to move the ball forward slightly, about one inch in front of where you would normally play it for a 3-wood shot and increase your spine tilt so that more weight is on your right side at address.
As you swing, concentrate on staying behind the ball. The additional loft of the 3-wood imparts more backspin, helping the ball naturally fly higher than a driver. Once it’s up, your ball will ride the wind and should travel farther than any shot you could hit with a driver. Try it. It works.
If you’re really serious about adding distance to your drives, your swing adjustments must be accompanied by better physical conditioning. If you wonder how Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia can be among the longest hitters in the game, given their thin physiques, the answer lies in conditioning. They have both invested a lot of time in building the muscle groups that affect distance—the shoulders, forearms, hands, lower back and legs. They also are very flexible.
A number of good golf conditioning books have appeared recently. These books include exercises and stretches to help tune your body to produce greater clubhead speed. Pick one up and start a personal conditioning program—especially during the off-season.
Too many golfers approach driving the ball with a one-dimensional game plan—maximum distance. You would never use that thinking on your iron shots to the green, and you shouldn’t use it off the tee, either. Your tee shots can make the difference between a round with many scoring opportunities and a round where you spend all your time hunting for balls, playing shots from deep rough and counting penalty strokes.
By now you should know your game and your tendencies pretty well. If you tend to hook the ball when you are not hitting it well, don’t try for extra yards on any hole where there is trouble on the left. In the same way that altering your swing magnifies distance when you hit the ball solidly, it also magnifies mistakes. Keep this in mind as you make your decisions.
If you watch golf on television, you’ve heard the analysts talk about driving in terms of the angle of approach the drive leaves the player. This is a great way to start thinking of your own drives. On most holes, the approach to the green is much easier from one side of the fairway than the other. Maybe there’s a large bunker guarding the left side of the green that hardly comes into play from the right side. This is vital information to know as you stand on the tee box.
The most important thing you can do to improve your driving is to have a distinct target area of the fairway in mind. The target area should provide you with the most open approach to the green or pin. It should also play to your strengths. In other words, if you aren’t confident with your 110-yard shot, your target area on a short par-4 should leave you at a distance and line where you are more comfortable. Don’t think of irons off the tee as only “layups.” Make your club selection based on the target area you have selected. If you have chosen a target area that is 200 yards from the tee, and that will leave you with a desirable 130-yard shot to the green as well as taking a fairway bunker out of play, you’re not laying up by hitting an iron. You’re hitting a smart drive.
You may have also heard announcers pointing out how the tour professionals use the entire tee box. This is another sign of an advanced player. Many weekend golfers simply tee the ball up in the middle of the tee box and swing away. Instead, you should choose the side of the tee box that gives you the best angle of approach to your target area. The tee box is the only part of the golf course where you get to choose the line of your next shot. This is a giant mental and physical advantage over any other shot you will encounter during the round. Take full advantage. If your target area is in the left side of the fairway, and you like to draw the ball, tee up on the left side of the tee box so you can start the ball out to the right and work it back into the target. If you’re a straight ball hitter, you may choose to play from the right side of the tee box to reach the same target area. In that case, the right side would give you more room for error.
Remember, the key to good driving is to look at it not as a distance contest but as a chance to set up your next shot. If you do that, you’ll soon develop a feel for tee shots, and you’ll know when it’s safe to try for a little added distance.
Tee the ball a little higher than normal to catch the ball on the upswing
Widen stance to slightly wider than the shoulders to support a longer, faster swing
Play the ball one inch forward of normal driver position
Set up with shoulders square to the target line, but with an increased tilt to lower the right shoulder a bit to set up behind the ball, and to help keep your weight behind the ball on the forward swing
Use light grip pressure for a full release of hands and club through the hitting area
Close the stance slightly to set up for a draw—see chapter 1
Let the club swing straight back for the first foot to encourage a wide swing arc
Swing at a normal tempo on the backswing but a slightly faster pace on the forward swing
Make a full body pivot around the right leg
Maintain the wide arc established at the takeaway throughout the backswing
At the top of the swing, make sure arms are fully extended in front of the chest—swing may feel a little shorter
Stay behind the ball as you make the forward swing
Hit it long off the tee only if you have a wide landing area—extra distance won’t help if it costs you a shot to recover
Consider your directional misses with the driver—a longer, faster swing magnifies sidespin and the amount of curve
Have your professional help you determine if your driver has the appropriate shaft weight, length, flex and loft for your swing
If distance is a primary objective, use a harder, two-piece ball that spins less
Start and stay relaxed for maximum body rotation and clubhead speed
Smooth tempo and even rhythm is key—avoid jumping at the ball from the top
Let’s face it, golf has become a power game. The players on the pro tours who can knock the ball out of sight have a huge advantage over the field. A longer tee shot means you have a shorter iron into the green—and pinpoint accuracy is much easier with a more lofted club. On the pro tours if you can’t keep up in reaching the par-5s in two, you’re giving shots to the field. Besides, I don’t know many golfers, pro or amateur, who wouldn’t like to hit the ball longer. Not only does it make the game easier, it makes the game more fun. All it takes is a little practice to squeeze a few extra yards out of your driver.
Be sure you work on hitting the long ball only after a sufficient warm-up. You want to get the most out of your practice and to avoid injury. If you don’t already have a pretty good idea of your driving average, start by charting the next couple of rounds. Once you know the distance you hit your driver on average, use the setup and swing adjustments in this chapter to step it up. Have fun hitting drives and really letting it rip. If you watch kids on the range, they’re trying to push the envelope on power and you should take their lead. Try to see how fast you can swing while being able to maintain balance. Start out by making five practice swings—fast and in balance. Then rip a drive, holding a balanced finish until the ball hits the ground. You can also try the “swoosh” drill. Turn your driver upside down, holding it in your right hand just below the clubhead. Make five swings trying to create a loud swoosh at the bottom of the swing. Then hit some drives trying to create the same fast clubhead speed. As you try to hit the ball farther, monitor your grip pressure. Do you do better using a slightly lighter grip pressure? Can you still hit the ball relatively straight even when you’re amping up the clubhead speed? Finally, take advantage of the demo drivers in your club’s shop to experiment with different shafts, shaft flexes, shaft lengths and amounts of loft. You need to discover the driver that produces the launch conditions that maximize your driving distance.