This article gives three highly recommended YouTube videos, specifically about improving your driving. The first two videos I’ve put into practice myself, and can honestly say they have helped my driving no end. Now I’m not saying I hit straight bombs constantly. Definitely not. Since watching these videos and adapting them to my game, I have more tools. I have the ability to hit further without extra effort, through improved technique. Or with some minor changes, I hit something more accurate, sacrificing distance. Let’s start with Gain Distance With Your Driver.
Gain Distance With Your Driver
You’d like to drive the ball further right? To do this I recommend watching the YouTube video below, courtesy of GolfPass. I first saw this technique demonstrated in a video featuring Sandy Lyle. Unfortunately, I’ve not been able to find it again. This video from GolfPass is a worthy stand in. The techniques here are pretty simple, which is exactly how we like it at How Is My Golf. The simple ingredients are:
- Tee it high – so you can see between 1/2 and a full ball above the club head.
- Tilt the shoulders – the leading shoulder should be noticeably higher.
- Drop the wrists – at the top of the back swing, drop your wrists, helping promote a shallower down swing. This takes some playing with – Sergio Garcia does this. Matt Wolfe does this in an extreme way with his figure of eight type swing.
- Hit up on the ball and high – your swing should bottom out 6 to 12 inches behind the ball. This aims to reduce spin and drag, giving greater distance.
Watch the video below for more detail.
What’s my take on this?
This works. I use this technique most on wider fairways where there’s more forgiveness. Because, if there is side spin you can end up with big hooks or fades. Hence, there is an obvious trade off here, Distance vs Accuracy. If you have a persistent slice or hook, I’d always recommend professional coaching. If my driver is having an off day, I won’t use this technique. Instead, I use the technique in the next section Hit Your Driver Straight.
Hit Your Driver Straight
Below is a really good YouTube video by Alex Elliot Golf. Again the technique here is pretty simple. By adjusting tee height and moving your stance, you can effectively straighten your drives. This does come at a price of course, Distance vs Accuracy. The change is simple. Reduce your tee height, move the ball back in your stance. The more you do both, the lower your drives will go and straighter. I’ve used this to great effect in two scenarios:
- When faced with a tight fairway.
- When my driver is off and I want more control.
My personal approach is to have a stock short and straight drive using the following, which is somewhere between the white and pink tee set up in the video:
- Tee the ball leaving less than 1/4 of the ball showing above the driver head.
- Little to no tilting of the shoulders.
- Move the ball back in your stance, but still forward of centre by two to three balls.
I like having this stock straight, but shorter drive. It feels more like I’m hitting a 3W than a driver. Take a look at the video, play around, let us know how you get on and what works/doesn’t work. If you’re looking to hit your irons straight, we highly recommend our article “How To Hit The Ball Straight“. Back to Driving. One more highly recommend video to go, Hit Your Driver Long and Straight!
Hit Your Driver Long and Straight
At this point you may be thinking that I’ve not given you the secret to long and straight drives. The truth is, I’m on this path. My current average drive distance is 248 yards, with 46% fairways hit. The pros don’t always hit long and straight either. How do you compare to the pro stats below?
Female golfers: Average driving distance of 270.3 yards for drives that hit the fairway (65.3% of all drives) (sourced from FOX Sports/Trackman golf).
Male golfers: Average driving distance of 313.6 yards for drives that hit the fairway (61.3% of all drives) (sourced from FOX Sports/Trackman golf).
Before we end, I do have one more YouTube video for you. Now, I’d say this is the next step. I experimented with some of this in the past. But I stopped. I chose not to over complicate my driving progress. I wanted to master the two videos above first. But I think I’m ready now! So here it is, Danny Maude’s “Possibly the Fastest Way to Hit Driver Straight and Long“.
We hope this article helps your game, and you enjoy the process of trying something new with your driver. Let us know your thoughts by commenting below. And don’t forget to subscribe to receive new articles direct to your inbox.
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