Hit Your Driver Straight

The driver is probably the recreational golfer’s most important club. If you put the ball in the fairway, you have a chance for a par. If you miss, the odds are considerably lower. Here is one way to tame a difficult club.

Go to the range and get your bucket of balls. After you’ve warmed up, hit a few pitches, focusing on taking the club straight back and straight through. Your backswing should take you hands only as high as your hip. I’m sure these shots will go straight.

Now take out your driver and use the same swing. Tee up a ball and hit it with the same swing you used to hit those pitches. I’ll bet the ball goes straight. Not very far, because that’s not the point right now, but straight. Hit a few more with that same swing. Resist any urge to hit the ball hard.

Start hitting balls with your driver using progressively longer swings. Hit a few balls at each new swing length. Keep the intervals between each swing length small. We’re working up to your limit of control, a bit at a time.

Your first swing was to where your hands were hip-high. Another benchmark would be where your left arm is parallel to the ground. Don’t go there right away, though. You can put a second swing between those two and make the parallel arm swing your third swing.

Work up gradually, there’s no hurry. You should find all the shots you hit are straight, up in the air, and landing farther away as you length of your swing increases. I repeat: do not try to hit the ball hard. That will ruin what you’re trying to do, and that’s one of the reasons in the first place why you don’t hit your driver straight.

Eventually you will come to a point where golden shots will turn sour (sorry about the mixed metaphor). That’s the point at which your swing is breaking down and you no longer control the clubface. At this point, or beyond, is probably where you have been taking your backswing. Time to let that longer swing go.

Your new swing is the longest swing you can make and keep the clubface, and hence the ball under control. It is likely to be shorter than you are used to. It will feel a lot shorter, but it is really only a bit shorter. This new swing will hit the ball straight, and hit it just as far as before, since you will be hitting the ball off he center of the clubface, which is the main generator of distance.

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