A Few Swing Things

Not a very catchy title, is it? I couldn’t think of what else to call this post and still build in a little SEO. So no great ideas this week, just a few things I’ve been fiddling with, and a story.

1. Practice your putting stroke at home, maybe ten or so strokes a day. Not a lot, just enough to keep the feeling of how you do it from slipping away. Putt a ball to a target while doing this. I use a jar opener for a target. You can get one at a grocery store. It’s a thin sheet of rubber about five inches on a side, with a lot of raised bumps. If you trace out a circle on it using a 24-oz. can of tomatoes as your guide, you can cut out a “hole” just about 4¼” in diameter. You can also take this ersatz hole to the practice green and drop it where you want a hole to be, if the ones already cut out aren’t where you want to putt/chip to.

2. Lately I have taken to swinging a 7-iron in my living room late at night with the lights out. Don’t worry, you won’t hit the ceiling. Just make sure you’re clear of ceiling-mounted light fixtures. Swinging in the dark will improve your balance, since you don’t have the visual cues you normally use to stay in balance. It also slows down your swing so you’re actually swinging, not clobbering.

3. A little thought I’ve been using for a while concerning the driver is a way to make sure the clubhead is moving upward when it contacts the ball. Before I address the ball I think not about hitting it square on the back, but a bit below that, on the underside. Now I know that’s not possible, but it does give the unconscious mind a way to tell the body how to hit the ball with the clubhead on the rise. Make sure as well your hands lead the clubhead. By all means turn off the conscious mind when you swing. Just a smidgen of thinking about hitting under the ball will ruin the effort.

4. Once at the range my son asked me to hit a ball as hard as I could. I think I had a 6-iron or so in my hand. So I did, and it went a long way. Then, I said, “Watch this.” I put my normal swing on the ball, which doesn’t have any “hit” in, and the ball went five yards less. How much can you slow down your swing with a particular club and still get the same distance out of it? Try it.

Actually, I didn’t really hit the first ball as hard as I could. I did that another time while playing in a 4-club tournament. I was 170 yards from the green. I had a 7-iron, my 140-yard club, and a 19* hybrid, my 200-yard club, in the bag. I didn’t want to ease up on the hybrid, because you can really hit a terrible shot that way. So I had to clobber the 7. I stood beside the ball for about a minute, psyching myself to swing as hard as I could, yet still control the strike. I swung, connected, and the ball took off and landed on the green. I put the 7-iron back in the bag and promised myself I would never, ever do that again.

A Driver Drill That Works

OK, OK. In spite of all the times I have said to leave your driver at home if you can’t break 90, you bring it anyway. So ignore me.

But only if you do this drill so you can learn to actually hit the [expletive deleted] thing.

Go to the range with just your driver (like half the other people there do). Get your bucket of 60 balls and do exactly this when you hit each ball. The same thing every time. No deviation.

Take your hands back, slowly, to the height of your shoulders. Or to where your left arm lies parallel to the ground. Now make a smooth, SLOW, rhythmic pass back through the ball, like you’re hitting a gentle lay-up. Remember to swing the club through the ball with hands ahead of the clubhead.

If you do this right, you will hit the ball squarely on the center of the clubface. THAT is the key to hitting your driver.

Do not be concerned at all about how far the ball goes or even in what direction. That is totally irrelevant. Be concerned about one thing only -- making contact on the center of the clubface.

If that’s not happening, try slowing down your swing a bit more. If there’s still no joy, make sure your hands are ahead of the clubhead at contact.

Do not manipulate the club to get the result we’re looking for -- smooth out your swing instead. Once you get the idea, keep doing it. Over and over. Same thing. Do not think, “I’ve got it!” and start pounding the ball with your full swing. Keep making these slow mini-swings to pound the sensation of a centered hit into your unconscious mind.

When you’re finished, you will have hit 60 balls with a driver and maybe none of them went over 150 yards. But most of them were struck on the CENTER of the clubface.

With this driver drill you are getting expert in the one thing you have to do with this cub -- hit the ball on the center of the clubface.

Keep at this drill, and once you get VERY GOOD at it, you might speed up the swing a LITTLE BIT and make the swing a LITTLE BIT longer. But not much. Add to what works in tiny increments.

What about playing? Well, if you wanted to use this swing when you play, could you live with being in every fairway? As you get better at the drill and extend your movment, gradually, without getting greedy, the distance will come, and you’ll still be straight. The driver might become your favorite club in your bag.

Swing Up With Your Driver? Really?

The advice you read these days is that your driver should be arcing upward when it makes contact with the ball. True enough for recreational golfers. There are some instructors, though, who would have you learn a swing separately for your driver so that could happen.

I won’t argue with them, because they might well be right in that that would be ideal way to play golf. But, recreational golfers who have time to make one trip to the range per week, and play one round of golf per week, don’t have the time to develop two swings. Getting good at just one is hard enough.

So here’s what you don’t have to do to be swinging upward with your driver.

- You don’t have to deliberately swing up at the ball.

- You don’t have to tilt your stance away from the target when you set up to the ball.

- You don't have to tee the ball higher or tee it up way forward in your stance.

None of those things. All you have to do is use your normal stance and your normal golf swing.

I figured this out when I was working on my swing with a 6-iron and no ball. I found that the club kept hitting the ground about thee inches in front of where the club was at address.

This means I would have hit a golf ball lying on the ground while the club was still going slightly down, like we're supposed to. But three inches isn’t that far in front of the ball. After that, the club would have to start arcing upward.

I laid out a few alignment rods as shown in the picture. The orange rod points to the center of my stance, where I would place the ball for an iron shot. The tee peg points to a spot three inches in front of that, marking the bottom of my swing. The yellow rod points to the ball on a tee, even with the inside of my right heel.

As you can see, the yellow rod lies well in front of the bottom of my swing (tee peg). That means when the driver bottoms out three inches in front of the orange rod, it has plenty of time to be arcing upward when it contacts the ball.

When I started swinging normally at a teed-up ball, using the same swing feelings that I do when I swing an iron, the ball just took off.

Remember, all the clubhead has to be doing is moving a few degrees upward. By using your normal swing, that will happen.

One swing is hard enough to learn. Fortunately, that one swing is good enough for everything.

How Far Do You Hit It, Really?

We all think we hit it farther than we do. You hear that a lot. Actually, I think each of us has a very god idea of how far we hit it. It’s just not as far as we would like.

This chart tells the approximate truth. If you have a swing speed with your driver of 95 mph, which is high for the majority of recreational golfers, you will carry the ball 210 yards. With adequate roll, you can get about 225 yards out of that shot.

Now roll is highly variable. Have you ever seen an aerial shot of a Tour event and there’s a shot of a drive that falls straight out of the sky and maybe gets two yards of roll?

But, it was hit in the air a ton. Recreational golfers don’t hit those kinds of shots. Ours go lower and roll more.

So don’t kid yourself. If you are an average recreational golfer and you hit your driver 200 yards in the air, that’s a good shot. Add on maybe 15-20 yards of roll and you can play with that length.

Want to hit it farther? Assuming you hit the ball on the center of the clubface regularly (and that’s a big assumption) you’ll hit it farther by swinging faster AND maintaining good tempo.

A more lofted driver might help, too, but that’s another post.

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.

Visit www.thercreationalgolfer.com.

Thirteen golf clubs, one swing

Many advisors say you would be better off leaving your driver at home and teeing off with a 3-wood. I am completely opposed to that idea. The driver is one of the most valuable clubs in your bag. Instead of avoiding it, learn how to use it.

The reason the driver is so hard to hit is not because it is so much longer than the other clubs, or has less loft, but because of the way you approach it. The driver hits the ball father than any other club, and you see the touring pros absolutely bombing it, so you think you have to do the same, that it's a distance club.

That makes you swing it differently from your other clubs, asking your swing to do different things, and the driver to different things, than they were designed to do.

You don't think that way with your 9-iron, do you? With that club, you're trying to hit an accurate shot to a target. No one tries to bomb their 9-iron. So why not do the same with your driver? Hit an accurate shot to a target. A very long time ago, the driver was called a "play club," meant only to get the ball in play at a distance, with "in play" being the part that mattered.

The way to hit your driver well is to hit it the way you hit all your other clubs. Here's a drill that will show how that feels.

Take two clubs to the range, you driver and your 9-iron. Warm up with your 9-iron and get to the point where each shot is a good one. Then, lay down that club, pick up your driver, and swing it with the same swing you've been using with the 9. That swing might feel a bit small, so open it up a bit, but stick to that 9-iron feeling. Hit three balls (no more!), and go back to the 9 and hit it with the driver swing you were just using. Now you will have a bit of driver feeling in your 9-iron. Hit a few balls with that swing, then go back to your driver and hit three balls with your new 9-iron swing.

What you're doing is bringing aspects of one club into the swing of the other. You're making your driver a little more like a short iron, and your short iron a little more like a driver. As you keep swapping clubs, the swing feeling with each one gets closer and closer to the feeling you have with the other. At the point where both swings feel the same, you've done it.

At that point, you should be hitting smooth, straight drives, and 9-irons that have real authority. This is the place where you want to be with your swing, where you have one swing for thirteen clubs.

In your daily life, you don't run into a problem area and avoid it. You would figure out how to solve the problem and make that area a new strength. Do the same in your golf. Learn how to hit the driver and leave you 3-wood at home. That would make room for another wedge!


Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Should you buy that new driver?

Every year, golf club manufacturers come out with new drivers, guaranteed to let you hit the ball longer and straighter. New technology and design trump last year's up-to-the-minute advances. Now I assume that you've finally put that persimmon driver away, but at what point should you be willing to lay out $3-400 for a newer driver than the one you have, and if you want a new driver, should you have to pay that much for it?

Let's look first at the job a driver has to do. It is a club designed to hit the ball off the tee a long way down the fairway. Its bigger head and longer shaft mean that extra distance comes without any extra effort on your part. All you have to do is make sure your swing hits the ball straight, which, because of its relatively upright face, is harder to do with a driver than with any other club.

So before you start looking for a new driver, ask yourself this question. Am I getting everything I need out of the driver I'm using right now? If the answer is yes, I'm getting satisfactory distance and I can put the ball in the fairway consistently, there might not be a reason to switch.

If the answer is no, and you hit all your other clubs just fine, maybe all you need is a lesson to figure out what the problem is. If the answer is you don't hit your other clubs much better either, then it's the singer, not the song, and that $400 would be better spent on lessons.

So it looks like in every case, you should stick with what you have rather than upgrade. Not quite. There are times you should switch. The new designs and technology do make a difference. Maybe not so much from one year to the next, but the improvements compound themselves. If your driver is five years old, advances since it was new could well let you hit significantly better shots, or the same shots more easily.

How would you find out? Go try out some of the new ones under the supervision of your local pro or club fitter. Unless your current driver was fitted when you bought it, you might find that a new driver, fitted to your current swing, makes driving the ball a completely different experience.

Before we leave this subject let me make one more comment. Unless you score in the low 80s, hitting a driver might be the wrong thing to do. This is a difficult club to hit. Unless you are getting your tee shots in the fairway you're losing strokes needlessly.

Higher-handicap golfers would be better served playing a fairway wood or long hybrid (does anybody carry long irons anymore?) off the tee.


Visit www.therecreationalgolfer.com

Hit Your Driver Straight: A Checklist

Recreational golfers shoot good scores by getting the ball in the fairway off the tee. By going through the following checklist before you swing, you will increase your chances of hitting good shots with the hardest club to hit well.

Straighter shots begin when you set up to the ball. Most golfers set up aimed to the right of their target.

Either the ball goes right, or a subconscious correction sends the ball pretty much anywhere, only sometimes where you intend.

Practice your aim every time you go to the range. It is a skill that cannot be learned for good; it must be refreshed at every opportunity.

Ball position counts, too. With your driver, you want hit the ball slightly on the upswing.

Lay an alignment stick on the ground pointing from your stance toward the ball (at a right angle to your target line). When the stick points to the ball, and inside of your left heel lies against the stick, the ball is in the right place.

The following traits can be easily built into anyone's swing. They help keep the club under control so you can return it to the ball square and in line.

1. Grip down about a half inch from where you normally do. This will give you more control of the club.

2. Take the club back straight. It's hard to take the club back outside, but easy to take it back inside. Have a friend stand down the line behind you to give you feedback on getting this right.

3. Do not swing the club back too far. Take it back only as far as when you hit your 9-iron and see what happens.

4. Start your downswing by turning your body. Let the hands and wrists go along for the ride until the momentum of the downswing unleashes the wrists and hands into the ball.

5. Keep your body turning. A common error is to slow down your body near impact so can apply a hit.

6. There's a race between your hands and the clubhead to get to the ball first, which your hands have to win. Keep pulling your hands through the impact zone.

7. Suppress the urge to clobber the ball with your left hand. Swing your arms and hands through the ball with your body turn.

2013 update: This summer I have been hitting my driver exceedingly straight. I attribute that to the work I have been doing on making sure my hands are ahead of the clubhead through the hitting area.

Bonus: Until you can hit your driver straight, tee off with a club that you can.