A Drill for Squaring Your Driver at Impact (Video)

This is a Golf Monthly video hosted by the guys from the MeandMyGolf YouTube channel. It's a drill to help you keep the face of your driver square at impact.



This is a very simple drill. Just grip down on the club until your trailing hand is almost touching the shaft, then make sure the butt of the grip is pointed at your trail hip as your hands pass your hip on the way back. That will help you keep from twisting your forearms on the way back, and that means you won't have to try and twist them forward the same amount on the way down.

Less excess motion means less inconsistency.

I hope you're starting to notice how many instructors are beginning to stress "stable clubfaces" -- that is, that you don't open the clubface on the way back. If you do, the more clubhead speed you create, the less time you have to compensate on the way down... and the more often your ball ends up in the woods. The only time you should even consider twisting your forearms during your swing is when you're playing FROM the woods and have to hit a duck hook around a tree. Please, please, PLEASE stop twisting your forearms on the way back!

You'll thank me for it.

Really, you will.

Fred Funk on Hitting Longer Drives (Video)

I'm posting this older GCA clip with Fred Funk because he has a very different take on getting extra distance from your drive. Bear in mind that Fred isn't the longest hitter to begin with, so this tip may surprise you.



In a time when we're being told that the way to get distance is to "tee it high and let it fly," Fred doesn't follow this advice unless he particularly wants a high shot. When he wants a long drive, he tees it LOW so he'll get more roll. Based on the quick shot of how low he tees the ball, I'd say he has only a quarter to a third of the ball above the top of his driver, not half the ball as most instructors suggest.

Note that Fred's advice won't help you if the fairways are wet. In that case, your distance will come mostly from the amount of carry you get. This is clearly a tip for use on firm fairways where you can count on a bounce or two, as well as some roll. It might also help when you're playing into a wind.

In any case, remember that the best way to get distance on your drive depends as much on the CONDITIONS as on the equipment and technique. Sometimes you want to tee it high, sometimes you want to tee it low, and sometimes you'll get more distance with a 3-wood than a driver. (It's a bit easier to draw the ball with 3-wood, and easier to fade the ball with a driver.) Take a moment to plan your strategy before you tee it up, and you'll be rewarded.

Sean Foley on Changing Your Angle of Attack (Video)

GC is posting some bits of their Revolution Golf teaching for free, probably as samples of what you'll get if you pay for the service. In them I found this short video from Sean Foley that might help improve your driving.



I know Sean sometimes gets very technical in his explanations, but this isn't difficult to understand.

Your angle of attack is simply whether you're hitting down or up on the ball at impact. And what Sean is saying is that you unconsciously change your angle of attack just by teeing the ball higher or lower. Furthermore, you'll do it regardless of whether you change your ball position or not, because your eyes react to the height of the ball.

• If you tee the ball low, you'll automatically try to hit down on the ball, even if you move the ball forward.
• If you tee the ball high, you'll automatically try to hit up on the ball, even if you move the ball backward.

Obviously, you'd like to move the ball a bit forward when you tee it high, and you'd like to move the ball a bit backward when you tee it low. That way, your ball position and angle of attack are working together to get the results you want.

But what you need to take away from this video is that you can change your angle of attack by as much as ten degrees just by changing how high or low you tee the ball -- and that will happen without any effort on your part to change the angle of attack.

This is a case of simple knowledge being more important than technique. Knowing that what you see will change what you do can eliminate a whole lot of frustration caused by working against your natural tendencies.

Kaylin Skovron and Michael Breed's Driving Tips

Golf Digest posted a couple of articles with simple driving tips that you might find useful.

The first is from an article by instructor Kaylin Skovron called 5-Minute Clinic: How to Make Swing Adjustments for Different Shots. It has a number of different tips but the driving tip is simple.



She recommends a change to your driving setup to get more distance. As she puts it:

To get the best launch and spin with a driver, play the ball forward in your stance and hit up on it. But if you have it aligned with your front heel (above, left), and you're still hitting it too low (and often crooked), play it even farther forward so the ball is lined up off the toes of the front foot (above, right). Address it with your feet together, and then step away from the target with your trail foot. Now you're set up to launch it higher—and hopefully straighter.

It won't work for everybody; it depends on your swing mechanics. Still, it's worth trying out.

Once you get set up for more distance, you need to get a bigger swing. Michael Breed has a short article called One Driver Swing Thought for Longer and Straighter Drives... and it's a simple one. Just keep your trail arm straight for as long as possible in your backswing.

I'd better explain this one a bit.



This photo looks like a pretty stiff-armed takeaway, doesn't it? It's misleading. It just LOOKS that way because Michael hasn't bent his trailing elbow. If you try it with a club, you'll find that you can stay pretty relaxed for quite a long time as you make your backswing, even though your elbow isn't bending.

"Keeping your trailing elbow straight for a long time" is one way to keep the club farther away from your head at the top of your backswing. Players like Annika say this is a primary swing thought with them.

Bear in mind that your elbow WILL bend at the top of your backswing. Michael probably can't get much farther than the photo shows without bending his elbow. But at the top, instead of a 90° angle, it'll be more like 75° or so. IT'S STILL BENT, just not as much. It bends a bit more as you start down, which helps you keep your wrist cock later into your downswing, and that gives you more distance.

Don't overdo the bend on the way down. It always feels as if your trail arm is straighter than it actually is, so if you try to feel a right angle bend you'll probably smack your shoulders with the club shaft! If you stay relaxed and just feel as if your trail arm is staying at about the same angle, you'll probably get the result you want.

And between these two tips, you may be able to pick up some extra distance without too much effort.

Cristie Kerr's Driver Setup (Video)

This short clip is from Cristie's driver special on Golf Channel Academy that aired Tuesday night. The way she sets up is so simple that I wanted to post it here.



Here's what she does:

• To start, with both feet together, she positions herself so the ball would be right in center of her stance. Just draw a straight line from between her feet and the ball is THERE.
• Since she's righthanded, she turns her left (lead) foot slightly toward the target. Note that she doesn't step toward the target with her lead foot, she just pivots it on her heel.
• She steps back with her right (trailing) foot and stands so her weight is pretty even on each foot.

And that's it, folks. This position puts her upper body just slightly behind the ball, which will let her hit up on it, just like you're supposed to do with your driver. And because her right hand is lower on the club than her left, she automatically tilts her spine slightly behind the ball.

It really doesn't get much simpler than that. And Cristie's success with her driver proves it works. It's a good way to develop a consistent stance and ball position with the driver, and it doesn't take a lot of fidgeting to get it right.

A Nicklaus Tip You May Not Have Heard

I love finding new things about the great players that I haven't heard before... and today I have one about Jack Nicklaus.

No doubt you've heard that Jack hovered the head of his driver behind the golf ball for a smoother takeaway. I found something that contradicts that.

Some years ago John Andrisani did a number of books about different players, each with a title like The [fill in the blank] Way. Here's what I found in his book The Nicklaus Way:

He sets the clubhead behind the ball, with its face aligned precisely for the type and degree of sidespin he intends to give the shot. Let me stop for a second here and discuss two observations I have made regarding this aspect of his setup.

One secret Nicklaus never mentioned is this: he sets the club down a couple of inches behind the ball, and I believe this little nuance helps promote that smooth, streamlined straight-back takeaway action he is so famous for.

The second secret: contrary to what he has said over and over, in books and on video, he does not hold the club slightly above the grass. Rather, he rests it very gently on the grass. He does not press the bottom of the club into the grass, as amateurs do. Addressing the ball like Nicklaus will help alleviate tension in your hands and arms and allow you to make a good backswing action. Once you do that, you stand a much better chance of returning the club to a square impact position. (p9-10)

Now you might think that second "secret" -- that the club is resting lightly on the grass rather than hovering above it -- is nitpicking. I would agree although, since Jack was playing with older equipment where the ball was teed lower, it might be true. When we focus on doing something we tend to exaggerate it, and trying to hover the clubhead might cause you to hold it quite a bit higher than trying to rest it lightly on the grass would. With modern equipment this probably isn't a big deal, but it's still worth noting.

However, the first secret seems significant to me. The closer you hover the clubhead behind the ball, the more likely you would be to accidently tap the ball. Consciously leaving a noticeable space between the ball and the clubface gives you a margin for error that I believe would help you stay more relaxed at address.

This is a small tip, but often small things are a tremendous help when you need to build your confidence. I know it's something I'm going to consider doing in the future.

Scott McCarron's Driver Swing (Video)

With his third win of the season at the DICK'S Sporting Goods Open Sunday, Scott McCarron pulled to roughly $800k behind Schwab Cup leader Bernhard Langer. I thought it might be interesting to look at Scott's driver swing and see what we can learn from it.



Let me start by saying that you don't have to swing like Scott does. That's not my point here. What I want you to see is how his swing works. There are many ways to drive a golf ball, and the best players have figured out how to make the different parts of their swings work together. We want to understand how those basics work in Scott's swing.

And the first thing you'll notice is how far back in his stance Scott positions his ball for a driver. The "scientists" among us say we need a launch angle of about 12°, which means we need to be swinging upward when hitting the ball off the tee. That means we need to have our swing center -- which I would place at the point where your spine meets your shoulder girdle -- that needs to be behind the ball at impact.

Because Scott places the ball so far back in his stance -- just ahead of center -- his address position has to take this into account. Therefore he sets up with his spine tilted noticeably backward, and when he swings it appears as if he moves even farther behind the ball. That's not actually true, though -- although his lead shoulder moves farther behind the ball, you can see that his trailing knee DOESN'T MOVE during his backswing. He's holding himself steady, but his shoulder turn (around his reasonably stationary spine position) makes it look like he's moving away. This is something you might notice on many players with a similar setup if you just look for it.

On the downswing Scott's lower body moves forward a bit more dramatically than I would like to see, but this is also a side effect of his ball position. He needs to shift his weight forward but he also has to keep his swing center behind the ball if he hopes to hit upward on the ball. That creates the dramatic hip shift as he starts down. HOWEVER, note that his lead leg and hip are pretty much vertical at impact, preventing him from ending up in a painful reverse-C position at impact.

So despite the body angles created by his nearly centered ball position, Scott manages to avoid bad extremes that could hurt his back. I still find it hard to believe he can hit up on the ball from that position, but he's averaging 292 yards off the tee this season, so it seems to be working for him.

The lesson here is that your ball position places its own demands on your swing. If you're having trouble with your accuracy, the first thing you should check is your ball position. No matter what changes you make to your swing, you won't get the results you want if you position the ball incorrectly for your swing's mechanics.

Danielle Kang on Hitting Driver (Videos)

I found a series of tip videos that Danielle Kang -- last week's KPMG Women's PGA winner -- did for Golfing World a couple of months ago. This is the first one, about how to hit your driver.



I want to call your attention to some seemingly contradictory advice Danielle gives here. She says "you always have to keep your body moving through the ball in order to get your acceleration." But if you watch her swing, you'll see that she doesn't drive her lower body forward at the start of her downswing as much as you would expect.

That's because when she talks about keeping your lower body moving, she's not talking about how you start your downswing. Look at her position around the 1:18 mark. Note how both of her feet are flat on the ground and her arms are halfway down. She's talking about players who stop their body rotation at that point, long before they reach the end of their finish.

Danielle's drill to help prevent that is an interesting one. She (as a right-hander) tries to get up on her right toes early in the downswing. For a lot of you, that simply isn't going to work because it will affect your ball contact in a bad way, so it's not a drill I would recommend because I think it will lead most of you into bad habits. I say "most of you" because everybody's different and clearly it works for Danielle. But I just want you to understand the drill's purpose.

Apparently, when Danielle's body stops rotating too early, it's because she gets stiff-legged. Her knees don't stay relaxed; instead, they tense up and lock her in that position at the 1:18 point in the video. Why does that happen? Because she's trying to hit the ball hard, and most players tend to tense up when they try to generate power with their legs.

Pushing off with her trailing toes forces her knees to relax and let her weight shift to her lead foot. That relaxation is what you're after. The Ben Hogan hip-to-hip drill -- which I've posted on this blog numerous times and will post again now -- can help you get used to the proper feel.



So there you go -- two drills to help you create the body turn that Danielle says you need. Just remember that any time you have trouble getting "through the ball," check for excess tension in your legs and knees. That's the culprit more times than you might think.

A Quick Look at Byron Nelson's Swing (Video)

Since the AT&T Byron Nelson starts today, I thought I'd give you a quick lesson on how he hit the ball so straight. This is his swing in 1945, when he set all those records.



This video starts with a regular-speed swing, then runs it in extremely slow motion. There are other videos that use this footage, but this one made it easier to see both of the things I want to point out.

First thing: Everybody talks about Hogan's waggle, but there are other ways to start your swing. This video clearly shows how Nelson bent his trailing knee toward the ball to start his backswing. He's not the only player to have done this -- Gary Player comes to mind -- but he may have been the first.

Second thing: And this is the key to his accuracy. You know how every teacher tells you to start your hips before you start your shoulders, so you can increase the angle between your shoulders and hips on the way down to increase power? Nelson doesn't do it! Instead, you can clearly see that the angle between his shoulders and hips doesn't change. In fact, his upper body moves forward, toward his target.

Personally, I'd rather you didn't move your upper body so far forward as you start your downswing. That causes you to lose some clubhead speed. But Nelson starts with so much weight on his lead leg that it can't really be helped -- he has to move away from the target during his backswing or he'll reverse pivot during his downswing. You'll want to keep your weight more centered when you address the ball so you don't have to move your upper body so much.

However, keeping that shoulder-hip angle fairly constant as you start your downswing is a key to increasing your accuracy. When you increase that angle, you do increase power -- but you also alter your spine angle, and that changes your downswing plane, sometimes dramatically. (This dramatic change is a cornerstone of Hogan's downswing, btw. Virtually every good ballstriker's downswing plane is a bit flatter than the backswing plane, but a big change costs you accuracy.)

While you may lose a bit of clubhead speed with this move, you'll also hit the ball more solidly. Given the design of modern equipment, that will add some distance on its own.

And just for the record, the Nelson approach is easier on your lower back as well. More accuracy means more consistent ball contact, and less back pain means... well, less back pain. It's a win-win situation.

Butch Harmon on Finding Your Driver Rhythm (Video)

Butch Harmon has an article at the Golf Digest site called Finding Your Rhythm With The Driver. It's short but it uses a drill you've probably seen before.



Butch says the trick to creating distance with the driver is finding out how fast you can swing it without losing control. To teach you how to do it, he recommends the old drill where you tee up three balls and hit them, one after the other, without stopping. You hit one, step up to the next one as you swing the driver back, then hit that ball and repeat with the third ball.

Essentially, you're just hitting each ball as you walk forward, swinging your driver in time with your walk. This little guy isn't walking very smoothly, but at least he's got the swing rhythm down pat:



The idea here is that if your rhythm is off, you'll lose your balance during the drill. But if your rhythm is correct, there's a good chance you'll hit each ball solidly. And as you get better, you can swing faster without losing your balance.

A simple drill with an easy-to-measure result. And if Butch likes it, it's probably a pretty good drill!

Hitting Driver Off the Deck (Video)

On Morning Drive earlier this week, John Cook, Arron Oberholser and Charlie Rymer all tried to explain the tricks for hitting a driver off the deck. I'm going to point out the main things I think you need to remember.



First of all, note that John says he only plays this shot maybe twice a year. Here are his criteria for deciding when the shot may be appropriate:

• Uphill lie
• Into the wind
• On a par-5

Why these criteria? Because a 3-wood will balloon up into the wind under these conditions. Even if you top the shot with a driver, the ball stays low and runs. That's what you're after here.

Arron notes that you have to hit this shot like a fairway wood, not a teed-up driver. You need to hit slightly down on the shot, not try to swing up (in which case you'll mis-hit the shot). And pay attention to his ball position. The camera angle is a bit misleading; while the ball is back in his stance, it is no more than halfway back. You'll want to play the ball slightly AHEAD of center, but not so far forward that you'll hit the ground first. Remember how John plays this shot off an uphill lie? That will help you.

John says he also grips down a bit, to shorten the effective length of the club. It helped him hit the ball straighter than Arron, even though Arron's club had more loft.

An important equipment note here is that newer drivers make this shot easier because they have more loft and tend to hit the ball higher, even off the tee.

Remember: If you play this shot, you're looking for a stinger, not a high shot. And don't be too upset if you don't hit it perfectly. If you need to play this shot, your normal shot isn't likely to give you better results, even if you hit it perfectly. So be forgiving with yourself. Advancing the ball and keeping it in play may be the best you could hope for under the circumstance.

Rickie's Shorter Driver

With all the reporting this week about Rickie Fowler sporting a driver with a shorter shaft, I started hunting for more info that might be of help for any of you curious to try it. I did find a few useful bits.



According to Golf Digest, Rickie is using "a 43.5-inch Cobra F7+ driver with an Aldila NV2K 70X shaft." The shaft info may not help you, but the club model does because:

The Cobra King F7+ driver features three weights with one of them heavier than the others. Fowler had the heavier weight positioned in the front position, which is designed to produce a lower ball flight with less spin.

I chose the photo above because you can see them. Golf Digest is unclear whether that front weight is heavier or lighter this week, but they know it has been changed since last week. Note that the heavier front weight lowers his trajectory and therefore his carry distance, but doesn't seem to have hurt his overall length off the tee much at all.

In fact, GC noted that there was a noticeable amount of lead tape on the head last week, as Rickie was experimenting to find the best weight distribution. The Cobra techs then took the taped head and made weights that would match.

Here's an interesting tidbit that I didn't know before:

Fowler noted his irons and fairway woods also are shorter in length, and bringing the driver down in length made for an easier progression from club to club, as all are now approximately the same swing weight.

Rickie's only 5'9" tall, so it makes sense that his clubs would be shorter. However, given how long he is with those shorter clubs, it's a bit surprising to find that shortening his driver an entire inch merely brought its length down in proportion to the rest of the set.

The swingweight information is helpful here too. It appears from his comments in the article that his driver was noticeably heavier than his other clubs:

"The club is out in front of me a lot easier and with it being a little shorter, it is easier to save when it does get a little out of position."

The interesting part of this, which I found in a PGATOUR.com article, is that:

Fowler also is playing a left-to-right ball-flight, which helps him better control his tee shots. He was hitting a draw until recently to try to fix a fault in his swing; the club was too steep in his transition to the downswing.

Now that Fowler has fixed that, he can return to the fade.

A fade is his preferred swing, but apparently the length and weight of the driver was forcing his swing off-plane.

So what does all this mean to the average weekend player who may be struggling with the driver?

Well, bear in mind that almost all weekend players tend to hit their 3-woods better off the tee than their drivers... and 43.5 inches is the length of a standard 3-wood. Putting a driver head on a 3-wood shaft would give you extra distance because of the loft difference and the resulting lower trajectory. So the shorter shaft might not hurt your distance after all.

And you want to make sure that your driver isn't heavier to swing than the rest of your clubs. Remember, if you can't get the club around fast enough, it can unintentionally alter your swing..

The changes for Rickie have been dramatic. He's hitting something like 25% more fairways this week.. and that's played him into a 4-stroke lead. Today we'll see if he can bring it home with this new driver setup.

Belen Mozo on Hitting Longer Drives

Golf Digest's article on how Belen Mozo carries the ball so far is very interesting. I just want to mention a few points from the article that I think many players will miss, simply because they're looking for something "new" instead of just something that works.



Belen talks about using a wide stance at address, but if you look at the photo in that section of the article (or even the photo above) you'll see that her "wider than shoulder width" stance isn't as wide as many of you might assume. As she says, if you get too tense, you'll cut down on your ability to turn.

When she talks about making a big arc on her backswing, she's talking about keeping "her hands in front of her." If you pay attention to what you read, you'll see that she's simply keeping her upper arms lightly against the sides of her chest on the way back and as she swings down. That's basic Hogan technique and, while I think some players overdo it and get too tense, that's what most good players do on the backswing until their hands are just below their shoulders. That's how you get a big shoulder coil, and that's what she wants you to do here.

Finally, this is the most unusual thing she says:

When I swing down, my left leg is locked and pushing hard into the ground for leverage to create more power. Also, my upper body is almost completely behind the ball's position through impact. I've shifted my weight into the left leg (that's why it's straight), but I'm putting as much body weight into the hit as I can. I'm not really swinging my fastest until the ball is struck. My swing speed is building until then.

Her left (lead) leg is locked during her downswing. Do you understand that? Essentially, as soon as her lead heel is planted flat on the ground when she starts her downswing, she straightens her lead knee so she's pushing down with that foot.  If you do that, you CAN'T slide your hips very far forward on the downswing! The fact that she says her upper body is still behind the ball at impact emphasizes this fact. This keeps you steady over the ball and should help your accuracy as well as your distance.

Belen carries the ball 240 yards off the tee vs 219 for the average guy on the weekend. If you're looking for some extra distance, this might be worth a try. It's definitely not a difficult technique to learn.

Maybe Your Drives Aren't So Short After All

Golf Digest has an incredibly interesting post about how far amateur golfers actually hit their clubs... and the results may shock you.



Based on data provided by Game Golf -- you know, the folks who make that wearable shot-tracker gizmo -- here are the average distances gathered from typical amateurs during six months in 2016:

• Driver: 219.55 yards
• 3-wood: 186.89 yards
• 7-iron: 133.48 yards
• Pitching wedge: 73.97 yards

Driver averages topped out at 250.93 yards for players with a handicap of 4.99 or better. The article has a chart breaking driver distances down by age and handicap.

Golf Digest says this proves that the USGA fears of runaway distance are unfounded -- at least among amateurs -- but they offer no explanation for why these distances are so much lower than the pros. I can venture a guess.

I suspect it has something to do with the number of pros who are six feet or taller.

For example, I'm just under 5'10" and Tiger (at 6'1") is shorter than most of the longest hitters on Tour. Take the difference in arm length between us into account, and I suspect Tiger's arc is probably six inches or more wider than mine. That's gonna create several MPH difference in our club speeds, and just 4mph is good for maybe 30 more yards with a driver.

If you take a few minutes to look over the distance chart in that Golf Digest article, you may find that you're not doing so bad after all. And having realistic expectations for your golf game might help you make some New Year resolutions that you can actually reach.

Martin Hall on Swinging Freely During Your Drive (Video)

This is an extremely simple mental tip -- well, simple to say but maybe not so simple to do. This Martin Hall clip aired on Morning Drive the week Russell Knox was defending at the WGC in China. It's a driving tip Russell got from Lynn Marriott at VISION54.


Mental tips like this, despite their simplicity, can be unimaginably difficult to use under pressure. That's why you need to spend a little time practicing them on the range before you try them during a round.

Why is this "imagine you're driving your ball into the ocean" swing thought so difficult? It's because your actual drive MEANS SOMETHING TO YOU. You can do the practice swing where you aren't actually hitting a ball just fine but, once you set your driver behind that teed-up ball, your mind simply says, "HEY, BUDDY. THIS TIME IT'S FOR REAL." And if you've been having trouble hitting the fairway anyway, that's all it takes to tighten you up.

And once you tighten up, there's a good chance you'll miss the fairway again.

It may help you to remember what Martin says in the video -- namely, that you won't hit every ball perfectly by doing this. However, your overall percentage of fairways hit will go up. This is an "improvement" drill, not a "do it perfectly" drill.

And this is one place where all my recent posts on learning to square the clubface by using your arms and hands more will help you. The ball goes where the clubface is aimed at impact. If you focus on squaring your clubface instead of steering the ball, that's where the ball will go. It may curve a bit if your swing path is off, but it will still curve toward the spot where your clubface is aimed.

Where the ball lands is what matters. This tip should help you land it where you want it to land, and land there more often.

Patrick Reed on Driving (Video)

So you want to dominate your driver the way Patrick Reed does? Here's a Golf Digest video from a couple months back where Patrick shares his tips on three different types of drives.



I'm not going to try and summarize Patrick's tips, simply because they're a bit unusual and you'll do better if you see them. However, there are two things here I think are interesting.

For one thing, Patrick likes extremes in his swing. (And maybe you're not surprised by that!) Patrick likes to see movement in his ball flight, so he allows for a much bigger curve in his shots. He says, for example, that instead of aiming for a 10-yard draw he'll try to get a 20-yard -- or even bigger -- draw.

What can you learn from this? If you're trying to visualize your shots, make sure your shot is "big enough" that you can tell when it's behaving!

And the second thing -- and perhaps this should be more obvious to us than it is -- when Patrick wants to hit a big draw, he plays the ball forward in his stance and aims way right. (For you lefties, that would be way left.)

Why do I say this should be more obvious? Because when you move the ball forward in your stance, you automatically close the clubface more before you hit the ball because your body is turning toward the target. And that means you should aim for a bigger draw, otherwise you might pull the ball into trouble. By aiming for a bigger draw, you can feel free to really unleash and hit the ball with your hands. That way, even if you do get a bigger draw than you planned for, it's still a draw.

Some good thoughts from Patrick in this video. You might not use them all but, if you can find just one tip that helps, isn't it worth it?

What Is the Correct Height to Tee Your Ball?

I think this is incredibly helpful. It's a Golf Digest article from Sean Foley on how high you should tee your ball. It's called Do You Know How High to Tee Your Driver?

This photo shows how the effective loft changes on a 10° driver when you tee the ball higher or lower than the sweet spot.



That's a pretty dramatic change. The 10° figure is when you hit your 10° driver right in the sweet spot. The other two numbers show the loft when you hit the ball only a 1/2 inch higher or lower than the sweet spot! Isn't that amazing?

Foley goes into considerable detail about deciding how high or low you want to tee the ball. But what I found so helpful is this little statement from the end of the article:

“The highest it [the ball] should ever be is with half of the ball above the top of the driver. The lowest is with the top of the ball slightly higher than the top of the club.”

That is perhaps the simplest explanation of how to tee your ball that I've ever seen. And it's a great visual to use when teeing it up: Never tee the ball so the top of it is lower than the top of the driver, and never tee it higher than half a ball above the top of the driver.

That should eliminate a lot of those mis-hits!

Martin Hall on Hitting the Stinger (Video)

Since it's Open Week, here's a new School of Golf video on how to hit a stinger, compliments of Martin Hall. Super-simple, easy to follow.



Martin really strips it to the fundamentals here. Three simple keys:

• Tee the ball low. (Yes, use a tee!)
• Play the ball back in your stance a bit. (That's different from most tee shots.)
• Keep your lead wrist bowed at impact. (Watch the video. You still want to 'release' your wrists after impact, because that's the only way you'll get any distance with this shot. But the idea is to delay your release long enough for the shot to launch at a low angle.)

I know what you're thinking: How do I keep my lead wrist bowed? The best way is to "think late." By that, I mean to think about unleashing your wrist cock when your forearms are pointed at the ground about 18 inches past the tee. That should help you keep the bowed position long enough. As you can see in the video, Martin's wrists are starting to uncock before he reaches the ball -- you can tell because of the blur. But contact happens so quickly that you don't need to delay your release for very long!

If you find yourself hitting into the wind and/or absolutely have to get your tee shot in the fairway, this is a great shot. Just remember that the ball doesn't fly as far; it gets most of its distance from roll. Make sure there aren't any hazards -- or gorse! -- in your way.

Brooke's Ultra-Flat Driver Swing

Since Brooke Henderson got her first major this past weekend, I thought it might be interesting to take a quick look at that unusual driver swing of hers. This isn't something everybody should try, but understanding why it works might help you improve your own drives.

This video shows her at normal speed, then slowed down. It's less than two minutes long, so you can watch it several times if you need to.



First off, they said Brooke's driver is 47 inches long in this broadcast, 48 inches long this past weekend. It doesn't matter that much; what does matter is WHY Brooke uses a long shaft. She grips down on the shaft two or three inches (she does that with all her clubs) but this allows her to still get the kind of distance off the tee that she would if she held a normal driver at full length while also getting a bit more control.

I'll add an extra thought: The extra shaft at the butt end of the club can help counterweight the club at bit. That would make the clubhead feel a bit lighter, and might help her get a little more clubhead speed.

Kay Cockerill notes that she has a one-piece takeaway. I know I talk this into the ground, but a one-piece takeaway can do more than almost anything else to give you a good swing. If you start your swing well, it's much easier to finish it well. My primary post on how to make a one-piece takeaway is right here, if you need it.

Brooke overswings. So does John Daly. So do a number of good players. Overswinging isn't a problem as long as you can control the club at the top of your backswing. That means you need a stable body position throughout your swing. That's important.

On the way down, Brooke seriously re-routes the club. She really flattens her swing plane on her way down. Kay talks about this in the video. Stop it at the 1:20 mark and you'll see just how much her hands have dropped, way below her trailing shoulder.

Look at how close her trailing elbow is to her side! That's how she manages to pull this off. Brooke is almost making a baseball bat swing, and she's letting her trailing side brace her arm so she can keep the club in position as she turns through the ball. This is mostly a body swing, and her arms don't really swing away from her body much until the ball is long gone.

This swing is so flat that it can be troublesome unless you're hitting the ball off a tee. For comparison, here's a wedge swing from the same tournament. Notice that this swing is more arm-oriented and much more upright. Otherwise she'd hit a lot of fat shots.



Brooke's driver swing is really unique. However, gripping down a bit on the shaft (for better control) and making a one-piece takeaway (to get the club started back on plane) are two things you can definitely copy from the newest Women's PGA champion.

Using the K Setup with a Driver

Chip tweeted me with questions about hitting the driver, and hopefully this post will answer some questions the rest of you might have as well.

A little background: Chip has been using my Stop Coming Over-the-Top book and he says it has really helped his iron play BUT he's hitting a slight slice with his driver and hasn't been able to figure out why. Since he's hitting his irons okay, I doubt that there's a problem with his grip; I suspect it has more to do with ball position. (I'll come back to that before we're done.) But using the K setup should help him get more distance, so we're going to look at both.

PLEASE NOTE: You don't use the K setup for normal shots, just off a tee when you need more distance.

Every instructor teaches the golf swing a bit differently, so I've picked videos by both Martin Hall and Michael Breed to show differences in the way they teach the K setup. Neither talks about ball position in these videos, although that's important. Again, I'll come back to that.

First, here's the Breed video:



And here's the Hall video (the first 1:40 covers the K setup):



You should notice one difference right off: Hall is having you tilt your upper body more than Breed. Hall puts his trailing hand behind his trailing knee to get the tilt, while Breed only puts his hand on his trailing thigh. The reason is simple: Hall is using a wider stance than Breed. If Breed tried to reach that low, he would be terribly uncomfortable -- assuming he could keep his balance, that is.

Hall also recommends strengthening your grip with the driver while Breed doesn't say anything about it. That goes hand-in-hand with another difference that you wouldn't catch because Hall doesn't mention it in this video. (He mentions it in the first 1:20 of this video but doesn't detail how to do the K setup, which is why I didn't use it.) Breed wants you to aim straight down the target line to hit the ball straight, but Hall says that will cause you to slice. Again, this is due to differences in how they teach the swing. Hall teaches a more extreme lower body move in the downswing than Breed, so Hall ends up leaning backward a bit more... and that leaves the clubface more open at impact.

I lean more toward Breed's approach to the K setup because the Stop Coming Over-the-Top method looks more like Sam Snead's swing than Ben Hogan's. Snead was a power hitter but his swing is simpler because it's a more vertical move in the weight shift, which also puts less strain on your lower back. Although Snead used a fairly wide stance, he stood taller -- more like Breed than Hall -- so his tilt wasn't quite as extreme as Hall's. That's also why Breed can aim straight down the target line without slicing. So obviously I'm going to recommend that you stand a bit taller.

But everybody swings a bit differently. Experiment a little on the range and find out which one works best for you.

Which brings us back to ball position. If you want to get distance with your driver, you need to tee the ball higher and get your upper body a bit more behind the ball so you can hit up on it. (Simple logic there: If you put the ball in the center of your stance, you're going to hit down on it. If you want to hit up on the ball, it has to be placed in the front of your stance.)

You have to experiment a bit to find out where your proper ball position is because -- you guessed it! -- everybody swings a bit differently. A good rule of thumb is to start with the ball even with your lead armpit. Obviously, if you have a wide stance (like Hall), it will look as if the ball is closer to the middle of your stance; and if you have a narrower stance (like Breed), it will look as if the ball is closer to your lead heel.

Likewise, if you slide forward a lot during your downswing (like Hall), you may need to move the ball even farther forward in your stance to hit up on it. And if you don't slide forward as much (more like Breed), you may need to move the ball back a bit.

Now the big question -- which I answered for Chip and will now answer for you -- is:

Q: How do you know when the ball is too far forward?
A: You'll pull the ball.

Again, simple logic: The club swings around you so the clubface closes as it moves around you. The farther forward the ball is, the more time the clubface has to close. And, by the same logic, if you push the ball, it's probably too far back in your stance -- before the clubface begins to close.

Hopefully this will help you use the K setup -- and find your proper ball position to use with it -- so you can hit straighter and longer drives off the tee. And if you have questions, just ask them in the comments below this post.