I don’t know any golfers who wouldn’t take more distance off the tee, with many of us believing that the farther we hit our drives, the better chances we’ll have to score low.
In my own experience, I’ve gained about 50 yards off the tee in the past 15 month by simply understanding where my body needs to be in the backswing and coming through at impact. It’s not always perfect, but when I connect, the damn thing launches off my clubface.
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So what’s the key to generating the power you need to sequence properly and rip it off the tee?
In the video below, GOLF Top 100 Teacher Jonathan Yarwood helps answer that question, and provides a few tips to help you understand the swing moves to powerboost your tee shots in order to hit your driver farther. Now go ahead and amaze your playing partners.
Try these tips to hit your driver farther
Most amateur players struggle off the tee because they get out of the proper swing sequence, which likely leads to an over-the-top path — which produces those nasty slices we’ve all experienced more than we’d like to admit.
Yarwood recognizes this, and says that one of the reasons for this is because many players swing the driver like they would an iron, using a steeper angle of attack to compress the ball — but that’s not the goal with the driver.
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“The biggest killer in good driving is either getting [the club] steep or getting the club path going from out-to-in,” Yarwood explains. “This creates a downward attack angle — and as soon as you get this, you’re in trouble, because it gets the low point too ahead of the ball.”
Yarwood says that incorporating some side tilt will be the first step in generating the right attack angle in order to hit your driver farther. To do this, drop the trail shoulder and use more of the ground come through the ball.
“What happens with a driver is, the trail side and the trail shoulder go down as the lead hip goes up and back,” Yarwood says. “So if you think trail side down and lead hip up and back, you’re going to start getting the right idea.”
To help feel this motion, Yarwood says try sticking the club in front of you and placing your left hand on top of its grip.
“Put your [left hand for right-handed golfers on top of the club’s grip], and move your trail side up and down and your lead hip up and back,” he instructs. “You’ll start to get what we call side bend, which makes the club get shallow, the club path is more out to the right, and the attack angle’s going to go up.”
Next, Yarwood says that simply sticking an alignment stick into the ground can be a good way to practice this motion.
“Put an alignment stick behind the ball and on line to the target, placing it at a little angle from the ground — just don’t put it too close to the ball,” he instructs. “Basically, swing underneath the [alignment stick] by getting some right side bend and getting the left hip up and out of the shot.”
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These changes take some time to get used to, but once you’re able to regularly incorporate them into your swing, you’ll be able to powerboost your drives for more distance.
“The path will be better, the plane will be better, and you won’t come over-the-top,” Yarwood adds. “So use some right side bend and get the left hip up.”
