For a beginner golfer, mastering the art of driving is a crucial step in improving your golf game and lowering that score. Hitting the fairway on a drive can set you up for success on and par 4 or 5. There are a few main tips to be conscious of when improving your drive. Along with that, the flight paths of your club and angle of which you come at the ball does play a part in understanding the perfect drive so we will go into that briefly. You can find our full post going into flight paths and angles here.
Understanding the Drive:
1. The Setup: To start, you should position yourself correctly. Your feet should be around shoulder-width apart, with the ball lined up with inside part of your front foot. Having a slight bend in your knees and tilting your spine will finish off a good setup.
2. Grip: I am not going to go super deep into grip in this blog but you can find our in depth post here. For any beginners use what grip feels most comfortable to you. Once you feel comfortable with your stance and a driver in your hand, check out our grip post to really get your hands on the driver correctly.
3. Stance and Alignment: Your hips, shoulders, and feet should be parallel to your target and where you want the ball to go. This makes sure that your clubface is aligned with your target at impact. Again, your stance wants to be around shoulder width apart with the ball lined up with the inside of your front foot.
4. The Swing: To start your backswing, turn your shoulders away from the target while keeping your arms extended out. As you do this shift 10-30% of your weight to your back foot as you start reaching the top of your backswing. Start the initiating of the downswing by shifting your weight to your front and rotating your shoulders and hips towards your target. While doing all of this, keep your eye on the ball and maintain a smooth, controlled motion. Let the club do its job, the more of an uncontrolled motion you have the more likely the ball won’t go where you want it to.
5. Impact: You want the clubface to make contact with the ball perpendicularly and ideally at the low point of your swing arc. This ensures maximum accuracy and power. You can find more about the impact point of the ball and club face further in this post!
6. Follow Through: After making contact with the ball, allow your body to flow toward the target as you finish off your rotation. Your weight should be shifted forward to your front foot as your back foot comes up on its toe.
7. Practice: Like any skill ever, mastering the golf drive takes consistent practice. Spending your time at the driving range working on your technique can help you improve your game.
8. TIP: Beginner golfers may benefit from using a driver with a higher loft, as this can help get the ball airborne easier for a beginner.
Basic Understanding of How the Ball Comes off the Driver
For a beginner golfer it is a good idea to start getting a basic understanding of how a golf ball comes off the driver and how that affects the balls flight path. The two most important factors that make the ball move after you make contact is the angle of which your driver is at when hitting the ball and the swing path your club is on. I highly recommend you check out this post where I go into detail about the balls flight path and how the impact point affects this.
Conclusion
By really honing in on your driving technique and practicing, you can consistently improve your drive game. Do not be afraid to ask for advice from a golf professional to really define where you are going wrong. With consistency and practice, you’ll soon be driving the ball with confidence.