(air whooshing)
- Welcome again, I'm Adam Bazalgette
founder of Scratch Golf Academy.
I'm here at the beautiful club
of Mediterra in Naples, Florida.
Today's subject is a good one,
three common setup faults with your driver, critical club.
I'll show you some ideas
on where I think people often make mistakes
and some fixes that'll get you going
in the right direction I hope.
(instrumental music)
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(air whooshing)
Well, a little too much draw there but I'll take it.
First thing in the setup,
most people have heard tilt your shoulders
or get your upper body more behind the ball.
And that's true, you should do that
it helps you hit a little more up on it.
It helps you with distance.
But don't just tilt your shoulders,
you'll mess up the position of your spine.
Let me quickly show you a couple of pros
from the rear angle.
Then we'll get back out here and work on it.
So Tiger Woods there hitting a driver on the right.
He's hitting some sort of a tee shot
with a fairway wood on the left.
But it will suit our purpose there.
You can see again,
the right shoulder is lower than the left.
The upper body is definitely tilted away from the target.
But what you'll notice from the back angle,
if I go from the belt loop
right to the base of the neck there,
it's a nice straight line.
He hasn't so much tilted his shoulders
as he's tilted his spine.
The bottom of his spine, the tail end
is a little bit nearer than the top end or the neck end.
So here's the way I would recommend you work on this
a little bit.
Get a stance here, just leave the club resting against you
or put it on the ground or something.
Put your hands together palm to palm even.
That puts your shoulders absolutely level where it should.
Now, what you've got to feel
is a little bump towards the target of the hips.
You'll feel your left hip get just a wee bit higher there.
And as that happens,
that right hand will slide down the left palm
just a little bit.
Make sure you're not using your shoulders to do it though.
Use your spine a little bit.
And again, you should feel that nice, straight,
slightly tilted feel in the spine.
No kind of tension up through the shoulders like that.
Once you've got a feel for it,
grab the club and put it there.
You'd be in the right neighborhood
I would strongly suggest
do it in front of a mirror a little bit.
Get the right loop the right amount of tilt.
(wind blowing)
(hits golf ball)
Okay, next thing we wanna do in the setup.
Let the driver rest naturally.
Just cradle it under one finger
and you'll sort of get a sense of how that is.
In other words, don't tilt the face up
or don't rest it too much on it's back.
But here's the point I really wanna make,
it shouldn't rest dead flat toe to heel.
Let me show you close up.
So that's about what it should look like at address
nowhere near flat like that.
Toe up a little bit.
Toe up quite a bit actually for a driver.
This will change in your downswing,
your hands will likely get higher
and the club has a tendency to droop toe down
due to the physics of it.
So don't worry, it won't look like that at impact.
So if you get in there like a lot of golfers do
and get the club too flat, it creates a lot of rise
or tension in the arms and shoulders.
If you're going to create speed in the golf swing
and you want it mostly with the driver,
you have to have some whip like effect.
You do not want your shoulders raised up,
tightens everything and stiffening your arms.
And what you'll find
is if you let the club hang a little bit lower
roughly club handle to belt buckle is about right.
Your shoulders and arms can settle back
and your arms can feel a lot softer.
One other thing that's very important
that is assisted by doing this,
you need to handle pretty low
to get the pad of your left hand, the palm of it
on top of the shaft
that helps you hinge properly.
You start getting the club up here
you'll either grip it too much in the palm
or you'll arch your wrist so much.
Again, you'll lose mobility and flow.
So handle low roughly at the belt buckle.
Okay, we're going old school
that Jack Nicklaus on the left
in 1986 Masters 18th.
Old Arnold Palmer, of course, there on the right.
I believe on the first hole of Augusta.
So what do we notice?
Toll in the legs.
We don't see a huge, great squat
and the weight sitting down into the heels.
You will not use your core athletically if you do that.
You want to feel toll in the glutes
and hamstrings lively and athletic,
not sitting down into your heels.
Now absolutely free to you,
I have a three part detailed course on gaining 25 yards
set up through the swing.
Feel free to go down to the description box.
There is a link there.
Pick up your copy absolutely free.
Alright, so here's the sort of feel you're looking for.
This isn't primarily a posture video,
so we're not gonna go in exhaustively.
But here's a good image for you.
Get the club out of your hands.
You should work on this in front of a mirror
without a club once in a while anyway.
Here's what you're trying to feel,
I think if you feel toll in the hips.
Hips about over ankles.
And if you feel like you could spring,
and probably since it's a golf posture.
If I was at the edge of the pool,
I could spring out into the swimming pool.
You're on the right general track.
So let me try to sort of tie this all together
here for you a little bit.
If you're gonna be a good driver,
hey, you've got to hit it solidly, obviously.
But you gotta have some speed.
If you're athletic and ready, able to move your core well,
and if your arms and hands and wrists are soft
and set well,
you move this you start to create whipping speed here.
And of course, if you're more behind the ball,
as we said at the beginning,
you'll get a better angle of attack.
But without any tension in the spine.
So generally speaking, less tension up here.
That's where the whip comes ready and athletic down there.
You get that combination,
you are going to be a better driver of the ball.
Well, I hope that's helpful for you
with these three common setup faults with driving.
If you could put these into practice,
take a little time away from the course and get them
I think you'll do really well.
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Thanks for being part of it.
(instrumental music)