- Welcome back to Naples Florida,
Adam Bazalgette here, Two-Time PGA Teacher of the Year
Award winner, important topic today,
how to hit a driver consistently.
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So we'd all like to know how to hit a driver consistently,
for sure, it's a very, very important part of the game,
a very difficult thing to do, I might add,
this is not an easy club to master.
But I'm gonna show you two things,
or at least two general areas you can focus on,
and if you'll make improvements
in these areas you'll definitely see more consistency
off the tee.
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So first thing we'll look at is solidness of contact.
Believe me, you don't hit this ball solidly,
there's a ton of data on this with track ban
and flight scope, there's no way you're gonna have
consistency, directionally or otherwise, so what's
the leading problem for that?
Well certainly it isn't the easiest club to hit solidly
in the first place, but the number one tendency most golfers
have whether or not it's a driver, is to come down
too steeply and attack the ball, and too vertical
an angle, and this club will tolerate that least of any club
it's a long flat club, and it doesn't have much loft,
and if you were to come down like that you'd likely smother
the ball together, but what typically happens is
the genius of the mind is such that the golfer can create
some space, but you see extra movements, picture
hitting a baseball too close to you, you'd find a way to
make some kind of contact with it, but you've really
gotta adjust and unless you have unbelievable coordination,
a lot of practice under your belt ongoing, you're not gonna
be able to adjust for that kinda thing consistently
and make good contact with the ball.
So here's a little drill I think is great,
we're gonna put a second tee, about a foot behind
the first tee, knock the ball outta the way,
and I'm gonna practice coming in here, and I wanna be able
to clip the top of that tee before I clip the tee where
the imaginary ball would be, initially just on a small scale
in fact in this instance I'm gonna stop behind that tee,
so I don't bump into it on the backswing,
but I can start to blueprint what that would feel like,
let me just take a little swing here.
Now you can see I hit both tees.
And if I can hit the heads of both tees and not hit
the ground, I know I have a pretty good flat spot there,
at the bottom of the swing.
Check it from this angle.
Okay so in this one I'm gonna actually hit a ball,
I'm gonna put my tee about there,
and again if this is teed up at a reasonable height,
it needs to be, somewhat up there for you to hit it,
it's gonna get in the way of your takeaway slightly,
so either hover it or just start back here,
or in this case, just making a small swing and trying to
clip that tee and start to hit the ball, and
build a little confidence.
That came off with a little hook but I like the way it felt
at the bottom, I hit a good flat spot.
Two little words of caution hopefully of wisdom here,
no swing thoughts when you do this, don't think about
how to do it, you don't need to, just be a kid
and play 'til you can hit the tee, and the other thought is,
well the other thing you wanna avoid in terms of thinking,
is don't aim at the first tee, you'll probably release
early and steer the club, just make a swing with some speed
in it, at whatever size you're doing it and just
use your instinct to clip that tee.
If it doesn't happen first time just keep swinging,
so no swing thoughts, and no fishing for the
first tee with your hands.
So let's assume solid contact is reasonably under control,
I love that drill by the way, the next thing
you gotta do, and this is really gonna help you on
the golf course, is you gotta make sure your misses,
at least in large part, are one side or the other,
you can manage that, a great friend of mine,
I should say a good friend realistically,
Martin Hall, he's on the golf channel,
he got to talk to Jack Nicklaus years ago
at a cocktail party and asked him, 'hey Jack,
how come you think how come you're so pressure proof,
how come you're able to play so well late in majors
when the pressure is on the line, what was able to make
you do that?'
Jack's answer, believe it or not, he's expecting some kind
of mental cue, 'I knew I wouldn't miss the ball to the left,
if I was gonna miss it, it would be to the right,
and I could always manage that so I had a certain level
of confidence', that was Jack's answer so pretty amazing
there, but it really is true.
I've talked to a few great players over the years,
and the things they say great players do is they hit it
solidly, they hit it pretty far, and they manage
one half of the golf course, so you've gotta practice
a little bit, 'til you feel like your miss is gonna
be more on one side, now let me just say,
we're not talking about some huge slice or some big hook,
we're trying to play from a pretty neutral swing,
but you've just gotta work the club face a little bit,
to where you feel like you're either hitting it straight,
where you want, or certainly 75% of your misses are somewhat
on the one side.
And likely, if you're not a very long hitter, if you slice
the ball and you don't hit it that far, you don't wanna
probably play to miss it to the right, you just lose
too much distance, so practice turning it a little bit,
maybe practice feeling like you can hold it on line a bit,
or at minimum of very very small feed, but I would say
for the very strong hitter,
the person that hits it a long way,
typically they battle a hook a little bit more,
than the feed, they would probably be well served to hold
the club open a little bit, and just feel like if they're
gonna miss, they're gonna miss it on one side.
Again, when you're practicing that, aim pretty straight on
the driving range, and see if you can hit shot straight,
or have 75% of your misses on the one side,
it's just the fine-tuned training the hands can go through
when you practice a little bit like that.
I think if you can do that, hey, if it's good enough for
Jack Nicklaus it's good enough for us,
if you can do that and you can fill in a tight hole,
a whole you don't like,
let's say I'm playing a little bit of a feed that's my miss,
I can aim further away from the- I can aim more to the left
and give myself more fairway to miss it in a little bit,
develop some confidence that way, for the tough holes.
So I hope that gets you on the way to how to hit a driver
consistently, ScratchGoldAcademy.com is my website,
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I appreciate your time.
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