Dial Back with Driver to Get Ball in Play - Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
Dial Back with Driver to Get Ball in Play - Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

We often spend a lot of time talking about how to hit the driver further, but there also some times when you just want to focus on getting the ball in play but hitting the big booming drivers isn't necessary, maybe it's a sure to a hole or even a dog like tall where there's triple on the size, so accuracy is the priority. There's a couple of tips that will help you just dial back your drive a little bit to help you find a few more fairways.

Slowly gripping down on the golf club is a good key to helping you do this because the driver is the longest club in the bag and gripping it right to the top end couldn't just make it swing faster but slightly less controlled, so just gripping down an inch on your driver will just take the sting out of it and if it does start to curve off line, it will curve off line a bit less.

You could maybe just drop the ball slightly back more towards the sense of your stance, not actually into the stance but maybe position it like a four iron, three iron something like that rather than having it so far forwards. That should just help you swing a bit smoother that you don't have to quite reach out, so far for the driver.

Then in your backswing, just tidy up the back swing, so it's a little bit shorter and tighter and you're not getting so long and not getting so ragged with the backswing, so it's a little bit shorter and then use it to brigade the follow through, so it's more of a held-off finish, something that you'd see more like when the guys are hitting wedges rather than the big full swings, it's just an abbreviated follow through here and that will help you keep the ball in play.

So as I go ahead and hit one for you now, gripping down an inch or two, pulling the middle of my stance, so nearer to the middle, a little bit of an abbreviated backswing and through swing and it's a very straight golf shot. It's probably taken maybe 20% of the distance out of the shot, but I've kept it in play and I think if I was to do that on the course, I'd hit more fairways doing that.

If you don't feel comfortable making that adaption to your technique, you could take a more lofted club, drop down to your three or your five wood and play the similar technique just to hit a few more fairways but there are options other than taking your driver and hitting it flat out all the time.

 2013-01-18

We often spend a lot of time talking about how to hit the driver further, but there also some times when you just want to focus on getting the ball in play but hitting the big booming drivers isn't necessary, maybe it's a sure to a hole or even a dog like tall where there's triple on the size, so accuracy is the priority. There's a couple of tips that will help you just dial back your drive a little bit to help you find a few more fairways.

Slowly gripping down on the golf club is a good key to helping you do this because the driver is the longest club in the bag and gripping it right to the top end couldn't just make it swing faster but slightly less controlled, so just gripping down an inch on your driver will just take the sting out of it and if it does start to curve off line, it will curve off line a bit less.

You could maybe just drop the ball slightly back more towards the sense of your stance, not actually into the stance but maybe position it like a four iron, three iron something like that rather than having it so far forwards. That should just help you swing a bit smoother that you don't have to quite reach out, so far for the driver.

Then in your backswing, just tidy up the back swing, so it's a little bit shorter and tighter and you're not getting so long and not getting so ragged with the backswing, so it's a little bit shorter and then use it to brigade the follow through, so it's more of a held-off finish, something that you'd see more like when the guys are hitting wedges rather than the big full swings, it's just an abbreviated follow through here and that will help you keep the ball in play.

So as I go ahead and hit one for you now, gripping down an inch or two, pulling the middle of my stance, so nearer to the middle, a little bit of an abbreviated backswing and through swing and it's a very straight golf shot. It's probably taken maybe 20% of the distance out of the shot, but I've kept it in play and I think if I was to do that on the course, I'd hit more fairways doing that.

If you don't feel comfortable making that adaption to your technique, you could take a more lofted club, drop down to your three or your five wood and play the similar technique just to hit a few more fairways but there are options other than taking your driver and hitting it flat out all the time.