How To Drive The Ball Further, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles
How To Drive The Ball Further, Golf (Video) - by Pete Styles

How can you drive the golf ball further? This is a question that I don’t think everybody asks, but everybody desperately wants to ask. Because as soon as they’ve got that standard shot, that's nailed and it’s down the middle and they’re hitting it 180 and it’s straight. They desperate, desperate, please now can I hit it further? I want to hit it further? I want to outdrive my mates. I know golfers that would rather hit the ball further than their mates, and then lose by ten shots in the round, as long as they have bragging rights over who hits the ball furthest? So, let’s have a look at why people don’t hit it as far as they think they should? And how we can try and improve your distance.

The simple answer is not spending a lot of money on a driver like the marketing people would have you believe. The latest greatest wonderful driver is not the answer to a degree. What is important is a driver that’s fitted well for you. Now I reckon I could improve most golfers with a 100 pound or a $100 driver, well fitted, than a $400 driver badly fitted. Guaranteed I could get an improvement out of people there. So we need to look at things like the shuffles, we need to look at things like the correct amount of loft. We could also look at the correct length of the driver for some golfers and making sure that the phase is well balanced for that golf. And so it’s a draw biased or a fade biased head, to try and improve those shots. And that’s one area that will help people hit the golf ball further. A couple of other areas kind of the important stuff that you can actually control rather than just buying; club head speed is king; the faster that club head speed is travelling, the faster the potential ball speed is. So if you can swish that driver 100 maybe even 110 miles an hour, tor numbers by the way -- average tor drivers about 115 mile an hour. Good long hitters Bubba Watson McElroy 125 something like that. But if you are going over 100 105, 110 miles an hour, we would consider that you shouldn’t have a problem with club head speed, you should be able to hit that ball a decent distance. So once the club head speed travelling nice and fast, that has potential for the ball speed to be nice and fast. Now the ball speed will only go fast if you strike it in the centre. So if you miss hit it, toe heel top bottom, what we class as your smash factor. Smash factor is a correlation of club head speed comes in quickly, ball speed leaves quickly, that’s a good smash factor. Club head speed comes in quickly, ball speed is slow, that’s a poor smash factor, basically, a poor strike. So if we’ve got lots and lots of club head speed, with a decent golf club, and we strike it nicely out to the middle, we’re now looking for the fact that the club phase and the club swing path, are travelling in the same direction. Because if they’re not and you get this glampsing contact on the side of the golf ball, clearly, that’s going to reduce the ball speed as well. So you want club head coming in nice and smooth, nice and straight. Good solid contact on the back of the ball, and the ball flies off nice and straight. Then we just want to make sure that we’ve got the ball going at the right height. So the right loft conditions, and the right amount of spin. All the guys on tour they’re always practicing before they play with a track man or a flight scope or a GC2 something of that nature. Basically a launch monitor either beside them or in front of them. And they always looking for the numbers and they’re looking for the right amount of spin, and the right amount at launch. No point in hitting the ball too high, and it falling out the sky. No point in hitting the ball too low and it falls out the sky either. We’ve got to get it pitched up at the right degree and launch it as far as we can. Now the best thing there rather judging by -- go and get custom fitted. Go and see somebody that’s got a launch monitor, a PJ professional that’s got a launch monitor or a club fitter. Get set up for the right driver, that’s going to spin the ball the right way. Then work on the dynamics of your swing to improve your path and phase relationship, then get that club head speed up. The stronger the fitter, the faster you can swing that club head, that’s where we’re going to see some more distance out there. 2014-11-04

How can you drive the golf ball further? This is a question that I don’t think everybody asks, but everybody desperately wants to ask. Because as soon as they’ve got that standard shot, that's nailed and it’s down the middle and they’re hitting it 180 and it’s straight. They desperate, desperate, please now can I hit it further? I want to hit it further? I want to outdrive my mates. I know golfers that would rather hit the ball further than their mates, and then lose by ten shots in the round, as long as they have bragging rights over who hits the ball furthest? So, let’s have a look at why people don’t hit it as far as they think they should? And how we can try and improve your distance.

The simple answer is not spending a lot of money on a driver like the marketing people would have you believe. The latest greatest wonderful driver is not the answer to a degree. What is important is a driver that’s fitted well for you. Now I reckon I could improve most golfers with a 100 pound or a $100 driver, well fitted, than a $400 driver badly fitted. Guaranteed I could get an improvement out of people there. So we need to look at things like the shuffles, we need to look at things like the correct amount of loft.

We could also look at the correct length of the driver for some golfers and making sure that the phase is well balanced for that golf. And so it’s a draw biased or a fade biased head, to try and improve those shots. And that’s one area that will help people hit the golf ball further. A couple of other areas kind of the important stuff that you can actually control rather than just buying; club head speed is king; the faster that club head speed is travelling, the faster the potential ball speed is.

So if you can swish that driver 100 maybe even 110 miles an hour, tor numbers by the way — average tor drivers about 115 mile an hour. Good long hitters Bubba Watson McElroy 125 something like that. But if you are going over 100 105, 110 miles an hour, we would consider that you shouldn’t have a problem with club head speed, you should be able to hit that ball a decent distance. So once the club head speed travelling nice and fast, that has potential for the ball speed to be nice and fast. Now the ball speed will only go fast if you strike it in the centre.

So if you miss hit it, toe heel top bottom, what we class as your smash factor. Smash factor is a correlation of club head speed comes in quickly, ball speed leaves quickly, that’s a good smash factor. Club head speed comes in quickly, ball speed is slow, that’s a poor smash factor, basically, a poor strike. So if we’ve got lots and lots of club head speed, with a decent golf club, and we strike it nicely out to the middle, we’re now looking for the fact that the club phase and the club swing path, are travelling in the same direction.

Because if they’re not and you get this glampsing contact on the side of the golf ball, clearly, that’s going to reduce the ball speed as well. So you want club head coming in nice and smooth, nice and straight. Good solid contact on the back of the ball, and the ball flies off nice and straight. Then we just want to make sure that we’ve got the ball going at the right height. So the right loft conditions, and the right amount of spin. All the guys on tour they’re always practicing before they play with a track man or a flight scope or a GC2 something of that nature.

Basically a launch monitor either beside them or in front of them. And they always looking for the numbers and they’re looking for the right amount of spin, and the right amount at launch.

No point in hitting the ball too high, and it falling out the sky. No point in hitting the ball too low and it falls out the sky either. We’ve got to get it pitched up at the right degree and launch it as far as we can. Now the best thing there rather judging by — go and get custom fitted. Go and see somebody that’s got a launch monitor, a PJ professional that’s got a launch monitor or a club fitter. Get set up for the right driver, that’s going to spin the ball the right way. Then work on the dynamics of your swing to improve your path and phase relationship, then get that club head speed up. The stronger the fitter, the faster you can swing that club head, that’s where we’re going to see some more distance out there.