Pete Finch – PGA Teaching Pro

So now we understand the benefits of hitting up on the driver, the benefits that gives the spin and to launch and to carry, and all these other wonderful things. That how do we manage to do it, how do we manage to strike more up on the golf ball? Now a lot of this can be done at setup and a lot of it can be done during the first initial phases of the downswing as well. It’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. This, it can be very individual but if you stick to these basic truths and you work your swing around them, then you should see the benefit.

Now first of all, I am not going to tee this ball up but generally I will be teeing the ball up so it’s just above, just above the ball, the equator, the top edge of the driver intersects the equator, so half of the ball is above the ground. Now what I am going to be doing also is I am going to be putting the ball just inside the left heel, and then I am going to be taking a big step off to the right hand side. Now this you might set to be, you can see feet they are quite wide they are over shoulder width apart that’s because I want to brace myself for a big powerful swing. But you will also notice how my chest position, my sternum position here is actually a long way behind the golf ball. As the sternum position is a long way behind the golf ball what’s going to happen is my club is going to want to bottom out at about this position. So if it bottoms out about the position where my sternum is, than the ball will more likely be call on an upward angle of attack. However, I can increase the chances even further. So I am going to get setup, sternum position behind, ball position inside my left heel. And then what I am going to do is I am going to tilt my spine a little bit more so it’s tilted more off to the right-hand side.

Now what that does is as my spine tilts, my sternum position, my swing sensor also moves behind the ball. So from here I am now even more likely to hit up on the shot. As a quick word of warning, sternum position being behind will allow you to hit up, but you still need to try and get weight transferring over to the left hand side. Simply staying on the back-foot hitting up, it will give you that high launch low spin, but you won’t have the same powers if you transfer your weight. Also with the ball position if it goes further outside the left foot, that can cause someone to start a swing a long way from out to wind.

So how this looks within the swing, and so I am going to focus on within the transition of the downswing, is getting the ball position, right inside that heel, nice white stance that spine angle titled away. And what I am going to do is I am going to come into the ball, I am going to try and transfer my weight left while keeping my sternum in the same position. Therefore I am transferring my weight, but I am hitting up on the ball as well. And getting those two things together will launch the ball very, very high; it will carry a long way, and should have very little spin.