Golf Driving, Three Tips to Drive the Ball Straighter (Video) - by Pete Styles
Golf Driving, Three Tips to Drive the Ball Straighter (Video) - by Pete Styles

There's no doubt standing on a tee box and booming a drive 300 yards straight down the middle is one of the most enjoyable parts in the game of golf. But not being able to do that consistently is also one of the most frustrating parts in the game of golf. So if you're standing on the tee and you're hitting less than 50 percent of your fairways, maybe distance isn't the big thing that you need, maybe accuracy and consistency is the big thing that you need.

You should be aiming to hit between 50 to 80 percent of your fairways, and around about 60, 70, that's a decent number. If it's below 60 percent, you're really causing yourself some problem, particularly if the ones that you're missing, you're putting yourself in awkward positions behind trees, in bunkers, or losing golf balls. If you're hitting 60, 70 percent of fairways and another few just into the fringes that you can still knock out onto the green, that's not too bad. The driver is obviously not too bad in your hands. But if it's 50 percent of fairways and losing a few balls per round, you really need to consider these three tips which will hopefully give you a bit more control.

The first thing will be to make sure that when you grip the golf club, you almost grip down on the golf club a little bit, sort of choking up as we would call it, gripping down to here, making the golf driving club feel a little bit shorter in your hands. Then make the relevant adjustment by getting nearer to the golf ball. That might cut out a little bit of power but it sure as hell will give you more control over the direction you hit the shot.

The next thing will be consider the length of your swing. It's too tempting when you get the driver to try and make the biggest swing possible and get your over swing going, anything where the golf club goes beyond the 3 o'clock line at the top and starts to come around too far, that big over swing and that’s definitely going to mean that you got to start missing fairway. So you need to be a little bit more controlled with the length of your back swing to get more accuracy out of your shots.

The other thing is don't always reach for the driver. If you feel that 50 percent of fairways and missing the others, knocking them out of bounds, is really costing you and affecting your score, leave the driver in the bag. Take more loft, be it a 3-wood, a hybrid club or even a long iron. More loft in your hands generates more backspin down on the golf ball, decreases the chance of the ball's curving off line, and will mean that you'll hit more fairway. Again, you might sacrifice distance, but consider whether distance is the priority, or more fairways is the priority.

So if you can take those three little tips on board, hopefully the driver will start to behave itself, or you'll certainly start hitting more fairways with a different golf driving club.

 2012-08-08

There's no doubt standing on a tee box and booming a drive 300 yards straight down the middle is one of the most enjoyable parts in the game of golf. But not being able to do that consistently is also one of the most frustrating parts in the game of golf. So if you're standing on the tee and you're hitting less than 50 percent of your fairways, maybe distance isn't the big thing that you need, maybe accuracy and consistency is the big thing that you need.

You should be aiming to hit between 50 to 80 percent of your fairways, and around about 60, 70, that's a decent number. If it's below 60 percent, you're really causing yourself some problem, particularly if the ones that you're missing, you're putting yourself in awkward positions behind trees, in bunkers, or losing golf balls. If you're hitting 60, 70 percent of fairways and another few just into the fringes that you can still knock out onto the green, that's not too bad. The driver is obviously not too bad in your hands. But if it's 50 percent of fairways and losing a few balls per round, you really need to consider these three tips which will hopefully give you a bit more control.

The first thing will be to make sure that when you grip the golf club, you almost grip down on the golf club a little bit, sort of choking up as we would call it, gripping down to here, making the golf driving club feel a little bit shorter in your hands. Then make the relevant adjustment by getting nearer to the golf ball. That might cut out a little bit of power but it sure as hell will give you more control over the direction you hit the shot.

The next thing will be consider the length of your swing. It's too tempting when you get the driver to try and make the biggest swing possible and get your over swing going, anything where the golf club goes beyond the 3 o'clock line at the top and starts to come around too far, that big over swing and that’s definitely going to mean that you got to start missing fairway. So you need to be a little bit more controlled with the length of your back swing to get more accuracy out of your shots.

The other thing is don't always reach for the driver. If you feel that 50 percent of fairways and missing the others, knocking them out of bounds, is really costing you and affecting your score, leave the driver in the bag. Take more loft, be it a 3-wood, a hybrid club or even a long iron. More loft in your hands generates more backspin down on the golf ball, decreases the chance of the ball's curving off line, and will mean that you'll hit more fairway. Again, you might sacrifice distance, but consider whether distance is the priority, or more fairways is the priority.

So if you can take those three little tips on board, hopefully the driver will start to behave itself, or you'll certainly start hitting more fairways with a different golf driving club.