Tips For How To Drive In Golf For Beginners

Golf Monthly

Trey Niven talks about how to drive for beginners, tips and advice.

Transcript

00:00 You're not quite getting the distance with the driver that you should be.

00:07 We're going to break down the simple points at setup and the simple movements that we

00:11 can make in the swing to start to optimize the distance for the driver.

00:15 But firstly, let's look at the differences between hitting an iron compared to a driver.

00:19 Now an iron, the golf ball is on the floor and we typically need to hit the golf ball

00:24 with a downward attack angle where we hit the ball and then the turf after.

00:28 However, the driver, it's got a lot less loft on it.

00:31 It's on a big tee, so we need to start to hit up onto that golf ball a little bit more.

00:36 That's going to really help firstly optimize those numbers to try and carry the ball further

00:41 and give you a lot more distance.

00:43 Let's look at the setup first.

00:44 So firstly, to really encourage us to create this upward attack angle, we're going to have

00:49 to put the golf ball further forwards in the stance.

00:52 And when we say forwards, it's more towards the target.

00:56 So you can see what I did there at setup.

00:57 I had the feet close together, the ball towards the left foot, and I took a small step with

01:02 the left foot and a bigger step with the right foot.

01:06 And you can see how far forward now that golf ball position is.

01:10 So it's almost just inside the left heel.

01:12 What I also did is took a bit of a wider step.

01:15 So this is going to give us some stability.

01:17 This driver is a lot longer.

01:19 Well, it's the longest club in the bag.

01:21 We swing it a little bit quicker.

01:23 So we need the stability from the ground.

01:26 You can see already as I move the golf ball position forwards in the stance, how my shoulders

01:31 have now tilted.

01:32 And just to be wary of here, as we move the golf ball forward in the stance, what typically

01:38 happens is our shoulders start to point a little bit more to the left.

01:44 What often we see with instruction with drivers is that we need to tilt a lot more towards

01:50 the right side.

01:51 So the right shoulder gets nearer to the right pocket.

01:53 But what happens when we move the ball position forwards is that the shoulders point more

01:57 left.

01:58 So we have to counteract that just by sitting the right shoulder back.

02:02 So don't worry too much about sitting your right shoulder down.

02:06 So that's a couple of points that set up ball position forwards, wider stance.

02:09 We're going to softly sit this right shoulder down.

02:13 And now we're ready to launch this driver.

02:16 A really easy point that we can do with the motion now is maybe think about how we load

02:22 into this backswing to help optimise the attack angle.

02:26 So a really good little simple point you can do is imagine the chest, centre of the chest,

02:31 the sternum, or the zip through the middle of my top here is actually working more towards

02:37 the right foot here.

02:38 I quite often see with people with drivers that they'll lean into the golf ball this

02:43 way and that really is going to encourage that downward hit.

02:46 The ball's going to spin too much.

02:48 It's typically going to slice off to the right as well.

02:51 So let's give those points a go.

02:53 So ball position forward, wider stance, just softly sitting that right shoulder down and

02:58 I'm going to encourage my chest to rotate and work more towards the right foot.

03:04 You can see that motion there is really bringing this club into the golf ball on that upward

03:09 attack angle.

03:10 Let's give these a go.

03:20 Okay so we can see there the ball was brushed off the tee, not much contact with the tee

03:24 peg there and you can really see how my body was really working towards the right side,

03:30 almost gearing myself up to let these arms go.

03:34 So really simple points that you can take away there for the driver to start maximising

03:38 the distance.

03:40 A nice drill that you can do to further encourage that upward attack angle, you can simply do

03:45 with a head cover.

03:46 I think everybody's got a head cover that they can use or a glove or perhaps a tee peg

03:50 in the way.

03:51 So we're going to take the head cover and we're going to put it just maybe one foot

03:55 past the golf ball on the target line and I really want you to just flatten that down

03:59 there.

04:00 Okay so you can really start to build the picture for how this is going to start to

04:04 increase this attack angle.

04:06 If I get this wrong I'm going to start to lean left, I'm going to hit down onto that

04:10 golf ball and my golf club post impact is going to carry through and you're going to

04:14 batter that head cover.

04:15 So let's make sure that we put those set up points in play, we're going to get over

04:19 to the right side and we're going to try and sweep that golf ball off the tee and avoid

04:24 hitting that head cover.

04:25 Let's give it a go.

04:26 Ball position forward, wider stance, just sitting that right shoulder down, moving to

04:31 the right and avoiding that head cover.

04:43 Good to go.

04:44 Good job.

04:44 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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