Beginners Golf Tips: How To Drive

Golf Monthly

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

Transcript

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

00:07to break down the simple points at set up and the simple movements that we can make

00:12in the swing to start to optimise the distance for the driver.

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

00:20Now an iron, the golf ball is on the floor and we typically need to hit the golf ball

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

00:28For the driver it's got a lot less loft on it, it's on a big tee, so we need to start

00:33to hit up onto that golf ball a little bit more, that's going to really help firstly

00:38optimise those numbers to try and carry the ball further and give you a lot more distance.

00:43Let's look at the set up first, so firstly to really encourage us to create this upward

00:48attack angle we're going to have to put the golf ball further forwards in the stance and

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

00:56So you can see what I did there at set up, I had the feet close together, the ball towards

01:00the left foot and I took a small step with the left foot and a bigger step with the right

01:05foot and you can see how far forward now that golf ball position is, so it's almost just

01:11inside the left heel.

01:12What I also did is took a bit of a wider step, so this is going to give us some stability,

01:17this driver is a lot longer, well it's the longest club in the bag, we swing it a little

01:22bit quicker so we need the stability from the ground.

01:25You can see already as I move the golf ball position forwards in the stance how my shoulders

01:31have now tilted and just to be weary of here, as we move the golf ball forward in the stance

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

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

01:50the right side so the right shoulder gets nearer to the right pocket but what happens

01:54when we move the ball position forwards is that the shoulders point more left so we have

01:58to counteract that just by sitting the right shoulder back, so don't worry too much about

02:03sitting your right shoulder down.

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

02:10going to softly sit this right shoulder down and now we're ready to launch this driver.

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

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

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

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

02:37the right foot here.

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

02:43way and that really is going to encourage that downward hit, the ball's going to spin

02:47too much, it's typically going to slice off to the right as well.

02:51So let's give those points a go, so ball position forward, wider stance, just softly

02:56sitting that right shoulder down and I'm going to encourage my chest to rotate and work more

03:02towards the right foot.

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

03:09attack angle.

03:10Let's give these a go.

03:11Okay, so we can see there the ball was brushed off the tee, not much contact with the tee

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

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

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

03:38the distance.

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

03:45with a head cover.

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

03:50the way.

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

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

03:59there.

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

04:04encourage this attack angle.

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

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

04:14batter that head cover.

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

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

04:24hitting that head cover.

04:25Let's give it a go.

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

04:35and avoiding that head cover.

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