More Golf Tips to Hit Longer and Straighter

The Driver Experiment

The first part of hitting your Driver better is to understand where on the clubface you should be trying to hit the golf ball.

So let’s do an experiment to see what’s the best place on your clubface for you to hit the golf ball? And with this experiment I’m going to need you to participate. What I’m going to ask you to do is to get your Driver and a golf ball from your golf bag.

Now, there might be a golfer or two that might be saying – “I don’t want to do a test – just tell me what I need to do.” I wish it could be that easy.

If you want to hit the golf ball the farthest and straightest you possibly can - you should know where the centre of your club is. Most golfers are just teeing up their golf ball and swinging and hoping it goes long and straight.

The Player is using their knowledge of what makes their Driver work at its peak performance to attain better drives --- Everyone else just swings and hopes! And a lot of this is understanding where the centre of your Driver is so that you can select the proper height to tee your golf ball.

So take out your Driver and a golf ball.

Hold the shaft of your Driver in your hand about six to 12 inches (15 to 30 centimetres) from the club head with the club face pointing to the sky. Then using your other hand – drop the golf ball from about 12 inches (30 centimetres) above the club onto the centre of the club face. Depending on your Driver, it should be between 3 to 7 grooves from the bottom of the club. What you should be looking and listening for is “Centreness of Hit”. How high did the golf ball bounce off the club face? What did it sound like? Did it sound solid?

Now do it again; though this time drop the golf ball closer to the bottom of your Driver face - maybe only 1 groove from the bottom. What happened? Did it bounce as high? What kind of sound did it make? Did it sound as solid? Did you feel the club vibrate a little more in your hand?

Next, do the same, though this time drop the ball as many grooves high as you did on your first attempt, but let it land closer to the toe of the club face. And to save my fingers from typing more than necessary – ask yourself the same questions you asked yourself above after your previous attempts.

There might only be a little difference between the 3 bounces – or for some Drivers, there might be a big difference. The key to think about is that you imagine what that difference would be if your club was swinging at 95 miles per hour (153 kilometres per hour) as it made contact with the golf ball in those 3 spots. Try to think about it that way as opposed to just dropping the golf ball a short distance onto the club face – swinging the golf club and hitting the golf ball on your club face from these three spots would be a huge difference in distance and possibly direction.