How to hit A Driver Me And My Golf
How To Hit Your DRIVER STRAIGHT | ME AND MY GOLF
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- What do all straight hitters do?
Today, we're gonna find out.
- Yes, we're gonna show you the three key things
that all straight hitters do,
that you can take into your game.
Hi, we're Piers and Andy from "Me and My Golf",
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We do, don't we? - Yeah
- All right Andy look,
everybody wants to hit the golf ball straighter,
what's the first key?
- The first key is ball striking.
The best players in the world
or the straightest hitters in the world,
are consistently finding about the center.
- The center. - It's not always
in the center, but it's about the center.
And the question we'd like to ask you guys is,
when you go an practice,
how often are you measuring your strike?
How often are you spraying the face?
How often are you actually gettin' some tapes on there,
looking at where you're strikin' the golf ball?
And how well do you know when you actually mishit it,
'cause this is a key component.
And we always say, you can't improve what you don't measure,
so it's really important that you do this
when you get to the driving range.
And if you can do this, you're gonna improve it,
and if you can find that center a little bit more often,
you're not only gonna increase the ball speed,
you're gonna improve the accuracy as well.
- Okay, I'll tell you what, let's get you hittin' one,
because obviously we know that we can use the strike spray
and the tapes to measure this contact,
but one thing we always ask our golfers to do,
is take ownership of where the golf ball came from.
So I'm gonna get you to hit a shot,
and you're gonna tell me, without looking at the face,
where it came from.
So, you should be able to hit a shot
and know exactly where that ball comes from.
(club striking ball)
- That was an absolutely beauty, a little bit of draw.
Now, even though that was an absolutely beauty, it was,
I've gotta watch that Piers, it's gone miles.
I woulda' said that was just ever so slightly at the toe.
- Yep.
- Ever so slightly. - I agree.
- But, it was a beautiful shape, nice high draw,
but slightly at the toe.
'Cause I can feel that club having a little bit
of this sorta twisting action.
- And this is the thing,
as coaches we're actually pretty good
at noting where the strike was,
relative to the ball flight as well,
because we've seen it happen a lot.
But, you too can get this much tuned into your game
because if you keep understanding where it came from,
and then seeing what the ball fly did,
you'll very soon gonna be able to get it.
I think the one thing that we do see Andy is,
you said earlier the best golfer,
sometimes they're off center,
but they know where they're gonna be
and then they have to manage it.
- And it's not massively off center,
the further away you are, generally the start direction
and the curve tends to sorta lose control there.
So, just measuring it, is really important
and just havin' that awareness is key.
Now, what helps us find the middle more often?
What we're really gonna look at, is one of the key things
that the best players in the world do,
and that's in the set up.
The set up is so solid, and it's really conditioned
or allowing them to really find the middle more often.
Now, let's take a look at somebody like Lee Westwwod,
one of the most consistent golfers on the planet.
He's one of the straightest hitters out there
and one of the most consistent ball strikers.
Now, if you look at his set up,
he looks screwed into the ground.
(chuckles)
He looks like you could run up and not push him over.
He's really solid.
And because of this,
it means he can use the ground extremely well.
It means he's balanced, which is another component
for finding that center,
and it really means there's not gonna be
many compensations happenin' in in his golf swing,
and this is what enables him to find that sweet spot,
almost every single time.
- Yeah, as you can see he is a golf athlete,
no doubt about it.
You've actually played golf with him as well,
as he is, as you said one of the straightest hitters
for the last probably 20 years.
- Almost as straight as me.
- Almost as straight as you.
- But what does he do so well?
Let's deconstruct his set up.
We'll look at his set up here, look at his lower body.
He's really balanced.
The weight is through the middle of the feet,
it's not toes, not heels,
it's through the middle of the feet.
He has a slight flex in the legs.
He hasn't got loads of knee flex Piers,
which we see in a lot of golfers.
He's got a slight flex in the legs,
and he really looks solid with the lower body.
Looks really thick and solid with the lower body.
And then from there, he's got a slight angle forward
of the spine and his arms are just really nice and relaxed,
hanging down, very much underneath his shoulders.
These are key things that if we apply in our own game,
will make a huge impact on that strike.
- Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, well let's see you hit, wanna see how balanced
your set up, how good your posture is,
and generally I would say that you look solid
over the golf ball.
- I'm gonna really sorta think bout Lee Westwood there.
Again, the legs for me with Lee, when I look at it,
it looks rock solid.
It looks like they're actually sorta
screwed into the ground.
So, I've Lee Westwood legs here, Piers.
(laughing)
- This is a valid point,
that you can actually have this image
in your mind when you're doing this.
(club striking ball)
- Very interesting on that one, that was a slight fade,
but that was towards the heel.
So I've hit that towards the heel, again the awareness,
it's gone slightly this way.
It doesn't guarantee I'm gonna hit it well,
but it give me a much better chance of doing it.
- All right, so we have a question for you.
Would you rather hit the golf ball 30 yards further,
hit five more fairways around?
Post down below.
What would you rather do?
- 30 yards further or five more,
I would go 30 yards more down the fairway.
(laughing)
I would, I would, 30 yards further.
- You can't have both.
- I'm so straight, Piers, you know.
- Oh yeah, whatever.
- I'm going 30 yards further all day long,
and you know, 'cause a wedge in your hand
is gonna be a lot easier than a five iron from the fairway.
All right, so look, second key what do we got?
- Okay, second key is, or before we get into the drill,
is shallowing the shaft in the downswing.
So, what a lot of the straight hitters do,
you'll notice that as they get to the top of the swing,
they all start with the lower body first,
where as they start with the lower body,
the shaft actually shallows.
So the actually angle of the shaft,
I'll exaggerate it here, shallows this way.
And what that enables them to do
is use their body in a better way in the downswing.
So, from here creating this sort of this shallowing effect,
here with the club head,
almost moves behind you in this way,
instead of actually moving this way.
Soon as we get steep or the club head wants to go this way,
we can't really use the body.
We'll end up sorta standing and rising up here,
no rotation, and then a lot of hand action
down through the bottom there, which we don't want.
So, a key component for sorta setting our delivery
to the golf ball,
is being able to actually get this club head working
a little bit more behind the hand in the downswing
to set up the next path, creating that shallow.
Now, we wanna use, as let's use Lee Westwood for the strike,
and the good posture,
but we wanted to use one of our students, Aaron Rai.
Now, Aaron you've seen us do some stuff with him before,
but this is a guy who's been top five in fairway,
taking the European tour for the last three years.
70% of fairways hits, so you're right there.
Damage your shaft there.
So you gotta drill in here, which is gonna help us obviously
get in this shallowing action.
So, I've got a short alignment stick here.
I'm just placing it underneath the grip here,
and this is great for some visual awareness
of the golf swing.
So, I'm just gonna sort of position it there.
I'm gonna make a back swing,
and ideally this would point somewhere
near towards the target line on the way back,
as we get sorta towards the top.
Now, from here what we really wanna do,
is as we start with the lower body first,
really key that we do this,
we're gonna feel as if the alignment stick,
or this red stick here now,
actually points down way in front of the golf ball.
This is going to give you that feeling
of that shallowing effect.
Now you can cheat this, you can do this.
So that's doing it with the body.
What we wanna make sure that we do,
is we keep our posture, keep our angle,
start with the lower body,
and really feel as if we can get that alignment stick
pointing there and that really again,
gets the club now more behind us,
setting us up for this next par.
- This is a good point now, because this could happen,
just do that again, Andy with the club in there.
Where would most people, if we haven't got the stick there,
if they just, if we just said to them,
start with the lower body,
where could some people go from a steepness point of view.
- So, if we start with a lower body?
- Some people could do this,
they can actually get the club steep
and getting that in front.
So it becomes this disassociation thing
whereas, you have gotta work hard,
you have to mindful that where you start the downswing
with your lower body,
that you have to create the shallowness then
in the downswing and not do what Andy's doing
on those last three, which is steep and out.
- And I like this because you've really got that visual
in front of you here.
- Yes, love it.
- Yeah, I'm gonna focus on this, you're focusing on this end
of the club which is really good.
- It's hard to focus on that, when it's behind you.
- Exactly (laughing)
So let me hit a shot here,
I'm gonna create that same feeling.
This is something that I need to do
a little bit more of in the golf swing.
Havin' that feeling there certainly
creates the right sort of imprint in my mind
of what I wanna achieve.
- So, this is great,
if you're somebody who slices the golf ball.
If you've clicked on this video,
because you wanna hit the ball straight,
because you slice it, then this is a great fix for you.
(club hitting ball)
- And that really felt like, - And where did it go?
I did it there.
That was a beauty.
- A bit of a draw of that one actually, 400 meters.
- I really felt I got that shallowing there,
very different motion to what I normally feel.
I'll take that.
- All right, before we get into this third tip,
are these tips actually proving valuable to you?
Hopefully they are.
Hit the like button if they are.
Now Andy, the third one, how we gonna finish this off?
- Okay, the third one is getting open.
A lot of people would love to be
in this impact position where we see the best players
in the world, certainly the straightest ones,
where they've got these two cheeks visible here,
lot of hip clearance.
And this is almost a by-product of the shallowing.
It's vere difficult to actually get in that impact,
when the club gets very steep.
As we've said, we start to stand up.
So, the best players in the world,
the most accurate players, as we've said,
they all shallow it as we saw Aaron,
he gets to shallowing here and what this does,
it now allows you to actually rotate the pelvis,
rotate the hips here to get the club nicely on plane,
and what happens as we continue to turn now,
this really helps us open the hips.
But, what does that do to the club face?
Well, this enables the club face now
to be a little bit more passive,
because we've created the room to swing through.
So, the face here is still closing somewhat
to the target line, but it's not an aggressive
sorta release like this.
No independent sort of hands and arms here.
And we'll certainly see on Aaron,
when he swings through,
we can see that club face nice and stable.
There's a lotta hip turn,
a lotta turn of the torso, as well.
And somebody else who does this extremely well,
one of the straightest hitters ever,
is Jim Furyk, he has a very interesting backswing,
but he creates so much rotation.
You can see on screen here, so much rotation of the hips.
And just look at how much then room he's got for his arms,
and the club to be very passive on the way through.
- It's very interesting when you say, Jim Furyk
Andy, because he is the straightest hitter on the PGA tour
at the moment of this video for the 2020 season,
even though it's curtailed.
But he has been measured to have the least amount
of forearm rotation through the hitting area.
So again, that kind of, yeah, the ball forearm rotation.
If we go to the question, we said about hitting it
30 yards further, or five more fairways,
that's five more fairways, that's probably 30 yard further.
And anyone who's slicing the golf ball,
we're not neccesarily saying this is the best draw for you.
But if you are someone who's a little bit off kilter,
then this could definitely help you.
- Definitely, so a great drill that you can do for this,
really is just taking your setup here, as normal,
and from here, we're just gonna focus
on keeping the arms really light,
the grip pressure's really soft,
we're not really using the hands here.
We're gonna focus on allowing the hips to turn,
and as we allow the hips to turn,
it's gonna pull the upper body through
and the upper body here,
is giving the movements of the club,
not the hands and arms working independently.
So, just some slow motion swings here,
as you can see, I'm activating the lower body
that's pulling the upper body through.
The club face is nice and passive and you can see here,
the shoulders and the hips
are really clear on the way through.
This is a great feeling then to take to the actual shot.
And you can then blend it in to some moves here,
when you incorporate that same feel.
And we always talk about this,
what you do past here, or post impact,
influences what you do before it impacts.
- Yeah, just interesting you saying there,
you're finding a way of blending in,
so it wants a very static,
open the hips and then swinging through.
You are blending it in,
you start doing these mini-swings
and creating that hip rotation, the clearing of the hips,
and obviously the passive arms on the way through.
- Okay.
- Now, I don't know whether you're gonna beat that last one.
- I will.
- And I will tell the truth if you're hittin' bad ones here,
'cause I'm really hope you do hook this one.
(laughing)
- Okay, I never hook it, Piers.
- (laughing) Yeah, exactly.
Right, let's get the same three.
- Pressure on.
- Three out of three.
- Same speed in the lower body
and the passive hands and arms here.
(club hitting ball)
- Oh, a little bit cold that time.
- Really felt the clearance.
That was probably actually the best strike,
the most powerful, slightly turned over the club face a bit,
but really felt the hips work a lot more on that one.
Got the feeling that I needed to get.
- All right, so let's summarize this.
So, strike massive important.
Keep testing it, posture is often the gateway
to getting good strike.
Then, we talking about shallowing the golf swing,
make sure you look at some videos of yourself.
Are you shallowing on the way down?
And then obviously to finish off with,
are you getting good open hip clearance
which is then stabilizing the club face,
because you don't need to be so flippy
with your hands and arms.
- Yes, definitely.
Now, if you are somebody
who wants to hit the golf ball a little straighter,
and you slice the golf ball, we have a perfect plan for you.
A slicer draw plan which is four weeks
and see some amazing results.
So if you wanna learn more, and check it out,
click the link right down there.
We'll see you soon.
