Stan learns how to get the best from his driver

AWALI Golf Club’s PGA Professional Matt Chalmers is helping GulfWeekly Editor Stan Szecowka get a grip with his game. In the last of a five part series of articles he will try to iron out some of the bad habits he has picked up since disastrously taking up the sport four years ago.

Lesson 5 – The Driver
Regardless of your golfing ability, the feeling that you get when the stars align and you absolutely launch a drive down the middle of the fairway is pretty hard to beat! However, due to the length of the club and its lack of loft, good shots can be hard to achieve consistently unless you understand how to apply the correct science. Whereas we have to strike down with our irons to get the ball up in the air, it is important that we sweep the ball off the tee when using our driver. In order to achieve consistency with the driver, we must alter our set-up to facilitate this ‘sweeping’ action.

The positive areas of Stan’s swing
Stan has been working hard on his set-up which means that before he even starts his golf swing, his body is in the best position to produce an athletic and balanced swing. Additionally, Stan naturally has a fairly flat swing which means that his club tends to go round his body as opposed to simply going up and down. This type of swing is ideal for driving as the club comes into the ball at a shallow angle and can launch the ball up into the air.

Areas for improvement
Although Stan has improved his posture, alignment and grip, there was one thing in his set-up that was making it impossible for him to launch the ball up into the air. As you can see from Picture 1, his ball position was almost in the middle of his stance. We place the ball in the middle of our stance with the majority of our irons because this facilitates the descending blow required to get the ball up in the air. However, that is the opposite of what we are trying to achieve with our driver. Due to this incorrect set-up, Stan’s drives tended to be very low and weak. Furthermore, Stan was under the impression that he had to strike down with the driver in order to get the ball up in the air. This misconception was also contributing to his weak ball flight.

Solution
The first change we made was to get Stan to move his ball position up to his left heel which encouraged him to sweep the ball off the tee as opposed to hitting down on it (See Picture 2). Additionally, I asked Stan to widen his stance to give him greater dynamic balance. Once Stan applied these changes and started to launch the ball up into the air, his ball flight demonstrated significant improvement. The balls were carrying at least 50 yards further in the air.

This was yet another example of when it is possible to really improve the outcome of the shot without necessarily reinventing your technique. Starting your swing from the correct position is crucial as it makes it much easier to consistently apply the correct science!

Evaluation
Over the past five weeks, Stan’s knowledge and understanding of what he is supposed to be doing has increased hugely. Having said that, he still has a tendency to rush through the set-up so he can get on with smashing the ball often resulting in the appearance of his stubborn habits (weak left hand grip and not following through properly)!

One of the tough things about improving your golf is that it is difficult to force yourself to persevere when things feel uncomfortable. However, although it might feel uncomfortable initially when you make changes to your set-up, it very rarely feels uncomfortable to see the ball flying straighter and further down the middle of the fairway!

Stan’s verdict: Talk about being driven to distraction! This game’s all about swings and roundabouts ... and now that I know what I’m doing with my whacker I can’t wait for the next visit to a driving range. Straight down the fairway, if only I’d had this lesson before the recent inaugural Kempinski Golf Day I would surely have recorded more than five points on my card!