When my first book, Better Recreational Golf“>Better Recreational Golf, came out, I had a publication party at a local book store, complete with books for me to sell and sign, and refreshments. It was really cool.

This was in 2009, and the name of the store was Tea Party Books.

The next year the Tea Party Republicans got elected to Congress and the book store got nationwide attention, but for reasons the owner had to spend a lot of time deflecting.

Anyway, I put up posters all over the area in golf course pro shops and sporting goods stores and so forth.

The only people who showed up, though, were family, a few friends, and my editor.

Well, I gave my spiel anyway, even though there were maybe three golfers in the room including me. When I was finished I asked if there were any questions.

My brother-in-law, who tries his hardest, asked me how to hit his driver. So I answered with a bunch of technical stuff that was in the book.

That was thirteen years ago. What I should have said was this:

Start hitting 7-irons. Hit lots of 7-irons. Get really good at hitting 7-irons.

Because if you can’t hit a 7-iron, why are you trying to hit a driver?

This isn’t going to be a big physics thing. I don’t know enough to write it, and would you understand it if I did?

This is about phonograph records. I know, I date myself, but they illustrate the point perfectly.

If you watch a spinning phonograph record, you would note that the part near the spindle turns very slowly, and the part at the far edge races around the turntable.

That’s because they have to make one revolution in the same amount of time, but with different distances to go.

On a 33-1/3 RPM recored, a spot a half-inch away from the spindle travels at a speed of 105 inches per minute. A spot on the far edge of the record, six inches away from the spindle, travels at 1,256 inches per minute. *

O.K.? So let’s talk about golf clubs. My 7-iron is 38″ long, and my driver is 44.5″ long.

If I swing them at the same speed, the clubhead of the driver, because the driver is a longer club, should be going 17% faster than the clubhead of the 7-iron.

That’s a theoretical analysis. Here is some actual data.

Average LPGA swing speed with a 7-iron is 76 MPH. The ball carries 141 yards at that speed. You can probably hit a 7-iron that far.

That same swing, applied to a driver, becomes 94 MPH, which is roughly 24 % faster. That yields a a carry distance of 218 yards. Add some roll-out and you have yourself a pretty decent drive …

… by swinging your driver the same as you do your 7-iron!**

Where does the extra clubhead speed come from? Why not just 17% faster?

Remember that the golf swing is a dual-lever motion. The arms, swinging from the shoulders, provide the 17%. The club, swinging from the hands to the clubhead, proved the remaining 7%.

But that’s not the point. The point is that your 7-iron swing is your driver swing. Let the design of the club (longer shaft, less loft) do the work.

——

* Scientists used a phonograph record to verify Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity. A “clock” on the edge of the record does run slower, because it is going faster, than a “clock” next to the center of the record. The difference is really, really, really small, but it’s there.

** Red typeface is the Internet equivalent of writing something on a large polo mallet and hitting you over the head with it.

There is an easy way to hit the ball square in the center of the clubface with your driver. Would you like to know what it is?

No changes in your physical technique are required. It’s strictly in your mind.

Your mind, that is, your unconscious mind, is very good at understanding orders and seeing to it that your body carries them out.

To do what I proposed, as you stand at address, and before you take the club back, think to yourself, “center hit.”

Then swing the club and stay out of its way. Anything your conscious mind adds to the swing to help make that center hit happen only “fouls” it up.

It will take some practice, because you have to teach your unconscious mind what “center hit” means.

But it shouldn’t be too long before it starts working.

You’re welcome!

OK, OK. In spite of all the times I have said to leave your driver at home if you aren’t breaking 90 yet, you bring it anyway. So ignore me.

But only if you do this drill so you can learn to actually hit the [expletive deleted] thing.

Go to the range with just your driver (like half the other people there do). Get your bucket of 60 balls and do exactly this when you hit each ball. The same thing every time. No deviation.

Take your hands back, slowly, to the height of your shoulders. Or to where your left arm lies parallel to the ground. Now make a smooth, SLOW, rhythmic pass back through the ball, like you’re hitting a gentle lay-up. Remember to swing the club through the ball with hands ahead of the clubhead.

If you do this right, you will hit the ball squarely on the center of the clubface. THAT is the key to hitting your driver.

Do not be concerned at all about how far the ball goes or even in what direction. That is totally irrelevant. Be concerned about one thing only — making contact on the center of the clubface.

If that’s not happening, try slowing down your swing a bit more. If there’s still no joy, make sure your hands are ahead of the clubhead at contact.

Do not manipulate the club to get the result we’re looking for — smooth out your swing instead. Once you get the idea, keep doing it. Over and over. Same thing. Do not think, “I’ve got it!” and start pounding the ball with your full swing. Keep making these slow mini-swings to pound the sensation of a centered hit into your unconscious mind.

When you’re finished, you will have hit 60 balls with a driver and maybe none of them went over 150 yards. But most of them were struck on the CENTER of the clubface.

With this driver drill you are getting expert in the one thing you have to do with this cub — hit the ball on the center of the clubface.

Keep at this drill, and once you get VERY GOOD at it, you might speed up the swing a LITTLE BIT and make the swing a LITTLE BIT longer (Madsen Rule). But not much. Add to what works in tiny increments.

What about playing? Well, if you wanted to use this swing when you play, could you live with being in every fairway? As you get better at the drill and extend your movement, gradually, without getting greedy, the distance will come, and you’ll still be straight. The driver might become your favorite club in your bag.

The advice you read these days is that your driver should be arcing upward when it makes contact with the ball. True enough for recreational golfers. There are some instructors, though, who would have you learn a swing separately for your driver so that could happen.

I won’t argue with them, because they might well be right in that that would be ideal way to play golf. But recreational golfers who have time to make one trip to the range per week, and play one round of golf per week, don’t have the time to develop two swings. Getting good at just one is hard enough.

So here’s what you don’t have to do to be swinging upward with your driver.

– You don’t have to deliberately swing up at the ball.

– You don’t have to tilt your stance away from the target when you set up to the ball.

– You don’t have to tee the ball higher or tee it up way forward in your stance.

None of those things. All you have to do is use your normal stance and your normal golf swing.

I figured this out when I was working on my swing with a 6-iron and no ball. I found that the club kept hitting the ground about thee inches in front of the ball.

This means I would have hit a golf ball lying on the ground while the club was still going slightly down, like we’re supposed to. But three inches isn’t that far in front of the ball. After that, the club would have to start arcing upward.

I laid out a few alignment rods as shown in the picture. The orange rod points to the center of my stance, where I would place the ball for an iron shot. The tee peg points to a spot three inches in front of that, marking the bottom of my swing. The yellow rod points to the ball on a tee, even with the inside of my left heel.

As you can see, the yellow rod lies well in front of the bottom of my swing (tee peg). That means when the driver bottoms out three inches in front of the orange rod, it has plenty of time to be arcing upward when it contacts the ball.

When I started swinging normally at a teed-up ball, using the same swing feelings that I do when I swing an iron, the ball just took off.

Remember, all the clubhead has to be doing is moving a few degrees upward. By using your normal swing, that will happen.

One swing is hard enough to learn. Fortunately, that one swing is good enough for everything.

Short and sweet today.

Go to the range and hit four 8-irons. Did you get similar-looking shots? They all had nice ball flight, and went where you were aimed? Didn’t hit any of them fat?

Good. We’ll call those shots Pretty Much the Same.

On to part two.

Hit four drivers. Did they all go Pretty Much the Same like your 8-iron shots did? Even two of them? No?

If not, if every one of them was different, then you shouldn’t be hitting your driver.

Start with your 9-iron and work your way through your bag, one club at a time, hitting four balls with each club. The longest club with which you can hit three out of four shots Pretty Much the Same (and straight) is the longest club you should be using off the tee.

End of lesson.

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I have a new golf tip idea, but since I’m not swinging a golf club these days, I need your help in seeing if it works. It concerns addressing the ball with a driver. Here is what I would like you to try.

1. Tee up the ball like you normally do for a drive.

2. Hover the clubhead directly behind the ball so the ball appears centered on the clubface.

3. Drop the club to the ground using your shoulders as the hinge. Do not make any changes to your posture, or the length of your arms, or adjust the position of the clubface on the ground. Just lower the club. It should look like you’re addressing the ball off the toe.

4. Swing away. If this works, you should hit the ball on the center of the clubface.

The reason I came up with this is that there is a parallax effect when you address a teed ball. If you address the ball in a centered way with the club on the ground, the clubface will actually be aligned in the air to hit the ball on the heel.

Because the ball is raised, you must add a second dimension to the address. Addressing the teed ball in this new way should correct for that. At least that’s my thinking.

It’s important when you try this not to make a compensation because it looks like you’re now addressing the ball off the toe of the club. Just swing, see what happens, and let me know. Ten shots should make a good trial.

Also, Make sure you just make a golf swing. Don’t try to bash the ball or steer the clubhead. Just swing.

Thank you for your help. Let me know how/if it works.

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The Big Dog gets you in trouble sometimes, and you have this nagging feeling every now and then that you shouldn’t be using it. How do you decide which times those are? These four questions can help. First, be honest and decide what score you expect to get on this hole. Then go down the list. At the first No, leave the driver in the bag and hit something else off the tee.

1. Is your expected score on this hole a par?
2. Think of the longest club you feel confident about hitting into a green. Will your average drive get you to at least the distance from which you can hit that club?
3. Do you need to hit a driver to have a short iron or less into the green?
4. Think of the trouble off the tee. If you hit into it with a driver, can you still make one stroke over your expected score with average play?

Here’s how this works out in practice. There is a hole on a course I play several times a year, 386 yards uphill, par 4. In the nearly twenty times I have played this hole, I have parred it twice. It’s an easy bogey for me, but a hard par. A perfect drive (what’s the chance of that?) leaves me with a hybrid club off an uphill lie to hit the ball onto the green (what’s the chance of that?). The answer to question 1 is No. I don’t expect to par this hole.

I play a hybrid club off the tee, advance the ball with a 6-iron, pitch on, and get my bogey. Keeping the driver in the bag lets me hit three easy shots into the green instead of two hard ones. Double bogey never gets put in play, and there’s an outside chance of making par if my chip gets close enough.

The very next hole, on the same course, is a 391-yard par 4. It’s longer, but I always use a driver. Why? Par is a reasonable expectation for me here because the fairway slopes downhill, making the hole play shorter, and angles to the left, favoring my shot shape (question 1 is Yes). Catching the slope will leave me with a short iron into the green. (question 2 is Yes).

Question 3 is Yes; a shorter club off the tee will leave me with a mid-iron to the green. As for question 4, the trouble on the right is easy to play out of. Sometimes I have made par from there, so the answer is Yes. Out comes the driver.

You don’t have to use your driver just because it’s a par 4 or a par 5. Make that club work for you when it’s to your advantage. Otherwise, try a different option off the tee.

See also: Keep the Long Clubs at Home

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