Getting Off The Tee: Widen Your Arc to Swing-Up

Fighting the driver is a recurring-problem (that-) I run into with amateur-golfers all-the-time. If you’re the guy who avoids the driver at all costs, there’s a good-chance that your delivery is too steep/narrow.

When I say “steep/narrow”, I mean the club-head isn’t out in-front of your body enough or is too-close in-proximity to your body.

Frequently, I witness golfers battling driver-issues to such a high-degree that they ditch the big stick entirely and replace-it with a long-iron/hybrid type-of club on the tee. Despite the fact that replacing the driver with a long-iron saves you shots on tighter/narrower-holes and in the short-term, you’re setting yourself up for a long, uphill battle playing the game we all love by leaving the head-cover on your biggest-club.

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Rather than opting to play every par-4 & par-5 that you come across with a tee-ball whose distance is capped-at however-far your longest-iron or non-driver (-club) travels/goes, you’ll be much better-off tomorrow than you are today thru learning how to deliver the club-head into the slot (more-) optimally. Once you have success with this, your driver will be back in play in no-time.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the execution of your full-swing(-s) shouldn’t change much-at-all from shot-to-shot and regardless-of club-selection. If you’re hitting a stock 7-iron, that golf-swing shouldn’t feel any different than the swing you just made with your driver.

Sure, it’s reasonable to-expect a different feeling with the 7-iron when you contact the ball, at-impact, but your take-away, back-swing, transition, downswing, and follow-thru should more-or-less mimic the feelings that you produce with the driver. As many of us know, it’s never fun being the guy who’s hitting lots of bad-shots off-the-tee.

Ultimately, enough mounting-issues with your driver puts you on a path of avoidance. If you’re one of many-players who is constantly fighting slices/mishits with the driver and longer-clubs in-general, you might benefit from a couple of simple drills to address these problems.

If you hit lots of high-slices/pop-ups with the driver and prefer hitting your irons on tee-boxes, I’m willing to-bet that your downswing is too-narrow. In other words, your club-head during the downswing is traveling from high-to-low too much and on a (club-) path that could be just as problematic.

Although any golf-ball that flies from left-to-right for righties and right-to-left for lefties (a.k.a. a slice) is the result of an angled club-face that’s open in-relation to the club’s path at-impact, learning how-to rid your driver-game of its poor-contact problems comes-down to (first-) addressing problems with the angle of your club’s shaft in relation to the ground as you deliver the club-head during the downswing.

Again, while it’s impossible to-hit slices with a club-face that’s angled closed/shut to the club’s path, you probably ended-up ditching the driver because you couldn’t strike the ball in the center of the face; and not-because you weren’t capable of finding some method to-calm down your slice thru falsely manipulating the club-head at/prior-to impact. In other words, it’s possible to-implement band-aid fixes or less-than optimal-solutions to achieve a straighter/less-violent ball-flight/slice by manipulating the club-head with your hands or by some alternative-method that isn’t reliable.

In simpler terms, not all good-shots or results are the product of consistent/reliable inputs. If you’re hitting sky-high spinners (/slices) off-the-tee (or even topping the ball sometimes), it’s true that the angle of your club-face isn’t where it needs to be in relation to the club’s path. Or, maybe your typical driver-slices/mis-hits result-from more of a club-path issue than a club-face issue. However, it’s very rare to-find constant-slicers hitting slices that become magnified as they move their way up through the bag, from wedge to driver and not vice-versa, who repeatedly find the center of the face.

Building off of my previous-explanations related-to the origins of your slicing/mis-hit issues with the driver, it’s important to recognize the fact that those of us who are perpetual-slicers with the driver are also executing iron-swings with the same underlying-concerns that oftentimes fail-to reveal themselves until we reach the longest-club(-s) in-the-bag. In other words, the shorter the club is, the easier it is to-hide the mistakes we make during the course of our golf swing.

Although you may be able to hit a 7-iron relatively straight and w/out much of a slice compared-to the driver, this doesn’t mean that your iron-swings are free-of errors. For the sake of clarity, let’s just say that you can save a 7-iron (-swing) 3 out-of every 4 times/swings using your hands or thru some-other (unreliable-) method that won’t hold-up as you work your way up through the bag (-to your driver). If you make that same-swing with your 4-iron, you may only be able to save-it 60 percent of the time; or 3 out-of every 5 times.

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Proportionately, that same-swing with your 9-iron produces a good-result/non-mishit/slice 5 out-of every 6 swings. But, and as I touched on, your inability to-exercise control of your slice/mishits as you add length to the shaft occurs due to the basic-principles of hitting shorter-vs.-longer clubs.

If you play a lot and have good-hands (/hand-eye coordination), you may be able to-groove bad-habits while concealing the issues in your steep/narrow arc better than most. But, recurring-inequities in how (poorly/adequately) you strike the driver compared-to how effective/ineffective you are with the irons is more-about the inadequate-width to your swing than your potentially problematic club-path/face-angle; which only takes into account the time immediately before impact and at-impact. More specifically, you need to learn how to apply the circular principles that are inherent to any sufficient swing-plane; with respect to the ground.

One-thing that a circle cannot-be is linear. In golf as well as in life, nothing is perfectly linear. While a ruler might be the closest-thing to-linear or straight, even that isn’t perfectly-straight. Like anything else (-is), the ruler is inherently comprised-of some-level of human-error; however small that/those error(-s) may be. In an effort to bring this topic back-to where it belongs, don’t try to fix your slice/mishits with the driver by obsessing over club-path and face-angle. Sure, understanding the face-to-path relationship is key to-maintaining a consistent ball-flight.

Before that even becomes relevant-to hitting better-drivers, however, you must hit the center of the club-face. And, your inability to strike the center of the face (of-) which is evidenced by your topped tee-shots/pop-ups/mishits/slices, exist because you aren’t wide-enough on the takeaway/back-swing and you’re too-narrow/steep on the downswing. So, and I know it took awhile to finally arrive at this point, but now we have to learn how-to widen our arc.

As The Golden Bear used to-say while referencing the potential-issues in his takeaway, you’ve got to-picture/visualize razor-blades above your hands in relation to the ground as you’re standing in your setup-position over-the-ball. Like Jack, Rory uses this advice for his own takeaway in an effort to keep the club-head low to the ground as he starts his motion/swing.

Sure, you can afford to pick the club-up off-the-ground with your irons on the takeaway/backswing. Why? Because we’re trying to-make contact with the ground after-the-ball with our irons in most instances. With the driver, think “low and slow” in order to keep the club-head lower to the ground on the takeaway/backswing and to maintain quality-tempo/rhythm (which is the slow-part; that also affects timing; and timing is everything at-impact).

If you rush your takeaway; you’re lifting the club-head off the ground too quickly in most cases or the club-head is settling too-far behind your hands/body in relation to your imaginary target-line at-address.

To-practice this low-and-slow takeaway with your driver-swing; a swing that produces more of a rotational/circular effect throughout-it, place one-ball on-the-ground that’s directly behind your club-head. The ball should be positioned on the ground so that the back of your driver-head strikes the ball during your normal takeaway.

After making numerous swings in this above-manner, be sure to check where each ball ends-up finishing behind you. If one-ball is located on-the-ground 8-feet behind you and another is located at 5-feet, you need to work-on the consistency of your takeaway. Every ball should be located in close proximity to each-other. Performing this drill simply reinforces the low-and-slow (and well-timed) takeaway that’s adequate for hitting well-struck drivers.

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Now, I want you to setup to a golf-ball like you normally do/would before hitting-it; but with a ball in your trail-hand (right-hand for righties) and no-club of any kind. After doing that, I want you to perform a golf-swing with your trail-arm; or the same-arm/hand that’s holding the ball. During this trail-arm only downswing, I want you to let-go of the ball in your hand in a fashion that mimics the motion of an under-hand/arm throw. If you can picture a pitcher throwing from the stretch-position and not the wind-up/face-on position, your body should be oriented just like that; which also mimics that of a golfer.

Like any softball-pitcher (whose-) releasing the ball under-hand (and) towards home-plate; only you’re not performing this drill with your body facing the target, you should throw the ball at your intended-target nearly as-hard/far as you can. If your under-hand toss flies too-low; or not as far as you’d like, while also traveling off-line; you should try to-maximize the distance/height of your throw. The higher, and (the-) farther, that you can toss the ball under-hand, the better you’ve prepared yourself to-make solid-driver swings.

With the driver, we want to sweep the ball off-the-tee. To achieve that, you need to have your dominant/trail hand more underneath the grip at-impact. If it’s not, then you’re increasing the chances of delivering the club-head too much from high-to-low into the back of the ball.

Although we dove into lots of detail here, we can simplify the message by remembering to-add width to your driver’s backswing and to stay-behind the ball during the downswing and at-impact. By staying “behind” the ball during the downswing in-relation to the target, you’ll be in better-position to-sweep the ball off the tee. To sweep the ball off-the-tee, your trail hand, at-impact, needs to-be positioned more-underneath the grip as opposed to on-top of it.

Mix-in the takeaway-drill with the underhand toss-drill, and in a short-matter of time, you’ll be making center-face contact all-day with the driver. Remember, we can’t perform the driver-swing in a linear fashion; as we’re not chopping wood here. Chopping-wood may work to a degree with our chips/pitches/short-to-mid-irons, but to-hit the driver well we have-to think wide to let it fly.

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