Hit down or up on driver

One of the biggest mistakes so many amateur golfers make is that they dont tee it high enough. Oct, 2015 one of the first things we get our me and my golf students to do is to understand that with an iron the bottom of the golf swing is after the golf ball and this means there is a slight downward hit. Jun 10, 2014 hitting your driver with a sweeping motion rather than a downward angle will help to bring down the spin rate and give you a better, more penetrating ball flight. Im guessing this ball was hit middle toe, and slightly impacted by gear effect. In irons, the swing bottoms out just past the ball, the evidence is the divot. Finishing with a high handle up and to the right promotes hitting up on your driver.

Many beginners tend to place the ball exactly in the middle. Hitting up on the driver can give you added distance and an improved flight, but there are right and wrong ways of doing this. Changing swing to hit up on driver golf tips team titleist. Tee up a ball, place your head cover about 12 inches in front of your ball, if you are swinging down, you will hit the head cover. Heres sean foley discussing briefly why its a bad idea for most amateurs to try and hit up when they have a driver in their hands. Hit down with the driver sean foley show you how to cure your slices and pulls by hitting down on the ball with your driver. I am driving the ball on average of 260, but get very little to no roll. Remember, to hit a driver pure and deep, you need to hit up on it. During my session i noticed that i was hitting down on the ball. Theres a lot of discussion and different opinions between pros about how to successfully hit and teach a driver swing. The conventional wisdom has always been that better golfers will take a huge divot with their iron shots, and the key to compressing the golf ball is to produce an extremely steep club path towards impact.

In the driver, the swing bottoms out just before the ball. Thats where the phrase hit down on the ball comes from. This has a tendency to cause the club face to stay open to the target, making it difficult to find the fairway. As the club swings through impact it swings up, level or even down at the club hits the ball. Remember, teeing it high will not result in skyballs. How to hit a driver or 1 wood is all about just that hitting driver.

Hence lowering the smash factor and increasing the spin should be less when hit 4 up and center face. If i gave you a tennis ball, and a racket, and asked you to hit the ball up into the air what would you do. From beginners to more advanced players the big stick is the one we all want to hit and hit with distance and consistency. When using your driver, kolb says the most common cause of power loss is hitting down on the ball. Sep 06, 2019 many beginners tend to place the ball exactly in the middle. The golf fixs michael breed debunks a common myth to hit down on the golf ball. By slowing down your swing speed, you will reduce the side spin that you put on the ball and have better chance of hitting your shot on the. I am currently using a 2008 taylormade, reg flex 10. Michael breed, host of the golf fix, shows you a drill on how to hit down on the golf ball.

There is nothing more rewarding then stepping up to the tee box and knowing that you are going to launch the ball down the middle of the. Sometimes they contradict themselves with the actions theyre trying to make and the. You would lower your racket and strike up at the tennis ball. Tips on hitting down with irons golf tips team titleist. While there have been many points of views and arguments, i wanted to take a stab at trying to explain this conversation from a. Tee it up high and hover the clubhead above the ground 3.

In this weeks my swing analysis me and my golf pga professionals piers ward and andy proudman show follower chris edwards how to become a more consistent. Line the ball up with the inside of your dominant foot in front of you. Your driver needs to be an ally if you are going to shoot low scores, and keeping it hidden in the bag is not the right way to use it to your advantage. We thank all of the contributors to the site and look forward to posting new content on a regular basis. Do you know of any drills that i can work on to hit up on the ball while using a driver. But if you frequently hit slices or pulls, this swing. No need to club down how to hit more fairways with your driver. More often than not this is simply because they dont understand that you actually need to hit down on the ball to get it in the air. It will cause pain to transmit up the arms, wrists, shoulders. The driver is the only club hit with an upward swing, and this is because the ball sits up on a tee. Jul 10, 2018 hit down on the ball means your iron should contact the ball before it hits the ground.

Theres one thing that every golfer wants more of learning how to increase driver distance not only makes you look awesome in front of your playing partners, but it also makes the game a whole lot easier. Hitting down causes more spin and therefore more control. I have a 16 degree launch and i get the ball well into the air. With irons, you want the clubhead to still be descending when it contacts the ball. While tiger does hit down on his driver, he hits less down on it now with foley than he did with hank and that is mainly why his distance has remained constant despite losing a. I would assume that i am loosing at least 30 yards on my drive due to to the fact that i have more of a descending swing verses hitting the ball on. Even moving down the grip by just an inch or two can go a long way toward improving your accuracy. The basics of hitting up vs hitting down with driver dwg golf swing tips in order to have. Hit up or hit down with driver rick shiels is joined by pga golf professional dan whittaker at quest golf academy and are going to. After all, many golfers are still told to keep their head down during the golf swing.

The average angle of attack on tour is 1 degree down, however there are numerous pros who hit up on the ball considerably. If an upward hit is desired, as with a driver, the ball should be placed up in the stance and the golfer told only where the swing is to bottom out. But its a lot harder to hit up on it when the ball is teed low. Tee it up high and set your driver on the ground 2. Attack angle is the angle between the ground and clubhead at impact. Aug 22, 2017 is a site dedicated to bring you tips that will allow you to hit the driver longer and straighter as well as allowing you to choose the right driver for your game. Although i may end up settling for a used, newer model driver. It sends completely the wrong message about how the golf swing should work, it causes golfers to get into inefficient and potentially harmful positions, and it has ruined many a good golf swing.

Chris ryan explains how to achieve this correctly in this video. Amateur golfers commonly hit down with their drivers, like an iron shot. Eliminate popup drives by flattening out, slowing down your. The secret to hitting your driver better the left rough. How to hit more fairways with your driver golficity. A positive attack angle increases launch angle and reduces spin for a given cluhead speed thus creating more carry and roll. Jul 12, 2018 tee up a ball, place your head cover about 12 inches in front of your ball, if you are swinging down, you will hit the head cover. At some point, you have to be able to step up to the tee with your driver and blast one right down the middle. While trackman stats for the pga tour may show that on average tour players hit down on their driver 1. Simply tilt your spine away from the target until the club head touches the inside of your lead knee. How to hit down on a golf ball, to get the ball up video by. Hitting down with a driver is easier to control and therefore straighter. The basics of hitting up vs hitting down with driver dwg golf. How to hit down on a ball to get it up in the air golfweek.

How to hit down on a golf ball, to get the ball up video by pete styles so, for many golfers, getting the ball airborne and up into the air is often a bit of a problem. Hit down on the golf ball and take a huge divot its not. Eliminate popup drives by flattening out, slowing down your swing. Its tough to hit a good drive after making a snatchy move like that. Start with hands down by the right knee, and work them up and to the right. Instead, he instructs his students to hit up on the golf ballshould you hit down on the golf ball. Watch the best of sean foley hit down with the driver. One common reason golfers struggle to hit their driver straight is they have too steep of a vertical swing plane the angle of their club shaft is too steep at impact. The driver is unlike all the other clubs in your bagyou really dont want to hit down on the ball at all. You need to set the ball more forward in your stance, since the driver is a long club, to allow the driver to square up with it. So if you are really trying to swing up at it this isnt what is actually happening.

From our experience this has only lead to problems. Until the technicalities of hitting down are fully explained, hitting up seems, on the surface, more logical. Most golfers think they should set the driver on the ground at. Hit down on the ball seems contrary to our instincts golf is a difficult game, yet to so many of the uninitiated it might seem incredibly simple, says golf instructor clive scarff. There can be various contributing factors that cause this so we have decided to look at 3 ways that can help you hit more up on the ball in order to maximize your distance of the tee. Learn how to swing a driver in the most efficient manner with rotary swing. May 11, 2009 trackman, in their january newsletter, stated that the pga tour average for attack angle with the driver up or down at the moment of impact is 1. Hit down on the ball is a phrase that has been told to golfers struggling to improve their ball striking for decades. It seems as if the more you try to hit down, the higher the ball goes. I ended up exagerating the motion to a point where i was taking huge, deep divots.

Jun 09, 2014 eliminate popup drives by flattening out, slowing down your swing. If we want something to go up, we tend to hit up at it. Trackman, in their january newsletter, stated that the pga tour average for attack angle with the driver up or down at the moment of impact is 1. The conventional wisdom has always been that better golfers will take a huge divot with their iron shots, and the key to compressing the golf ball is to. Please sign up to be notified when we post new driver tips. Other golfers instinctively try to square the club face by. Ideally, you will take a very shallow divot just in front of the ball.

This is typically only a degree or two in a good players swing. This also means that the driver will hit the ball on the upswing, which creates less spin and straighter drives. A good thought is to try to take a little divot after impact or to hit with the shaft leaning toward the target top photo. How to hit down on a golf ball, to get the ball up video.

In golf posture place your driver directly down against the front of your body so. Loft is the angle from the leading edge of the club to the top edge. For those looking to get penetrating wind drives, this video on how to hit up on the driver is for you. So if we want to maximize distance, youve got to be hitting up on your driver. A recent hotly debated topic has been, as golf instructors, should we encourage golfers to hit up or down on the ball with their driver. Yet the majority of pga tour golfers hit the golf ball with their drivers c. I do not recommend they be told to hit down or up on the ball as the swing changes that result make things way more complicated. Trying to hit the golf ball on the upswing will make your slice or pull go from bad to worse.

Proper driver setup is essential to success on the tee. If youve been around golf you hear the advice to hit up on your driver. That means that a collection of the greatest drivers on the planet actually average out with a downward hit on the big stick. To cure your slices and pulls, hit down on the ball with your driver. Whether you have an iron or driver in hand, always hit down. The aoa is simply a measurement of whether the club head is moving upward or downward through impact. Optimize driver loft for more distance true fit clubs. Seems sean wants you to hit down with your driver while most teachers want you to swing up. While it might feel like you are swinging harder by putting in more effort, that can actually slow the swing down and also rob you of accuracy. One of the magazines did a recent article on it, too, and talked about how hitting up on your driver can add 732 yards or whatever to your tee shots.

Remember, the goal is to hit the driver on the upswing as it will result in maximum ball flight and translate into more distance and carry. If youre someone who gets nervous on the tee box, that mental state is affecting how you physically swing your driver. If you swing and miss the head cover, you are swinging up some. In fact, the average angle of attack aoa on the pga tour is 1. Now we need to learn how to hit up on the ball with our driver. The colorful young player tells readers they dont need to be big to hit the ball far, they just need to set up properly and release correctly.

But with the driver or other wood or hybrid shot with a teed ball, you want to sweep the clubhead into impact. This causes the ball to come off the driver with too much backspin. No doubt, if this player stays with this new swing, they will eventually need a new driver, or more reasonably changes to their existing adjustable one. Every golfer wants to know how to hit a driver farther, and were going to explore some actionable methods you can use in this article. I finally realized that hitting down is more a result of ball position than actually changing my swing. The average driving distance on the pga tour last season was 290. This will help you shift to your front side on the downswing and swing into impact from inside the target line. Many beginning golfers mistakenly try to lift the ball up in the air during their swing. Here are the biggest points of contention when this debate is discussed. Sometimes they contradict themselves with the actions theyre trying to make and the results theyre trying to see. Oct 17, 2017 one common reason golfers struggle to hit their driver straight is they have too steep of a vertical swing plane the angle of their club shaft is too steep at impact.

Every day we see teachers advising golfers to hit up on the ball with the driver for more distance. Hitting down on the golf ball with irons liveabout. I would assume that i am loosing at least 30 yards on my drive due to to the fact that i have more of a descending swing verses hitting the ball on my upswing with the driver. You might have been told to hit up on the ball with a driver to hit it far, but the real question is. Every golf club has a certain amount of loft, which helps get the ball in the air.

My swing was screwed up for about 18 months because i tried consciously to hit down on the ball. Do you really get more distance off the tee by hitting up on the ball. Nov 10, 2011 shots struck off the ground need to be hit with a descending blow and shots struck off an elevated tee are better when hit with an upward blow fact. When you strike a golf ball with the driver, you hit the ball almost in the low point of your swing. Place a tee flush into the ground 12 inches behind the ball and ask the golfer to brush the ground there no divot.

Don trahan from peak performance golf states emphatically that you should not. In todays video, you will learn how to hit your driver dead straight. Watch the best of sean foley hit down with the driver golf. Slow it down to speed it up with your driver swing swing. Place both your hands on the grip of the driver, the same way you would hold a baseball bat, but with the club angled down towards the ball. Point the butt end of the club at your belt buckle or where it would be. For maximum distance, find out how to properly set up for the driver and how the driver setup differs from the irons. Using a mid iron, you place the ball somewhere between your feet and behind the low point if your swing. Here is the case that don trahan makes against hitting down on the golf ball. Butch harmons best driver tips will get you hitting it straight and long. Hitting a driver with too much backspin will cause the. Everyone wants to hit their driver as far as possible that is no secret. To hit more fairways while still using your driver, one of. We have the golf swing and your total game boiled down to the 5 most important keys in our.

Swing experts joseph mayo and grant waite discuss whether golfers should hit up or down on their driver, and why most amateurs lose yards. Eliminate popup drives by flattening out, slowing down. He simply said, you need to hit up on the ball, and your setup is all wrong. Go ahead and hold the golf club maintaining this tilt. May 10, 2017 when a shot comes up that requires the best of your accuracy, but you still want to hit your driver, consider choking down on the grip of the club.

Hitting down on the ball is what leaves those nasty skymarks. Spine tilt in golf posture place your driver directly down against the front of your body so that the driver head is between your knees. Hitting your driver with a sweeping motion rather than a downward angle will help to bring down the spin rate and give you a better, more penetrating ball flight. Oct 02, 2014 hitting up on the driver can give you added distance and an improved flight, but there are right and wrong ways of doing this.

Foley show you how to cure your slices and pulls by hitting down on the ball with your driver. Most recreational golfers are hitting down on the ball with their drivers for a number. The average angle of attack on tour is 1 degree down, however there. You might have been told to sweep the ball off the tee with your driver to maximize distance. But you still must hit down on the ball in a attempt to take an air divot behind the ball. From what ive seen, nerves typically make the backswing fast and short. I found this cool little golf digest video from sean foley that will sound really odd to many of you. Tee it up high and hover the clubhead above the ground. In a hurry to hit the ball as far as they can, some golfers rush through their driver swing. About seven or eight years ago i was playing a round down in florida with a few topnotch golfers. Grip the club like a baseball bat with your dominant hand in front. Tee it up low and hover the clubhead above the ground. We know without a doubt that in order to maximize your distance when hitting the driver, based on whatever your club head speed is, that you want to hit up on the driver. How to hit down on the golf ball the golf fix golf channel.