If you’re an amateur golfer, and you’ve recently learned how to hit a drive, you might be wondering how to get more distance out of your drives. In fact, pretty much every golfer wants to learn how to get a few extra yards out of their drives.
The truth is, going out there and trying to smash the ball on the golf course won’t do your golf game any favours. So how can you hit a long drive without compromising accuracy and control?
Thankfully, in this article, we’ll tell you what you need to do to hit a golf ball straight and long from the tee box. So, read on to find out how!
6 Setup Tips To Hit Longer Drives
Below, we’ll list some tips for amateur golfers, to help them get properly set up before they start swinging.
1. Ball height
When you’re about to hit a drive, you need to tee the ball higher than you normally would. Generally, the top of the clubface should be in line with the middle of the ball. This will help you to hit up on golf balls, as you want an upward swing path when hitting a long drive.
2. Stance
If you want to perfect your golf swing for driving and hit the ball farther, you need to get your stance right. When you hit a drive, your swing speed is much higher than normal, so you need a wider stance to stay balanced. Usually, your feet should be placed wider apart than your shoulders.
3. Ball Position
When hitting a drive, you shouldn’t place golf balls in the middle of your stance, as this won’t allow you to do an upward strike on the ball. Instead, you should place the ball just behind your front foot.
If you are a right-handed golfer, this will mean placing the ball in line with your left heel. This will improve your driving distance, as it will put less spin on the ball, so it won’t go as high, but it will get more distance.
4. Spine Angle
When you’re setting up for your practice swings, your upper body should be tilted away from the target line slightly. If you are a right-handed player, this means your left shoulder should be higher than your right shoulder.
Don’t tilt too much, though, as this will affect your shoulder turn during your backswing. Like you can see in the picture above I’m not tilted right back, leaning right away from the golf ball, I’ve created just enough of a spine angle to allow me to hit ‘up’ on the ball without losing distance.
To test how much you need to tilt your body, put the grip of your driver in the middle of your chest with the club head resting directly between your feet.
Then, tilt until the club head touches your front leg. This will help you determine how much tilt you need for a powerful swing.
5. Get A Good Grip
Grip is important for any golf shot but hitting a long drive means we’re most likely going to be increasing our swing tempo/club head speed and If we’re doing that then we need to make sure our grip on the golf club is solid.
A solid grip also means that we’re more likely that produce a square club face at impact which not only reduces the chances of a slice or hook but improves our ability to find and hit the middle of the face or the ‘sweet spot’ on the driver and max out our distance.
Now, there quite a few ways to grip the driver, Interlock Grip, Ten Finger Grip, Overlap Grip and loads more funky grips. Personally, I use the overlap grip because it works for me but it’s personal preference. Find one that works for you and stick with it.
Just make sure when you’re setting up to rip a drive you have your grip set in a solid position.
6. Get Fit
You might not want to hear this, but hitting the gym can be helpful to your golf game!
When you work out regularly, you strengthen your muscles and also enhance your flexibility (with the right stretches, of course).
And sorry to say, but the more strength and flexibility you have, the greater distance you will get on your drive.
The Factors That Influence Driving Distance
The main factor that influences how far you can drive is the speed of your club head. But, there are also some other areas you can make improvements to that will help you get more distance from your drives.
Contact with the golf ball
When you’re hitting golf balls, you need to make sure that you are hitting them with the center of the clubface. Otherwise, you are immediately losing some distance on your drives.
Even hitting the ball one inch off center can cause a drive to lose up to 12% of its distance. By just hitting the ball with the center of the clubface consistently, you can gain an extra 20 to 25 yards from your shots. What a neat tip, and you are sure to impress your buddies!
Most shots are hit off-center when you aren’t balanced, so you should practice staying balanced throughout your swings.
Attack angle
If you want to learn to hit drives further, you need to take a positive attack angle. This means hitting up on the ball and adjusting the loft of your driver. Your angle of attack will have a huge impact on how far you can hit a drive.
Clubface angle
You want to hit a drive with a square clubface. This means ensuring that the clubface is pointing directly toward the ball. When you hit a ball with your clubface at an angle, it can lead to a slice.
To make sure that your clubface comes in at the right angle, you will need to get your grip right. Your grip needs to be firm so that your clubface faces the same angle throughout your swing – almost like how you would shake someone’s hand.
There isn’t a one-size fits all grip for golf, so you can still choose a grip that will make you feel comfortable.
How To Improve Club Head Speed
If you follow all of the guidelines above, you’ll probably be able to hit longer drives. You can only really start focusing on improving the speed of your club head once you’ve got these fundamentals right.
To increase this speed, you will need to do some training by swinging both light and heavy clubs consistently. You want to make sure that you get the most speed on the upswing, as this is what will help you launch the ball down the fairway.
The driving range is probably worth a visit unless you want to be swinging away in your lounge.
You can also practice by using an alignment stick, and swinging it as fast as you can while taking a normal driving stance. Do this five times, and then take a rest. You’ll know that you’re doing this training exercise properly if you can hear the swoosh of the stick past the normal impact area.
FAQs
How far should you be able to hit a drive?
The average male golfer can usually hit drives that go 215 yards, whereas an average female golfer has an average driving distance of around 140 yards.
Where can I practice hitting drives?
You should usually go to your local driving range to practice. You can get a lot of balls to practice with for a low price, and you can spend all day there improving your skills.
How can I measure my swinging speed?
If you want to see how fast you can swing you can use a launch monitor. They can tell you exactly how fast you swing, and give you other information to improve your golf game.