How To Drive With Purpose and Power

Some golfers minimize the driver’s importance. After all, you hit it only 13 or 14 times a round, if that. So why put so much time and effort into learning to hit the driver?

Make no mistake. The driver makes a big difference to your game and your golf handicap. The driver is a scoring club. And it’s worth its weight in gold. It gets you out of playing timidly and defensively. It cuts par 5s down to size. And it builds confidence. When you’re hitting the driver well, it sets up your entire game.

The trick is to learn to hit the driver with purpose and power—as we tell students in golf lessons. Then it becomes a weapon.

Below we provide several golf tips on learning how to hit the driver with purpose and power. We’ve divided the golf tips into two categories—tips for hitting with power and tips for hitting with purpose.

Hitting With Power

A key step in learning to drive with purpose and power is to swing from a consistent setup. Smart golfers have pre-shot routines. It helps them set up to the ball consistently. If you don’t have a pre-shot routine, develop one. And ingrain the following three golf tips in your routine:

• Place the club behind the ball first when setting up. Then take your stance. Many players do the opposite. They take their stances first. Then find the ball with the club. This makes hitting the ball solidly an accident.
• Set up with your back knee slightly bent. Keep it that way throughout the backswing. At the top, you should feel your knee in the same position. When you lock it or slide it away from the target, you must throw the club out and around you to get back to the ball. That’s not good.
• Grip the grass with your feet. Your power comes from coiling and uncoiling your swing—not pushing with your body. So pretend the bottom of your shoes are nailed to the ground. On the downswing, feel as if you’re pushing those nails into the ground.

Hitting With Purpose

You should be heading into the tee box with a specific thought about the kind of shot you’re going to hit. To do that, you need to control your shot. The golf tips below help you learn to do that.

• Keep your swing under control. Golfers tend to overswing with the driver. When you overswing, you tend to let your arms collapse at the top and to pull your hands closer to your head. Instead, stay in control of your swing. Keep your hands away from your head at the top of your backswing.
• Turn the wheel to hit a draw. Don’t use your hands to hit a draw. Instead, rotate your arms. The feel you want to strive for is the same as you’d have if you place your hands in a golf grip on top of your steering wheel and made a gentle left turn.
• Swing from a good finish. How you finish tells you what’s happening with your swing. Use this information to perfect your swing. The key is holding a balanced finish position until the ball lands. If you can’t do that, your swing has some flaws. Focus on your finish and you’ll improve your tempo and transition from the top.