Help! I cant hit my driver!

[bzotta]

I am about about a 14 handicapper, decent putter, great with my wedges, consistent iron player, but my driver is all over the place. Push, pull, hook, low, high, everything. I know you'd have to see my swing, but is there any basic things that would cause this? I hit everything else in the bag pretty good, but theres something about the driver. I might just be overswinging? Who knows? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[ks8829]

The driver being the longest club will exposes any faults in your golf swing.

without a video it hard to guess whats going on

try swing slowly and practice hitting for accuracy instead of distance, taking a full turn and backswing and making a smooth transition from backswing to forward swing.

[FlopShotArtist]

  bzotta said:

I am about about a 14 handicapper, decent putter, great with my wedges, consistent iron player, but my driver is all over the place. Push, pull, hook, low, high, everything. I know you'd have to see my swing, but is there any basic things that would cause this? I hit everything else in the bag pretty good, but theres something about the driver. I might just be overswinging? Who knows? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

My best advice would to just use a 3 wood off the tee if you hit it well, and then take some lessons. I can't hit my driver either lately, and lately, I hit my 3W FARTHER than my driver.

[Avid Golfer]

  bzotta said:

I am about about a 14 handicapper, decent putter, great with my wedges, consistent iron player, but my driver is all over the place. Push, pull, hook, low, high, everything. I know you'd have to see my swing, but is there any basic things that would cause this? I hit everything else in the bag pretty good, but theres something about the driver. I might just be overswinging? Who knows? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Like you said its difficult to pin point your problem without seeing your swing, but considering its a driver that you say you're spraying all over the place I can think of a few things that might be causing your inconsistency. Some people try to get extra length out of their driver shots, and to do so they may shift more weight then usual, try to turn more then usual, or try to stretch or reach more than usual. The extra movement increases the chances of compromising balance and posture. My suggestion is that you make sure you establish a good setup (look at pictures and videos of the pros for a model), and when you swing don't try to get anything more out of your swing then you do with a wedge or short iron. The better you are able to maintain your balance and posture (angles) the better chance you'll have of making consistent contact, and the more sound your contact the better power transfer and distance you'll get out of the shot.

Ernie Els and Annika Sorenstam are good examples of how good posture and balance leads to good contact, and in turn power. Els: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...M6rA-C6gKYD=en Sorenstam: http://www.swingacademy.com/swingana...ol.aspx?id=764

[MellowYellow]

Hi there, I'm not a great golfer, but I DO hit a pretty decent drive.

The way I finally got it figured out was actually a little odd but if you are having BIG trouble with slices and getting into trouble etc you can try this.

What I do is I actually Tee it up and stand back FAR so I have to have my arms FULLY extended to make impact, it looks a little like a gorrilla i know.

Then I SLOWLY take it back with my arms PERFECTLY straight, BUT I only take it back to about to right about where i would start to break my wrists then I swing forward into the shot. I honestly have almost NEVER sliced using this technique, and actually just last Monday I was out and hit 4 straight drives this way, the last one went a little over 250 and the other 3 between about 215 - 225.


The reason I do this is, I am taking out all the variable, weight shifting incorrectly, arms coming in at weird angles causing slices etc and just thinking of my arms as almost like slowly backing up into a coiling spring then exploding forward. Even though its a short backswing Im able to get good accelleration and usually not too much loft causing good roll as well. I think this is a good way to get STARTED and when I feel more and more comfortable I gradually take it back farther and farther. But like I said last monday i was having problems on the first 12 holes, so the last 4 driveable holes I went back to the 'basics' and was wishing I had just hit it that way the entire time.