Gaining Distance and Consistency

[Yanks Fan]

I've been playing just about a year now and am currently just around a 15-16 handicap. My short game and putting is the best part of my game. Worst part is off the tee with my driver. I go through phases round to round with it. Last week I played and hit 12/14 fairways hitting the ball dead straight maybe 240 consistently. Today I played and hit only 3/14 and averaged maybe 200 with a nasty slice. As you can guess, my score was much lower when I hit 12 fairways (10+ strokes lower). I am a short player when compared to most other players.
Average breakdown of my clubs and lengths:
Driver - 200-250
5 wood - 190-210
4 hybrid - 170-190
5i - 160-170
6i - 150-160
7i - 140-150
8i - 130-140
9i - 120-130
PW - 110-120
52 - ~90
56 - ~70
60 - ~40

I could get away with not being a long players when I played from a tee behind the womens but now since I moved a tee back (one tee in front of the tips), its killing me and my score.

Now without seeing my swing, what can I do to help improve both distance and consistency? Any drills, tips, etc are greatly appreciated. I really want to be able to shoot in the 80s consistently.

BTW, I hope to be able to get a video of my swing sometime this week (tomorrow hopefully) so someone might be able to pick out one of the many flaws in my swing so I can correct it :)

[Dent]

This won't fix the consistancy problem, but for sure distance. What is your iron swing speed? What is your trajectory like?

For me, I have developed a bad habit right now Of swinging very fast, and now my 150 club is turning out to be my 9 iron. I'm trying to slow it down so I can get my 150 club back to my 8 iron. My trajectory is also very high and I can probably hit my 8 iron as high as someones pitching wedge.

If you want some distance, put a little more muscle into it and swing a little harder. At your handicap I'm sure you can control it.

[Yanks Fan]

I don't have any exact numbers for swing speed but I can tell you that it is relatively slow lol. But whenever I try to swing faster, it usually is very bad. I top it, hit it fat, do everything but hit it good. My trajectory for my shots are right on line of the typical trajectory of anyone else I've ever played with. My balls don't go exceptionally high but they aren't littler screamers either. Thats the best way I can explain it, probably a bad explanation lol.

[beung]

Have you looked at your ball position?

Maybe it's a bit too far forward, many of the people I play with, weather I know them or not, usually have the ball too far forward. They don't seem to trap the ball enough and have too much "hit" in there swing and not enough compression of the golf ball. If your divots start before the ball you are bottoming out too soon and losing some distance and accuracy because of it.

Driver - 200-250 5 wood - 190-210 4 hybrid - 170-190 5i - 160-170 6i - 150-160 7i - 140-150 8i - 130-140 9i - 120-130 PW - 110-120 52 - ~90 56 - ~70 60 - ~40

I look at your distances and your 9 and PW aren't that much shorter then mine. I hit a 125yrd PW and a 135yrd 9i. I have a big gap when I go to my 8i, which I hit 150yrds. I am guessing that you are probably sweeping your wedges, the bounce is probably helping you out and preventing you from hitting it really fat. If you listen to the TV commentators when they say that some one caught it heavy it usually means they got the ground our too much grass before getting the clubface to the ball....that kills the power.

As for long irons, well you have to have faith. Don't try and sweep them, play the ball slightly more farward in your stance then you would your short irons because of the increase length of the longer irons. You still want to hit ball then ground though with them.

[Yanks Fan]

With my driver I usually set the ball just inside of my left big toe, maybe an inch back.

I try to hit down on the ball but I think you are right that as I go to my longer irons, I do tend to try and sweep them as opposed to hitting down on them. I'll have to try that out next time I play.

[beung]

If at all possible what you need is to have some one play with you and help you with your alignment. Even if they are not great golfers they can stand behind you and tell you where your feet are aiming, where your ball position is and then check it against how you think they are.

You would be surprised at how off your eye has made things. You just get used to seeing your feet point in a certain direction, the ball in a certain spot. You just get used to how things look at your address and then wonder why the ball always does what it does and not what you want it to do. If your setup is wrong you're almost doomed before you even make your swing.

[Righty to Lefty]

[QUOTE=Yanks Fan;203170]I've been playing just about a year now and am currently just around a 15-16 handicap. My short game and putting is the best part of my game. Worst part is off the tee with my driver. I go through phases round to round with it. Last week I played and hit 12/14 fairways hitting the ball dead straight maybe 240 consistently. Today I played and hit only 3/14 and averaged maybe 200 with a nasty slice. As you can guess, my score was much lower when I hit 12 fairways (10+ strokes lower). I am a short player when compared to most other players.
Average breakdown of my clubs and lengths:
Driver - 200-250
5 wood - 190-210
4 hybrid - 170-190
5i - 160-170
6i - 150-160
7i - 140-150
8i - 130-140
9i - 120-130
PW - 110-120
52 - ~90
56 - ~70
60 - ~40

QUOTE]

If I had to make and educated guess based on the fact that you have nearly the exact distances that I had when I played right handed. You have about a 93 mph 6 iron swing and about a 103 mph driver swing which is not short knocker distance at all. There is one thing that you can do to improve both at the same time and it is not new at all. GET IN SHAPE!!! Even if you are in good shape, get in better shape. If the muscles that support your golf swing are in shape then they can support your swing and maintain your spine angle longer until you are able to play multiple rounds without going through the ups and downs of being inconsistent. And train golf specifically using slow movements followed by and explosion similar to a normal golf swing and you can gain distance. Simply swinging the golf clubs can get you to a certain level of fitness but you have to go beyond that if you want to increase you distance. And also work on your body's natural muscle imbalances. This is the reason why you are right or left handed. Swing clubs with your opposite hand to offset one side becoming strong and the other side becoming flexible. I can play both right and left handed and this makes a huge difference and you will think I am crazy until you try it. Most pro's can execute a descent golf swing both right and left handed because there bodies are in better balance. And get as flexible as you can to get out of your own way while you swing. That is why pro's swings look effortless, because they have none or very few things impeding their swing. I have been on a fitness program for three months since I changed to lefty and the things I've noticed is that even though my swings actually feels slower my swingspeed has increased 4 mph because my muscles fire more efficiently and excute a golf swing with less energy. This is probably not the answer you wanted to hear but this is the hard truth. You will never see your full potential until you maximize your fitness. Plain and simple.

[Richie3Jack]

Muscles have almost nothing to do with distance. For instance, Tiger Woods is far more muscular today than he was when he first came on tour. Yet he his driver distance is the SAME in 2008 and 2007 as it was in 1997. Distance is determined by flexibility and then rotating the body properly. If you want to gain proper distance, the shoulders need to rotate at least 120 degrees and then the hips need to rotate on the downswing to the point where the belt buckle is facing the target at impact. Look on tour and you'll see the longer tour players have great hip rotation on the downswing (and most have great body rotation on the backswing as well). So lifting weights can be counterproductive because you can become less flexible.

I think Fred Couples is a shining example. He was in the top 10 in driving distance for most of this season, at 48 years old and for a guy that doesn't lift weights and isn't exactly a physical specimen. But he's got incredible flexibility, particularly in the hips.




3JACK

[jr05]

Not sure if this is fact or not, but I have a possible helpful hint...

When/if you are muscling up to try and hit a longer ball, do not increase the distance you go back on your backswing. Just increase the speed in which you swing the club from there.

Whenever I muscle up and don't mentally tell myself to keep my backswing standard, I end up hitting bad shots. When I keep my backswing normal and just muscle up from there, I have much better results.

Hope this is true for most people, and hope it helps.

-JR

[ZaPPPa]

Your distances really aren't that bad. Probably about average depending on your age and build. I'd put waaayyy more effort in curing that slice than trying to increase your distance.

When I started I had a long period where I would hit my 9I-5I about 125y.. all of 'em!.. Now, that's a problem. Once I got to around your distances and I found that it was about average, I stopped worrying about it. My focus is now to: 1) clean contact, 2) keep it straight, 3) keep it straight, 4) get average distance.

Crisp contact will do more for your distance than anything else. Every once in a while I have perfect contact and it adds 10+ yards to the carry without any extra effort. My 3/4 shots are maybe 5y shorter than my full ones, but more consistent.

Improve consistency and distance will follow. Or, better yet, don't focus on distance at all and you'll probably be more consistent... and longer.

[Yanks Fan]

Well, I played this morning at my home course and I had a much better day driving. I didn't keep track today but I would guess I hit around 7/14 fairways, which is decent for me. One thing that I found to work for me a little bit was to set the ball even with my left foot, only with my driver. It felt awkward to swing at but it made me really square up the club at impact and reach out at my target I guess. Best way I can describe it. Score wasn't anything special, a typical mid/low 90s again. Didn't help I only one putted once. But I did only have 1 three putt as well, 2 putts were very common lol. Almost holed out from 40 yards as well but it lipped out. Also, I couldn't really figure out how to "hit down" on the ball so that'll be something I work at on the range next time.

Just wanted to give some progress on my driver consistency.

[Righty to Lefty]

Muscles have almost nothing to do with distance. For instance, Tiger Woods is far more muscular today than he was when he first came on tour. Yet he his driver distance is the SAME in 2008 and 2007 as it was in 1997. Distance is determined by flexibility and then rotating the body properly. If you want to gain proper distance, the shoulders need to rotate at least 120 degrees and then the hips need to rotate on the downswing to the point where the belt buckle is facing the target at impact. Look on tour and you'll see the longer tour players have great hip rotation on the downswing (and most have great body rotation on the backswing as well). So lifting weights can be counterproductive because you can become less flexible.

I'm sorry but I can't let you get away with this one because you are way off. First of all muscles have to do with everything you do except for maybe sleep and that is fact. So for you to say that muscles have nothing to do with the golf swing is incorrect. Next of all Freddy Couples may be on of the few who doesn't lift weights but I promise you he does something else that account for his muscle endurance whether he is a runner or does yoga or is a bike rider or something like that and that is why his swing is repeatable because it is ingrained in his MUSCLE memory and he can rely on that even when he is tired. And he came up in an era where golfers weren't seen as athletes and they didn't realize the importance of fitness. One guy from that era that works harder than anybody in the gym is Gary Player. I didn't say that you have to gain muscle mass i.e. powerlifting. You can lift light weights and do high repetitions and you with build long lean muscle with good endurance. Golf is a light weight high repetitions sport right? I mean a golf club only weights a lil over a pound and you swing it anywhere from 70 to 100 plus times not counting practice strokes and warmup. Why is it that women can't hit the ball on average as far as men even though most women have the same level of flexibility as Tiger Woods? Maybe it's these things called MUSCLE!! Muscle is the foundation that supports your swing and allows your body to support the force that swinging a golf club creates. And your theory about having to have 120 degrees of shoulder turn is incorrect also because that is swingin past parallel and that is actually not a good thing at all and decreases clubhead speed. Alot of pro's fight to avoid swinging past parallel (Phil Mickelson). I maybe get 70 degrees of shoulder turn and I have 119 mph clubhead speed and hit driver bout 320. If all you needed to do was get a hip and shoulder turn there would be a lot more guys on tour. If your muscles don't fire in the proper sequence your hip and shoulder turn don't mean jack. Oh yeah by the way this was my major in college and I've been studying this for about 8 years.

[Cesar]

Muscles have almost nothing to do with distance. For instance, Tiger Woods is far more muscular today than he was when he first came on tour. Yet he his driver distance is the SAME in 2008 and 2007 as it was in 1997. Distance is determined by flexibility and then rotating the body properly. If you want to gain proper distance, the shoulders need to rotate at least 120 degrees and then the hips need to rotate on the downswing to the point where the belt buckle is facing the target at impact. Look on tour and you'll see the longer tour players have great hip rotation on the downswing (and most have great body rotation on the backswing as well). So lifting weights can be counterproductive because you can become less flexible.

Agreed. Clubhead speed comes from your turn. The more flexible you are in your hips and the bigger turn you're able to to make, the better.

Another place where it comes from is swing width. If you can add a nice wide arch to your swing (left arm fully extended on the backswing, right arm on the follow through), you can definitely gain yards there as well. My keys to really letting a drive loose is a slightly wider stance and a slightly slower backswing. This allows me to make sure I remain balanced while I coil up on the way back. From there, all I think about is is rotating my hips and upper body and finishing on balance. My arms and clubface come around naturally and are the last thing to arrive.

[Alex B]

First of all muscles have to do with everything you do except for maybe sleep and that is fact.

Well, my muscles work during sleep. I assume yours do too, or else you wouldn't be alive. (Think: heart.)

As a upper-mid handicapper, gaining consistency will lead to gaining distance. It seems that you can hit the ball pretty far on your solid hits (you said 250 in the first post), but that often you hit bad drives that go much shorter. Remember these two principles: 1. A solidly struck shot travels farther than a mishit shot. 2. A straight shot ends up farther down the fairway than a crooked shot. Hitting the ball straight and solidly (i.e., improving your consistency) is probably the best thing you can do at this point to gain distance. Consistency will be more important than distance in the long run as well: my best drive of the day goes no more than 220 yards, but my worst is probably not much shorter, and I keep the ball in play (out of the trees, OB, water, etc.). Distance is overrated. Consistency is not.

[Righty to Lefty]

Agreed. Clubhead speed comes from your turn. The more flexible you are in your hips and the bigger turn you're able to to make, the better.

Wow those statements came from a 2 and a 4 handicap respectively who should have a pretty good grasp on the golf swing. All those things you talk about such as hip turn and wide archs and such are all fine and good but they mean absolutely nothing if you do not have muscle fibers firing in sequence accelerating the club, period. I play in Kuwait and I stand on the range and watch Korean golfers who have bigger shoulder and hip turns than Tiger and are more flexible then a noodle barely hit driver 180 yards because their MUSCLES don't fire correctly to accelerate the golf club. Tigers clubhead speed is measured at impact but his club is accelerating through impact and though it looks aggressive and filled with tension, Tiger is swingin well within himself and it feels effortless to him because his muscles are trained to handle the force. If you tried to swing the club 125 mph you would fall on your face because your muscles can't support that much force. Just because you have a wider arch doesn't mean you hit the ball farther because your arch is only as long as your arms are. So in theory someone with the same build as tiger and at the same flexibility level has the same arch as Tiger. There swings will even probaly look similiar on the take away if the guy knows what he is doing, but that's where the similarities end.

[Cesar]

Wow those statements came from a 2 and a 4 handicap respectively who should have a pretty good grasp on the golf swing. All those things you talk about such as hip turn and wide archs and such are all fine and good but they mean absolutely nothing if you do not have muscle fibers firing in sequence accelerating the club, period. I play in Kuwait and I stand on the range and watch Korean golfers who have bigger shoulder and hip turns than Tiger and are more flexible then a noodle barely hit driver 180 yards because their MUSCLES don't fire correctly to accelerate the golf club. Tigers clubhead speed is measured at impact but his club is accelerating through impact and though it looks aggressive and filled with tension, Tiger is swingin well within himself and it feels effortless to him because his muscles are trained to handle the force. If you tried to swing the club 125 mph you would fall on your face because your muscles can't support that much force. Just because you have a wider arch doesn't mean you hit the ball farther because your arch is only as long as your arms are. So in theory someone with the same build as tiger and at the same flexibility level has the same arch as Tiger. There swings will even probaly look similiar on the take away if the guy knows what he is doing, but that's where the similarities end.

Yeah, muscles definitely play a huge part in it. It's impossible to argue that. I'm defintely much bigger and stronger than I was when I was a teenager, when I was no doubt much more flexible, and I hit the ball a ton farther now than I ever did back then.

If you weight train properly, focus on strengthening your core, and stretch a lot, you will definitely reap major benefits. It's also beneficial if you've started young and your muscles are conditioned to be flexible in the right places, developed that "quick twitch" in the right places, etc. But all of that doesn't really mean much if you don't have proper balance, swing fundamentals, and most importantly of all...TIMING. Hitting the ball squarely on the clubface every time will help you more than anything else IMO. You could really argue that everything we've been saying is important and the more of those things you can master, the longer and more consistent you'l hit the ball. Nobody is really wrong here.

[Righty to Lefty]

Well, my muscles work during sleep. I assume yours do too, or else you wouldn't be alive. (Think: heart.)

Your heart is a very different muscle because it is controlled by the brain and and is the only muscle in the body that can operate in the prescence of lactic acid and you have no control it whatsoever. I'm talkin about the muscles that you can control and while you sleep those muscles are not activated unless you move. But this is about golf so I'll get back in subject. I do agree with Cesar though when he says that rhythm and timing are very important but those are all a by product of you muscles supporting you and the effeciency in which they fire give you your timing. And hitting the ball in the middle of the clubface is extremely important.

[Lefty731PM]

I maybe get 70 degrees of shoulder turn and I have 119 mph clubhead speed and hit driver bout 320..

Old ground, I know, but you must be joking. Further than all the guys on the PGA tour in 2007. And on a handicap of 25. What complete and utter nonsense. I can just imagine you smoking it past Vijay. Laughable.