Time with the driver?

[GangGreen]

I'm guessing that, like many high handicappers, the most inconsistent club in my bag is my driver.

Looking at my typical practice routine, I usually hit the range 3-4 times a week (not including lessons) and spend on average about 70% of my time working on fundamentals with a 7i in hand.  I find it easier to practice swing technique with a mid-iron and, conceptually, I would think that the fundamentals gained would transfer over to my other clubs.  Unfortunately that doesn't leave a lot of time to work specifically with my driver and while I know it should be the same basic swing regardless, I'm wondering if others take a different approach to how much time they spend with each club.  I mean if I'm struggling with my wedges, it would make sense to spend more time with them at the range, so wouldn't the same thought process apply to my driver...thoughts welcomed.  

[saevel25]

Outside of a glaring weakness in your game. Like maybe you are primarily three and four putting every green. You should spend the majority of your time on the long game. 

I would break it down into these sections. All of these have different nuances to them. 

Long Game

Driver Swing - You want a slightly different set up to help promote hitting up. The swing is slightly different than the iron swing. It is good to practice it. 

Iron Swing - You are not hitting up as with the driver. The focus is on hitting the ball first consistently. You want to focus on really achieving the 5 keys. 

Short Game

Pitching & Chipping - The pitching motion is completely different than any other swing. 

Putting

 

[GangGreen]

Excellent, thanks @saevel25

[paininthenuts]

When ever I hit a ball with a new driver it goes dead straight. This is down to concentration as a result of unfamiliarity. If you can manage to muster up the same concentration, you will hit the ball straighter.  Like most people, I try and hit the ball harder with the driver, rather than remaining relaxed as I do with irons. 

[Patch]

Harvey Penick wrote that he would have his new students swing all out with their driver for their first few lessons together. Most complained about their errant shots. Penick's answer was he wanted to see distance first. That accuracy would come later.

Folks having trouble wih their driver would do well using that advice.   

[paininthenuts]

7 minutes ago, Patch said:

Harvey Penick wrote that he would have his new students swing all out with their driver for their first few lessons together. Most complained about their errant shots. Penick's answer was he wanted to see distance first. That accuracy would come later.

Folks having trouble wih their driver would do well using that advice.   

That's strange, because I would prefer to hit a straight short drive, than a long one that goes out of bounds

[GangGreen]

3 minutes ago, Patch said:

Harvey Penick wrote that he would have his new students swing all out with their driver for their first few lessons together. Most complained about their errant shots. Penick's answer was he wanted to see distance first. That accuracy would come later.

Folks having trouble wih their driver would do well using that advice.   

Interesting thought, I do find that my best swings with the driver are when I'm taking more aggressive/full swings.  It's a fine line for me, though, since those aggressive/full swings can (and often do) morph into overswings where I lose all my fundamentals.  Most of my lessons actually have been centered around me taking less of a backswing and getting into a good position but still maintaining a full downswing/finish.  I struggle with that too, though, since I had previously always wanted the length of my backswing to equal my downswing (if that makes any sense).  

[Patch]

2 hours ago, paininthenuts said:

That's strange, because I would prefer to hit a straight short drive, than a long one that goes out of bounds

 

Pretty sure Penick was looking at his students' futures in their games. 

[Lihu]

5 hours ago, paininthenuts said:

That's strange, because I would prefer to hit a straight short drive, than a long one that goes out of bounds

Then it seems like there's no point hitting the driver. Why not just hit the longest club you can comfortably hit?

The reasoning behind getting distance first then accuracy is that distance is difficult to train for speed once you groove a swing. Unless, you are doing slow steady practice swings or something like that.

[b101]

6 hours ago, Patch said:

Harvey Penick wrote that he would have his new students swing all out with their driver for their first few lessons together. Most complained about their errant shots. Penick's answer was he wanted to see distance first. That accuracy would come later.

Folks having trouble wih their driver would do well using that advice.   

Probably worth bearing in mind that Harvey Penick's students were a bit better than average, for the most part...

[9wood]

Last year I worked mostly on accuracy with my drive shots and I did pretty well with that. Problem is, I now want more distance so I am now working with my new driver and trying to get more club-head speed which should translate into more distance. I have been able to accomplish this occasionally but my accuracy isn't as good as it previously was when I just focused on accuracy, yet I see some potential there so I plan on spending a bit more time at the driving range with my driver.

[Lihu]

10 minutes ago, 9wood said:

Last year I worked mostly on accuracy with my drive shots and I did pretty well with that. Problem is, I now want more distance so I am now working with my new driver and trying to get more club-head speed which should translate into more distance. I have been able to accomplish this occasionally but my accuracy isn't as good as it previously was when I just focused on accuracy, yet I see some potential there so I plan on spending a bit more time at the driving range with my driver.

Be prepared to make what feels like a totally different swing, then focus on control after you get that speed. If you do the drills associated with the first 2 keys you should gain some swing speed naturally. I'd hold off actual speed training until your body is ready for it, though.

[9wood]

3 hours ago, Lihu said:

Be prepared to make what feels like a totally different swing, then focus on control after you get that speed. If you do the drills associated with the first 2 keys you should gain some swing speed naturally. I'd hold off actual speed training until your body is ready for it, though.

Yes, I have been experiencing a totally different swing. This different swing prevents me from coming over the top and severely slicing my ball out of bounds. Seems that when I setup my drive I have to aim for the left and allow my ball to fade back to the right and land in the center of the fairway

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, 9wood said:

Yes, I have been experiencing a totally different swing. This different swing prevents me from coming over the top and severely slicing my ball out of bounds. Seems that when I setup my drive I have to aim for the left and allow my ball to fade back to the right and land in the center of the fairway

Good that you found a solution so fast. Most people take months or in my case years to fix. What's funny is I hit much farther now, but still have it. It's like my personal swing flaw.

I am still fighting OTT every now and then. Like today, I played a practice round and hit pretty much every tree on the right side of the course. I literally "took out" the right side of the course. My playing partners helped me fix it. Then I went to the range and got a few good shots without the OTT move and some with. I even got some nice long duck hooks. OTOH, my previous round was perfect. I couldn't do anything wrong. I'm being punished for hubris. Once you displease the golfing gods they will punish you, in my case, brutally.

Prepare for numerous backwards steps for every tiny step forward, and keep plugging forward.

[Berryhill]

I've been able to have my driver develop a consistent miss to the right.  I aim left and then let it float back into the fairway like @9wood was talking about.  It has worked for me, but I am sure that I could get more distance if I straightened it out.  This ball flight also tends to make me use lower clubs on dogleg lefts.  My worry, however, is that in trying to fix the fade I'll just lose all of my consistency.

But to address OP's topic, I think it comes down to finding the weaknesses in your game that are losing you the most shots and fix them. Because of this consistent ball flight I typically spend very little time on my driver.  I hit it "good enough" for me, and I think my time would be better spent trying to get my 6i close on approach shots than trying to fix the driver.  Eventually I will lose less strokes on poor iron shots and I can focus on getting the strokes back from mediocre driver play.  Just pick the biggest disaster in your game and fix that first!

[Lihu]

51 minutes ago, Berryhill said:

I've been able to have my driver develop a consistent miss to the right.  I aim left and then let it float back into the fairway like @9wood was talking about.  It has worked for me, but I am sure that I could get more distance if I straightened it out.  This ball flight also tends to make me use lower clubs on dogleg lefts.  My worry, however, is that in trying to fix the fade I'll just lose all of my consistency.

But to address OP's topic, I think it comes down to finding the weaknesses in your game that are losing you the most shots and fix them. Because of this consistent ball flight I typically spend very little time on my driver.  I hit it "good enough" for me, and I think my time would be better spent trying to get my 6i close on approach shots than trying to fix the driver.  Eventually I will lose less strokes on poor iron shots and I can focus on getting the strokes back from mediocre driver play.  Just pick the biggest disaster in your game and fix that first!

Why worry about fixing a swing flaw? I constantly adjust stuff when it's wrong. Just following the 5 simple keys one can self correct any new flaw introduced.

[Rainmaker]

I do "driver sessions" at the range.  When I want to work on my driver, I go through my little warm-up (some quick drills and some short irons) and then I'll hit 30 or 40 drives.  More than that and I get tired.

I do the same thing sometimes for long irons and fairway woods. Otherwise I have a "general" range session . .where I warm up and then hit through most of the bag. 

I do the same thing, also, for certain techniques.  Like, a few weeks ago a strong wind was coming right to left at the range so I practiced hitting fades into it for just about the entire session and then also tried to hit some low drivers. 

I also will sometimes try to hit the 100 yard target with all my irons . .or the 150 yard target (coming up short with some clubs, of course, but still trying to get them as close as I can). 

There's lots more to do at the range then just hit through your bag - although sometimes that's good, too. 

[GangGreen]

16 minutes ago, Rainmaker said:

I do "driver sessions" at the range.  When I want to work on my driver, I go through my little warm-up (some quick drills and some short irons) and then I'll hit 30 or 40 drives.  More than that and I get tired.

I do the same thing sometimes for long irons and fairway woods. Otherwise I have a "general" range session . .where I warm up and then hit through most of the bag. 

I do the same thing, also, for certain techniques.  Like, a few weeks ago a strong wind was coming right to left at the range so I practiced hitting fades into it for just about the entire session and then also tried to hit some low drivers. 

I also will sometimes try to hit the 100 yard target with all my irons . .or the 150 yard target (coming up short with some clubs, of course, but still trying to get them as close as I can). 

There's lots more to do at the range then just hit through your bag - although sometimes that's good, too. 

Interesting that you posted this, happened to try a driver type session yesterday instead of my normal session (which, as I mention in my original post, is heavily weighted toward working on swing technique with my irons).  I really liked it, started with my normal warm-up with my wedge, progressed to a much more abbreviated swing drill with my 7i, then spent the majority of my time with my 3W and driver (still focusing on my technique, just with the big sticks instead).  I seemed to find my groove much faster and noticed a subtle difference in my swing that I probably need to concentrate a little more on when I pull out the driver (seems as though I tend to hit down with my driver, like a short iron almost, which causes me to make contact with the ball on the upper portion of the club face...explains all the pop-ups).

Anyway, I think I may switch up my weekly routine and maybe spend a day each on a different part of the game instead of working on the same drills with the same clubs all week long.