Leave the Driver in the Bag?

[David in FL]

10 hours ago, jsgolfer said:

I'm not sure I've ever played with anyone who hit a hybrid 230-250 pure.

Yeah, I know one guy, and he's a very athletic 6'5".  

Hitting any club 230-250 is long enough to get you into the mid-single digits assuming the rest of your game is decent.  But if all that's holding you back from another 50+ yards is learning to hit the driver, if you give that up, you're giving up on a lot more potential to ultimately play much better golf.

Learn to hit it.

[NJpatbee]

Over the years I have tinkered with my club selection as I have aged.  I am to the point that the only wood I carry is the driver, and then go to a 2 hybrid.  The driver is one of my most consistent clubs and I need it on most par 4s and 5s since my typical carry and roll on a good swing is about 220.  I hit my 2h longer than my 3 wood, especially off the fairway, which is slightly over 200 max.  If I were able to hit a 3 wood 250 I would work on the driver and move back to the tips!  To the OP, I think you are missing out by staying away from the driver.  The sweet spot on my 440cc Ping driver is about the size of a silver dollar and even a hit off the toe will make its way about 200 yards out for this 65 year old.

[Grinde6]

21 hours ago, tsdugger said:

As a mid-handicap guy (11.9 trending to 10.8), I find my most productive rounds are ones I leave the driver in the bag. I have been atrocious off the tee this season with the driver, 3w is decent, and hybrid is pure (230-250 yards). Irons are relatively strong so I am less worried about approaching and my course is short enough where the driver isn't always needed - especially from the Men's tees, but taking 30-50 yards off approach shots could accelerate me to a single-digit hcp as I still have a wedge in my hand on ~50% of the holes (180-150 yards in instead of 150 and less). I have played my best golf ever the past couple weeks after a lesson and have dropped 3 strokes off my index since mid-May. Basically, if I am in the fairway I am very competitive. I seem to be able to put it together on the range but as soon as I am on the course I fall apart. Even in my lesson, the pro had me hit 10 balls and said he didn't want to change anything at that point as I was hitting it pure. Basically, driver is the only club which I consistently slice (read: uncontrollable slice) the ball on the course - everything else is a nice easy 5 yard fade, if not straight.

Have you ever given up on a club from pure lack of confidence? Doesn't seem like practice is helping much.

I agree with what others have said....learn to hit the driver.  You are leaving yards out there by not being able to hit your driver.  Whether it be overswinging, mental block or something like that, you should figure it out to round out your game.  You are leaving easily 20-30 yards out there every tee shot by not hitting driver.  Are you using a 13* hybrid to be hitting it 230-250???  And what wedge are you hitting 150-180???  I would much rather be 120-150 out than 150-180 out and that is what you are doing by not hitting your driver, probably leaving a few strokes out there too..

[tsdugger]

21 hours ago, arturo28mx said:

Try a shorter driver

Already have mine cut down 1/2" for control

Read some good stuff that @DeadMan linked and will hit the range today and try to implement it

[tsdugger]

5 hours ago, Grinde6 said:

I agree with what others have said....learn to hit the driver.  You are leaving yards out there by not being able to hit your driver.  Whether it be overswinging, mental block or something like that, you should figure it out to round out your game.  You are leaving easily 20-30 yards out there every tee shot by not hitting driver.  Are you using a 13* hybrid to be hitting it 230-250???  And what wedge are you hitting 150-180???  I would much rather be 120-150 out than 150-180 out and that is what you are doing by not hitting your driver, probably leaving a few strokes out there too..

My hybrid is the (don't laugh, it's old) Titleist 909 17*. ~235 from the ground and up to 250 from the tee. 

I was unclear on the 150-180 yard shot; what I meant is that by being 150+ yards out, my approach is not always on the green so I would have a wedge in my hand to chip up to the flag.

[Groucho Valentine]

5 hours ago, Grinde6 said:

I agree with what others have said....learn to hit the driver.  You are leaving yards out there by not being able to hit your driver.  Whether it be overswinging, mental block or something like that, you should figure it out to round out your game.  You are leaving easily 20-30 yards out there every tee shot by not hitting driver.  Are you using a 13* hybrid to be hitting it 230-250???  And what wedge are you hitting 150-180???  I would much rather be 120-150 out than 150-180 out and that is what you are doing by not hitting your driver, probably leaving a few strokes out there too..

I differ on this - to a degree. Being handy with the driver can be a great advantage, but If he can hit a club other than driver 230-250 from the tee, he really doesn't need one if he plays courses that are under 6800 yards. If not using a driver is that gives him that lower score, then its all good IMO. 

I fly my 18 degree hybrid 225-230 and can get around 240 out of it from the tee if fairway conditions are right. I don't consider myself to be a overly long player. So its not unreasonable to believe he can hit one that far. 

[Shindig]

41 minutes ago, tsdugger said:

I was unclear on the 150-180 yard shot; what I meant is that by being 150+ yards out, my approach is not always on the green so I would have a wedge in my hand to chip up to the flag.

Don't worry about missing the green from 150-180 yards.  PGA Tour professionals don't even hit the green all the time from their preferred wedge distance.

[Jack Watson]

23 hours ago, jsgolfer said:

I'm not sure I've ever played with anyone who hit a hybrid 230-250 pure.

Mine bounced in front and chased on between bunkers.  Firm fairway level sea level.

My 17 is rarely used.  Sometimes I tee off with it if my 23 is not enough on a layup hole.  Only one time I use it on my home course.

The one I went for and made eagle with was a juicy first cut lie downgrain.  Just like teed up.  I went super loose on it and just nailed it.  NOT my normal d on that club.

[Moppy]

It took me two video lessons in two weeks, with trips to the range nearly every day in between, but I learned to hit it over about a month, well, at least at the same level as I hit my other clubs. I don't know about trying to fix it at the range with no guidance.  But now I love stepping up to the tee box, and there are some situations where I can't use it anymore and have to club down to the three, which I never used to have to do. 

You are a way better golfer than me, I can only relate my own experiences. 

[bwdial]

I love hitting driver, and it's probably the surest stick in my bag.

[Mr22putt]

On 7/25/2017 at 7:07 PM, jsgolfer said:

I'm not sure I've ever played with anyone who hit a hybrid 230-250 pure.

I love reading posts like this where a golfer has the skill to 'PURE' a hybrid 230-250 yards...yet doesn't have the skill to hit a driver reasonably well with a club face and sweet spot that is over double the size....LMAO.

As many have said....use a shorter driver and loft up for more accuracy too.

[Hategolf]

To answer the question, YES.. I gave up my 3 iron...is really a shame cause I always thought I would learn how to hit it. The 5 wood however has done well for me. 

But how can you drop your driver? No way...I can hit mine, not very long but enough to hold my own..I work on it all the time. One of these days I will figure out how to hit 250 plus I keep saying. 

I went to see an instructor for it, he asked me what I needed help with? I say "I really want to learn how to hit my driver long, he said..well, lets look at your 6 iron...I said,  If you don't want to teach me the Driver swing I'm not interested..so I left.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Hategolf

[RandallT]

On 7/25/2017 at 2:39 PM, tsdugger said:

the main problem (I can feel in my swing) is that I regularly don't release my hands which turns into a push + slice.

To the OP, I'm no instructor, but I've read enough swing threads here on this site to recognize that I've never seen an expert look at someone's swing and say "you know the problem you need to work on is releasing your hands." Typically, I see them look upstream to what is going on before any releasing of hands, and they'll find a root cause of some sort that forces a golfer to release the hands the way they do.

Perhaps you know that, but thought I'd throw that out there. A good pro will diagnose things properly and get you working on something very specific- not just a later symptom.

Regarding the overall topic, a few years ago, I played a short course in my neighborhood regularly with irons off the tee. My scores improved, and I beat some buddies easily who typically were about the same scores as me. While it was fun to watch my scores drop for that short course (where I could get away with iron off tee/mid to short iron on the approach), I must admit the improvement didn't translate to my regular courses where I found that my GIR/nGIR suffered too much.

In retrospect, I wish I'd taken lessons earlier, rather than try to band-aid the swing myself, or try things like leaving driver out of the bag. One of the areas I've learned to enjoy about golf is pinpointing a problem and then soliciting advice from experts on attacking that problem.

Avoidance may work short term for a specific round (maybe that's smart for a competition or something), but my enjoyment has been more of a long-term progress. I wasn't really playing for anything anyway, and my goal has always been to get way better before even thinking about competing. Therefore, taking driver out of the bag wasn't too smart for me.

[saevel25]

25 minutes ago, RandallT said:

To the OP, I'm no instructor, but I've read enough swing threads here on this site to recognize that I've never seen an expert look at someone's swing and say "you know the problem you need to work on is releasing your hands." Typically, I see them look upstream to what is going on before any releasing of hands, and they'll find a root cause of some sort that forces a golfer to release the hands the way they do.

This!

Also, check out this thread.

 

[Moxley]

I struggle with my driver  , and still do despite working on it a lot this year. But there's still a place for it. Often it's a case of working out the likely penalties in that yardage range (I use golfpad for this) - there's always holes where there aren't significant problems going left or right (sometimes both) that would cause even a spieth hands on head slice to become a penalty shot. These shots you might as well take the driver, as the worst case scenario is that you're coming back from the next fairway. 

I've also wasted a long time trying to 'release the club' instead of fixing OTT swing path.

 

[Jack Watson]

7 hours ago, Hategolf said:

I went to see an instructor for it, he asked me what I needed help with? I say "I really want to learn how to hit my driver long, he said..well, lets look at your 6 iron...I said,  If you don't want to teach me the Driver swing I'm not interested..so I left.

A lot of people think the swing is different with driver.  IMO that's a mistake.

I rarely if ever hit driver on he range.  To me,  there's no driver swing and separate swing for an iron.  If you don't believe me I suggest hitting smooth pitching wedges for maybe ten or fifteen shots hen pull out driver and swing it once with exactlythe same feel.  The setup is different on driver but hats all imo.

One basic swing...

Edited July 27, 2017 by Jack Watson

[Midpack]

2nd post on this thread. I've been avoiding woods and score as much as 10 strokes better when I play irons only (short course). Yesterday I only hit my driver, 3 wood & 3 hybrid once each in 18 holes and all three were OB - two left, one right. But I intend to bite the bullet and use my woods & hybrids come what may, even though I will probably lose a bunch of balls, I've put it off long enough. Unfortunately I don't know why I am having so much more trouble with woods & hybrids, and two lessons with the local pro 6-8 weeks ago haven't helped at all, in fact I'm pretty sure they made me worse with every club in my bag! I am just starting to find my way back to a repeatable iron swing. I used to be able to hit woods as well as irons, so I suspect my problem is partly (not entirely) mental.

Edited July 27, 2017 by Midpack

[tsdugger]

9 hours ago, Mr22putt said:

I love reading posts like this where a golfer has the skill to 'PURE' a hybrid 230-250 yards...yet doesn't have the skill to hit a driver reasonably well with a club face and sweet spot that is over double the size....LMAO.

Thanks for the valuable input.

The point of the post is to survey this membership with the following: If I am able to hit another club (in this case, my hybrid) extremely well, and only lose 30 yards to my driver (which is extremely sporadic), should I leave the driver in the bag when I am on the course until I figure out how to hit with a higher accuracy?

Look I am a double digit hcp still, I am going to mess up shots with anything. Just so happens the hybrid is my most confident club and I hit it a long way.