Drive it 20 yards longer
By modifying your lower-body action, you can explode through the ball with greater speed and controlYou may remember how I "disappeared" from the PGA Tour for five months beginning in August of last year. Well, in addition to spending a lot of time with my wife, Amy, the kids and our relatives, I secretly spent a lot of time on the practice range and at the gym. I followed a plan based on my performance over the past two years. One goal was to sharpen my play with the short irons. I worked very hard at improving my distance control and consistency with the 8-iron through sand wedge. I also improved my physical conditioning. For a two-month period, I worked three hours a day, four days a week, increasing strength in my upper back and hips. I then worked to maintain that strength.
The final area was critical: Changing my swing to increase my driving distance and accuracy. Last year I averaged 293.9 yards in the PGA Tour's official driving distance stats. Not bad, but I felt I needed a few extra yards to keep up with my peers. And I definitely needed to improve my driving accuracy, where I ranked 78th.
The process of change has required a lot of hard work, and the changes are sophisticated enough that I'm still ironing things out. But I'm excited by the results. When the situation calls for it, I can carry the ball 15 yards farther than I could last year, and if you add five yards of roll, that gives me 20 extra yards -- with greater accuracy. The best thing is how simple and sensible the changes have been. They can be made by anyone wishing to pick up a few extra yards. Any chance you fall into that category?
The right path for power and accuracy
The first step of my swing change was to take the club back directly down the target line (above, right), delaying my hip turn and keeping my rear leg stable. That fixed my habit of taking the club back too far to the inside (above, left), which shortened my swing arc -- which I in turn tried to remedy by turning my hips loosely and pointing my rear knee outward. My downswing was inconsistent: My rear leg offered little support as I unwound my hips and upper body in a fast but inefficient manner. The job of squaring the clubface fell to my arms and hands alone -- not a recipe for consistency, let alone distance.
Rear knee governs the backswing
Look closely at my rear leg and you'll see that the position of my kneecap has hardly moved from where it was at address.
It points directly over the toe of my left shoe. My goal is to turn as far as I can go without letting my knee drift out of position.
I don't want my leg to straighten, either. I want my entire rear leg to remain stable, so it can support the motion of my upper body on the downswing. When that motion is released, the stability I've established in my leg and hips helps me direct the clubhead into the ball along the proper swing path, with an optimum angle of attack.
The bottom line: You want a full range of motion on the backswing -- but only as much as you can control!
Arms, body move together
Because my hips and rear leg are firm at the top, I can swing down with everything I've got. My only thought on the downswing is to keep swinging my arms fast enough to stay in front of my chest (on right). This does two things: The radius of my swing is restored to what I established at address, and my clubhead meets the ball in a more head-on fashion as it moves straight down the target line. That means more effective clubhead speed, an honest trajectory and improved accuracy.
Keep in mind, if your arms lag too far behind your shoulders, either you'll drag the club into the ball on a flat, shallow plane and excessively from the inside (that was me) or, if you rotate the shoulders too early in the downswing, you'll route the clubhead outside the target line and hit a slice or pull.
Another benefit of the stable lower body: Late in the downswing, you can really drive off your rear leg. This "springboard effect" supplies extra clubhead speed and ultimately more distance.
Finish tells the tale
The change here is subtle, but you can see it and should try to copy it. My finish today is upright (left, top). Because my lower body provided such a firm foundation for my upper body earlier in the swing, everything flows into a full, free finish. No longer does my spine tilt away from the target through impact and into the follow-through (left, bottom), a sign of poor lower-body stability.
Adjust teeing height, ball position to suit conditions
The search for more distance begins before you set the swing in motion. Always observe course conditions. If the fairways are fast and firm, I like to send my drives out low and hot for more roll. I tee the ball lower than normal, and I play the ball an inch or two farther back in my stance to reduce the effective loft of the clubface (below,left).
Conversely, if the potential for roll is minimized because the fairways are lush and moist, I'll tee the ball higher and play the ball an inch farther forward in my stance to produce a higher trajectory and maximum carry (below, right).
Note that my standard ball position and teeing height are between the two extremes shown here.
Tee the ball lower (left) in firm conditions; higher (right) in soft conditions.
