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Driver Killers

When you consistently struggle with hitting the driver, you probably are afflicted by a driver killer. The most common driver killers are being steep, using too much upper body, or closing the clubface too late and fast. All of these can influence your driver consistency and performance.

For a simple way to decode your issue, check your video and examine the club head when it's even with your trail foot. It should be about the height of the golf ball and pointing more at the golf ball than the target line.

Tags: Driver

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In this video, we're going to take a look at the driver killers.

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So if you struggle with your driver, then it's likely one of a few main issues.

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Typically it comes down to either a steepness where it's either the upper body dominant

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or I'm just in a position where the club is traveling too much heightal low kind of traveling

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in more of this B-shite, shape pattern down into the ball.

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Or the club face is being closed too late and that creates a lot of contact or direction

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issues.

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If you tend to be more of the steep pattern, it tends to be more predictable, but you typically

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complain of some big misses, especially flares off to the right, like slices or pulse

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to the left, as well as a lack of distance.

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Oftentimes you'll say that you hit your three wood as far as you hit your driver.

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That can often be related to this steep issue, not always, but a lot of the time.

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If you struggle more with consistency where the flight is pretty good, but I have some

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big pushes to the right and it's a big overdraws to the left, that's typically more the

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club face is squaring or closing late.

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So when you're looking at it on video, you want to start with the impact line and you

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want to start with where is the club compared to the height of the ball when it's about

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even with the right foot.

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If my upper body is on top, you'll see that the club is still high up off the ground compared

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to the golf ball when it's even with my right foot.

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This is going to be coming more down into the golf ball or it's going to require a quick

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shallowing, which would happen with the arm bend.

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So first position is looking at this impact line with the driver, making sure that the upper

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body is a good distance behind that left foot so that your head is somewhere in the six

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inch, four to six inches behind the golf ball or more over your right leg.

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Kind of like this.

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That tends to get the club low to the ground so then when you extend the arms and you

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keep the body pivoting, that tends to create the more the sweeping or brushing or flat

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bottom of the swing.

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The second piece to look at is the club face.

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So if we're looking at that same checkpoint, you can see here, I left the club face pointing

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at the camera, wide open here.

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Now I'm going to have to snap my wrist or let the club pass very quickly in order to

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then square it up.

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So that would look more club faces wide open and kind of flicking the wrist kind of like

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this.

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Now you'll see that I hit that relatively straight but I'm going to be limited in

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how much speed I can create and consistency wise.

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My contact is typically going to go all over the face.

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So I'm not going to be very consistent.

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If that's the case, then I have to do more of these motor cycle drills and getting used

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to the club face being more rotated earlier and the feeling of everything coming through

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together on the way through as opposed to just hitting it with a flick of the wrist.

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So the good news is I deal with driver issues all the time and if it is the case where

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you're struggling with the driver, it's usually

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solved by either hitting it more with the body or by closing the face and swinging a little

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bit more shallow or from the inside.

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So it's usually only one of two solutions.

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It's just figuring out what's going to get you into that pattern the fastest and that's

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where you're looking at the video and working your way backward from impacts will help you

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figure out is it more of a body or tilt issue, is it more of a sequence issue, I'm swinging

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too much with my arms, is it more of a path and face issue.

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Once you know that, then there's only a handful of drills you'll need to do in order to quickly

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dial it in.

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So let's look at what a couple of those look like.

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So if I get more on top of it, almost like I'm going to hit an iron and I get steep,

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you'll see that's going to give me that classic low slice pattern.

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Now I didn't swing too hard at it because I don't like the way swinging hard and steep

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feels.

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But what I'm going to do now is I'm going to swing it about the same effort about the same

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speed, but I'm going to be in a better body position and you'll see launch wise that's

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going to carry a good 40 50 yards further and then run in an additional 30 40.

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I mean that ball probably went 80 yards further than the first one without putting a whole

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lot more effort in just by getting more of the speed coming from my body while being in

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this shallow position and squaring the face a little bit earlier so I didn't have the

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time it quite as much down at the bottom.

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So like I said, the driver typically, if you're struggling with it, it's only one of a

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couple issues, it's just figuring out which drills will help you kind of change the picture

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or dial in the concepts the fastest.

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All right, just for fun, we'll do a good body pivot.

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Good driver swing.

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Close.

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All right, it didn't square the face on that first one.

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So putting the right rough, we'll do a good one here.

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That was pretty good.

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