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Hit Your Driver Straighter
When using 3D data & video to analyze a swing (regardless of skill level), there is one concept that can reveal whether a golfer will likely struggle off the tee, especially under pressure; this key trait is known as clubface "rate of closure".
If you are having trouble finding fairways, you are likely relying too much on a last second squaring of the face. To remedy this, we will discuss the patterns utilized by the best drivers on tour, a few old-school fixes, and one simple checkpoint to determine whether this may be the cause of your driver woes.
When using 3D data & video to analyze a swing (regardless of skill level), there is one concept that can reveal whether a golfer will likely struggle off the tee, especially under pressure; this key trait is known as clubface "rate of closure".
If you are having trouble finding fairways, you are likely relying too much on a last second squaring of the face. To remedy this, we will discuss the patterns utilized by the best drivers on tour, a few old-school fixes, and one simple checkpoint to determine whether this may be the cause of your driver woes.
In this video, I'm going to talk to you about how you can hit your driver's
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straighter. I'm going to give you two different ways to hit more
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fair ways. One is going to come from understanding what the consistent
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tour golfers do and then two is going to come from understanding how you
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could take your current swing and apply something out on the course tomorrow.
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One of the questions I always get asked is what's the difference between the
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driver and the iron swing and I actually did a presentation at the world golf
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fitness summit a few years ago where we looked at the 3D differences.
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There are definitely differences between the ideal driver swing and the ideal
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iron swing. In general, the guys who are really consistent with the driver tend to
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use more of their lower body to create the speed compared to their arms and
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shoulders and they tend to square the club face up earlier. And what that looks
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like is from the down the line camera, you'll see the club face pointing
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more at the ball earlier. So then when they come through, they don't have to rely
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on lining up the face. What you tend to see with good iron players is they'll
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swing more with their upper body. In doing so, they might get a little bit
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steeper and you'll tend to see the club face stay open longer and shut a
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little bit faster down in the bottom. You don't have to. You can use this
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early club face closing with every club. But that's just one of the trends that
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you'll see on the 3D data of tour proes is that good drivers would go off
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ball tend to close the face earlier. So then it has more of a gradual change
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down at the bottom instead of a fast change. So in the next section where we
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look at it with the GoPro, we're going to take a look at a checkpoint when
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the hands are basically even with the right thigh, roughly what angle is that
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club face. If you find that when you get down here the club face is pointing
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more at this face on camera or compared to this down the line, the club
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face is pointing way over there. You'll see that the club face is almost 70, 80
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degrees compared to the target and I'm going to have to try to square that up
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very late while the club is moving fast. Instead, if I do a little bit of what
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we call the motorcycle movement, if I get a little bit of earlier face closing,
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now when I come down, I didn't have to rotate it that much and now the
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club face is pointing closer, we get that even better there. The club face is
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close, pointing closer to the target. So then all I have to do is continue
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turning through and just let that club face continue closing at a more
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gradual rate. So if I close it early, I can do it gradual, that's going to
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give me a little bit more consistency than if I wait longer and I have to
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close it fast when the club face is moving really quickly. So I've got lots of
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different drills to help you feel what it's like to close the club face,
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whether you do it more with the left hand or the right hand, if you're pulling
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down that tens of the open face, we got lots of ways to kind of work through it.
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But in this video, I'll just give you one simple checkpoint when we look at the
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GoPro section. Okay, so if you're setting up this little station for hitting your
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driver straighter, we're going to line which is roughly going to be where we're
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going to put the golf ball. And now just to give some type of standardization to
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this so that I know that we're on the same page. I've got my eight iron here. I'm
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going to take it and put it about a foot behind the ball or behind this first line.
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And then I'm going to draw a line kind of along the top line right here, not
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the leading edge, but the top line. So now I've got a line kind of at an angle
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roughly kind of like this. That's going to be our reference as far as getting the
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club face closed. So now if I get set up and put a ball on that first line, I'm
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just going to go into a look at when my hands are even with the golf ball, or
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sorry, even with my thigh kind of like this, where is the club face compared to
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this line right here? So as I come down, you'll see if I was to keep that club face
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open. You would see a right of this line. But if I do the motorcycle move with
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kind of an extra grip, it'll start to see that that's coming in a more like
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parallel to this line or square to that line position. Now I'm going to do a few
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kind of pump style drills where I'm just going to bring the club just check.
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That was a little open. Pretty good there. Pretty good there. Once I've got that feeling,
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now I'm just going to do a nice easy maybe 60-70% swing. Just to see if I can get the
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club face that come in pretty square. Now I had a nice nice ball flight. I was able
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to get it pretty square. So then I can just work on taking that feeling, adding
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more and more speed, adding more pivot and lower body, but still focusing on getting
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club face to get matched up to that line quicker. If it's still wide open or
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pointing right, you are going to have to stall and flip and that stall and flip is
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going to add a big timing element to your driver swing. So now we'll do one more
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at closer to full speed. Pretty good ball flight there. Now for some golfers
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doing that feels really uncomfortable. They're not used to thinking about their
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hands. They don't even feel the club face and so trying to become aware of it
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really creates almost a sense of panic. So then the other option is, well, all right,
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I can't feel my hands. I'm not really comfortable trying to close the face. What
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should I do then? Well then we're going to rely on some more kind of old school
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teaching and we're going to talk about swinging more in rhythm or swinging a
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little bit smoother. Now you might be thinking, okay, why what does that have to
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do with club face control? Well, what can happen is if I'm relying on the arms
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of the hands to square the club face very late, I hate the phrase but it becomes a
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little bit more timing dependent. And so there are two things that really disrupt
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timing for these late closing of the club face, especially with the driver. And the
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two things are either getting nervous or swinging hard. So if you would
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recognize, like let's say you take a look at yourself on video and you look and
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you see that the club face is still wide open when your hands are even with
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your right thigh. If your hands are, or the club face is really open at this point,
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then I would encourage you to work on your rhythm and make sure that you don't swing
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too hard. When you swing hard, that's often going to disrupt this timing and you
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can either have big right or big left misses. The other one that's a little bit
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harder to control is getting nervous. So you might want to work on relaxation,
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deep breathing, your ability to stay in rhythm even when it's really important.
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Because oftentimes, golfers who tend to have this late closing pattern will have
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really good range sessions where they can hit, you know, 6, 7, 8 out of 10 into a
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fairway sized target. But then when they get on the course at 10th of breakdown.