How far should you stand from the ball? (Struggling with Driver)

[vkurup]

The early part of the summer, I was bombing my Driver. All was well and then about 3-4 weeks ago, I developed a bout of CantHitTheDarnDriver-itis. When I was bombing my Driver, I could not hit my 3W, now the roles are reversed, I can hit my 3W about 200-210y, so Driver is in a dark place. I took it out a couple of times last week, but I cant hit it.

(in my head) I think I am struggling to find how far should I stand from the ball with the driver. I generally have a same routine, but now I am not so sure about the driver. I am either pulling or slicing it or worst case I am topping the ball about 50y. It is not consistent - as I am trying different things on different holes. While the 3W is in play, I am ok for the time being, but I need it to come back.

What is the best way to ensure that the body is at the right distance from the ball at address?

 

[Maninblack4612]

According to Jim Hardy, author of "The Plane Truth", if you swing with the arms & shoulders in approximately the same plane (one plane swing), the hands should be directly under the chin. If you swing with the arms on a significantly steeper plane than the shoulders you should be a little closer to the ball. If you're Miguel Angel Jiminez, stand further away and swing the club like a baseball bat.

 

[vkurup]

I should also ask... when i learnt to use the driver, I was told to add a bit of tilt to the spin - because you want to hit up on the driver. Those days the avg driver loft was about 10 degrees. Now I use a 11.5 Nike Covert driver with a closed face - do i need to still tilt?

According to Jim Hardy, author of "The Plane Truth", if you swing with the arms & shoulders in approximately the same plane (one plane swing), the hands should be directly under the chin. If you swing with the arms on a significantly steeper plane than the shoulders you should be a little closer to the ball. If you're Miguel Angel Jiminez, stand further away and swing the club like a baseball bat.

is there a drill on this?

 

[Maninblack4612]

I should also ask... when i learnt to use the driver, I was told to add a bit of tilt to the spin - because you want to hit up on the driver. Those days the avg driver loft was about 10 degrees. Now I use a 11.5 Nike Covert driver with a closed face - do i need to still tilt?



is there a drill on this?

I can only speak personally here but I find that, with the ball teed well forward in the stance I automatically hit it on the upswing. Can't advise on drills, I never do them & think they have no value.

As for the closed face, this depends entirely on how you grip the club. If you grip a closed face driver so it looks as if the face is square in your grip it's no longer a closed face. The only worthwhile adjustment, in my view, is loft.

 

[the_coach]

Once in your posture with the Club your arms should hang vertically from your shoulders, then just move the Clubhead behind the ball, same is true whatever the club, the total distance away will vary with the length of the club. But the distance the hands are away from the body should be always pretty much the same, as the arms hang from the shoulders the upper arms (triceps) should lightly be in contact with your chest (pecs), so use the distance the butt end of the handle is away from your body (so better to use that as your guide) Staying in your golf posture arms hanging vertically if you take your right hand off but keep everything else the same if you then continue to hold the club in the left hand in it's position on the handle with a vertical arm hang you should then be able to fit approximately the right fist plus half a thumb should fit between butt end of the handle, in this position, & your body.

There should always be a secondary spine tilt in the posture, has to be as the right hand is lower on the handle.

Driver is the club that it's most important (because you need an upwards AoA into impact) & you'll have the largest secondary tilt of the spine, right shoulder lower than the left because it's the widest stance with the width between the feet. There will always be some kind of secondary tilt but it naturally gets smaller as the stance naturally gets a ways narrower all the way down to the wedges

[video=youtube_share;eu1AUXRZalk]http://youtu.be/eu1AUXRZalk[/video]

 

[Maninblack4612]

Once in your posture with the Club your arms should hang vertically from your shoulders, handle, in this position, & your body.

This suggests that everyone, however they swing​, ​should stand the same distance from the ball. If you look at Jiminez his arms clearly don't " hang vertically" from his shoulders. Kuchar's hands are immediately below his chin and Furyk stands much closer. In general, it seems to me the more upright you swing the closer to the ball you need to stand. I don't think you can give this advice without knowing the swing.

 

[One Planer]

This suggests that everyone, however they swing​, ​should stand the same distance from the ball. If you look at Jiminez his arms clearly don't " hang vertically" from his shoulders. Kuchar's hands are immediately below his chin and Furyk stands much closer. In general, it seems to me the more upright you swing the closer to the ball you need to stand. I don't think you can give this advice without knowing the swing.

I'm leaning towards Coach's view here.

Anyone who has seen any of my swing videos on here knows I used to swing the club very flat. Not Kuchar flat, but flat none the less.

Over last year through the course of my lessons, I was working on a much (To me) steeper swing plane, yet my pro always had me address the ball with my hands as Coach describes.

My swing is now much more upright, quite considerably actually.

Despite this, my pro has always said that if you hold your hand out (with all fingers apart) and put it between your club and body at address, your pinky finger should be touching your groin and your thumb touching the butt of the grip. That indicates the correct distance between club and body with, I believe, all clubs. The driver may be a little further away, but not massively.

The examples you list above (Furyk, Kuchar and Jimmy Ness) don't have, what could be deemed a traditional swing. They are all pretty unique.

Here's a selection of players with a more normal/classic swing motion (Mcilroy, Schwartzel, Day and Scott):

The arms hang from the shoulders down to the club.

I do however agree that all swings will have their own idiosyncrasies depending on the individual.

 

[bobmac]

I am either pulling or slicing it or worst case I am topping the ball about 50y.

That suggests to me that your swing is a bit steep coming into the ball which is sometimes a result of standing too close.
Step back an inch or two and see if that helps.
And dont worry if your hands are further away from your body, than your irons, thats allowed

 

[SocketRocket]

You may be applying too much sideways spine tilt with your driver and this will be making you hit these ducked shots. As you are playing the ball farther forward in your stance and probably teeing higher you will be hitting up without making further adjustments, the additional tilt is probably creating many of the problems you explain.

 

[bobmac]

As you are playing the ball farther forward in your stance and probably teeing higher you will be hitting up without making further adjustments, the additional tilt is probably creating many of the problems you explain.

I think pulling, slicing and topping is caused by too steep a down swing rather than hitting up on the ball

 

[Foxholer]

Listen to/read what the coaches/Pros say! Or watch the vids

However, it seems to me that it's an incredibly difficult message to get across well or generalise for all the body shapes - Furyk and Jiminez just don't look the same!

So I think the best way for you to get it sorted - or simply confirmed that you are Ok - is to go see your own Pro and get him to check - as part of another lesson perhaps. Get some reference points/processes to establish your optimum stance for Driver, FWs and Irons (they may be identical or slightly different) and then practice setting up sufficiently to ingrain them/it.

Or perhaps posting a quick vid or 3 might enable Bob/the_coach to comment?

 

[the_coach]

Originally Posted by the_coach
Once in your posture with the Club your arms should hang vertically from your shoulders, handle, in this position, & your body.

(In your post #6 seen above here, the only part originally posted by me is underlined: The remainder you changed & wrote in yourself. Though anyone just reading only post #6 & not reading my original post would assume I'd written all of it, in that order.
If you quote me I'd prefer you then didn't change the content.)

This is what I did write, if attention is paid to the parts now in bold, particularly to the parts in bold, italic & underlined, should be reasonably plain that this is a 'guide' to a 'goldilocks model" written in conjunction with the vid (this being a model which has an 'area' in which things would be in better to fall within as it would cut then down the need for compensations in timing & movements in the swing motion more of these there are the difficult it becomes to consistently find center)

"Once in your posture with the Club your arms should hang vertically from your shoulders, then just move the Clubhead behind the ball, same is true whatever the club, the total distance away will vary with the length of the club. But the distance the hands are away from the body should be always pretty much the same, as the arms hang from the shouldersthe upper arms (triceps) should lightly be in contact with your chest (pecs), so use the distance the butt end of the handle is away from your body (so better to use that as your guide) Staying in your golf posture arms hanging vertically if you take your right hand off but keep everything else the same if you then continue to hold the club in the left hand in it's position on the handle with a vertical arm hang you should then be able to fit approximately the right fist plus half a thumb should fit between butt end of the handle, in this position, & your body."

This suggests that everyone,

however they swing​, ​should stand the same distance from the ball. If you look at Jiminez his arms clearly don't " hang vertically" from his shoulders. Kuchar's hands are immediately below his chin and Furyk stands much closer. In general, it seems to me the more upright you swing the closer to the ball you need to stand. I don't think you can give this advice without knowing the swing.

The OP looking for some guidance because there are some difficulties in him feeling he is in the area both in posture & address that would be better to start from, to be able then to find a centered contact with a reasonably square face angle that more consistently enables better results than the shot direction issues currently being experienced.

This not really something that either Fuyrk, Jimenez or Kuchar currently has an issue with, as they, as extremely gifted Tour Pro's find impact pretty good, though none would really be used as a 'goldilocks model' for a handicap player experiencing difficulty.

If you look closely as both Miguels & Matt's address position with driver, you'll see that in both of them, their upper arms are in contact with their upper chest (pecs) & in both of them their arms also hang on a vertical plane (not a more held out diagonal plane reaching away from their chests)
If you also look at the gap between butt end of club & their thighs, you can see that despite there very different physicality's (Kuchar tall, long legs shortish body, Jimenez shorter legs body closer in proportion but barrel chested) this space is not so different, about a right fist plus thumb & a bit (the 'bit' goes back to my original post of saying 'should be always pretty much the same")

If Jim had, as a child, been unable with his more off the norm address/posture unable to find a consistently good impact position by being not able to make the compensations needed in time & space his address position/posture dictated, so not resulting in a good shot outcome. You can bet your last dollar that his PGA father would have then started to change a bunch of things to enable him to be able to do so in a better way. But he saw the contact that his son could get on a consistent basis & decided to leave well alone.

Chicken & egg. Thing everyone does first with is a club is hold it, find a posture, stand a certain distance to the side of the ball find aim & address aim alignments etc - so far the club hasn't moved - & these positions will all vary to some degree giving everyones different stature. But everyone has to do this first, how everyone then is in these 'stactics' has then a huge influence on how a club moves in any swing motion.

I have seen both the DTL & Face On videos of a number of the OP's different swings with driver.

 

[SocketRocket]

I think pulling, slicing and topping is caused by too steep a down swing rather than hitting up on the ball

Bob. He was saying he is hitting the ball a very short distance with his driver (topping it). It sounds to me he may be tilting too much and topping it, I may have worded my reply poorly but I was encouraging him to reduce spine tilt, play it more forward, tee it higher so he can hit upwards and and out the middle.

 

[bobmac]

I take it you mean he is tilting his spine too much away from the target?

 

[MadAdey]

I think what the coach is saying is pretty much spot on. I was struggling a bit with consistency and took a lesson to find the problem and it turned out it was exactly this that fixed it. I was standing a bit too far away which caused my back swing to get a bit flat, which only got exaggerated with my longer clubs. I still managed to get a good position at the top of swing though which did allow me to then get into a good position for impact. But it was this extra movement in my back swing that caused the inconsistencies. But a couple of lessons working on pre shot routine to get my arms hanging down more did the trick.

I do agree though with some of the points that have been made regarding different golfers that do not necessarily follow this to the letter. At the end if the day we are all built differently and the so called text book swing is sometimes not possible for us, even some tour pros find it impossible, Furyk will always be the best example of a great golfer that is not text book.

 

[CMAC]

The_coach sorted my posture out with some useful key check points as I was standing too far away resulting in too much forward lean with the back, promoting EE to get back square.

Once bending from the hips I ensure now that a straight line down from my shoulders would touch the ground about 4" in front of my toe line. :thup:

 

[SocketRocket]

I take it you mean he is tilting his spine too much away from the target?

Yes, thats right Bob.

 

[vkurup]

The_coach's advice is pretty much spot on and has helped me in the past too.

These days, when I address the ball,
1) i 'feel' I am too close to the ball - this generally also kindof hooks the ball or it starts left and stays left.
2) So the next time around, I will try and step back slightly and then 'feel' as if I too far. The ball starts right and stays right
3) Over the summer, I started moving my weight back a bit (65% right foot, 35% left foot) while tilting the spine away from the ball. At first it sent the ball miles, but I think i might have overcooked this, and no longer able to get the balance or the tilt correct.

I will try and take a vid, but I am off golf for a couple of weeks due to travel, so hopefully will post after that.