Secret to driving part 2

[kid2]

Ok following on from my post the other night i decided to hit the range today and try and figure out exactly whats happening with this part of my game......

One question i want to ask everyone that reads this is......Does "Your" ball position differ from that of the traditional one being that you play the driver with a ball position just inside your left heel....

I got 100 balls first just to hit with the driver and armed with Bob's knowledge about not trying to knock the ball into space and instead just try and get it to 220-250.....
Well i fiddled about a bit with the ball position and the distance that i was standing from the ball.....

It seems that the way i swing a club for whatever reason i was only able to get the ball solid and with a square face when i played it off my left toe.....I was getting a nice soft draw and it was getting some major hang time as well.....

The farther back i moved the ball the more severe and worse the right to left flight was.....And also i was leaking a hell of a lot of shots straight right.
This seemed funny to me as it kind of goes against everything iv read about ball flight and position.
The only conclusion that i can come to is that my hands are very active in the swing!

 

[Ian_S]

Sounds like you have an open face. Did you check your grip? I cut a lot of my slice out by bringing my bottom hand further to the front of the club, so both palms feel like they're pointing down, like I'm warming my hands over a fire, rather than wringing out a cloth.

Not sure how much sense that makes. Hope it helps

 

[duncan mackie]

1. you don't want hands in a driver swing, to put it another way a driver is more difficult to hit consistently with a hands swing.
2. do not get anal about the odd perceved inch of ball position - there are so may other elements that will make real differences; this isn't one. examples would be the realtionship to the hand, the hip and the head.

 

[JustOne]

The farther back i moved the ball the more severe and worse the right to left flight was.....And also i was leaking a hell of a lot of shots straight right.
This seemed funny to me as it kind of goes against everything iv read about ball flight and position.

Eh? How so?

 

[kid2]

Eh? How so?

No idea Pal.......
The only thing that i can come to was that i was rolling my hands over earlier in the swing to try close the face......
If i strengthened the grip it was way worse....If i weakened i was pushing everything to the right......

I tried to open the stance and hit a push fade but that caused all sorts..

In the end after messing with tee height, ball position, and grip i settled on the ball in line with the middle of my left foot.....A slightly neutral grip and about 1/3 of the ball above the club head.

And when i did that i was hitting draws with nearly every ball......Now im really confused ....:mmm:

 

[Evesdad]

I moved mine back at touch to the right and swing smooth and sorted me out pretty good. If it moves to the left I end up with big hooks!

 

[JustOne]

Sounds like you have it spot on Kid2, although your hands aren't active.. they are passive. You weren't managing to square the face with your passive arms/wrists/hands so by moving the ball back you never got the clubface square (everything went right). Having the ball more forward gives you a bit more time to get the face into the correct alignment at impact.... to square it up, per se. As long as your swingpath maintains a modicum of in-to-out at impact you should draw the ball.

 

[USER1999]

I set up with my feet together, with the ball central. For a driver, I just move my right foot back to the right as far as I want, and I'm set. This leaves the left foot, and the ball in the correct position. Every time.

 

[User 105]

I think JustOne has it right. By moving it further forward you are giving yourself more time to square the face up.

The real danger here, and this is something I'm prone to do, is to find something that corrects the problem. i.e. Move the ball forward. The problem isn't that the ball isn't far enough forward !!!! it sounds like it's too far forward now.

The real problem is that you aren't squaring the club at the right point in the swing. You need to find out why that is. Swing path, late release. Not really sure. But you need to fix that otherwise you're likely to introduce other issues.

I know this from bitter experience

 

[Oddsocks]

I set up with my feet together, with the ball central. For a driver, I just move my right foot back to the right as far as I want, and I'm set. This leaves the left foot, and the ball in the correct position. Every time.

+1... exactly my approach, and it works pretty consistently.

 

[kid2]

I set up with my feet together, with the ball central. For a driver, I just move my right foot back to the right as far as I want, and I'm set. This leaves the left foot, and the ball in the correct position. Every time.

Thats what i did the other morning Murph and again today......I only hit the driver on our 4 par 5's today as i have room for error......2 of the 4 were good 1 wicked hook and 1 that i came up off of a little but it went straight and low...Still managed about 250 with the hard fairways....:rofl:

 

[kid2]

Sounds like you have it spot on Kid2, although your hands aren't active.. they are passive. You weren't managing to square the face with your passive arms/wrists/hands so by moving the ball back you never got the clubface square (everything went right). Having the ball more forward gives you a bit more time to get the face into the correct alignment at impact.... to square it up, per se. As long as your swingpath maintains a modicum of in-to-out at impact you should draw the ball.

Think so James......Im starting to realize why i miss with the hook.......From what im guessing i think that when i hook my lower half is staying static for a little too long and then the hands are taking over.....Once im aware of this then im fine.....

Its starting to get fun again though.....Check out my reply to Murphs post.
I hit a great long high draw on our par 5 12th this morning......Happy days......