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In this video, PGA Professional Katie Dawkins offers some driver set-up and distance tips to help you hit the ball further off the tee.
Transcript
00:00 One of the biggest problems that people tend to have when they are trying to hit the ball
00:08 further with their driver is that they're not setting up to it properly.
00:11 When it comes to setting up to the ball with the driver it's really important that the
00:14 ball is positioned opposite the inside of your front heel.
00:18 The reason for that is we want to collect the ball on the way through to that finish.
00:22 So with an iron we are up and over the ball, we're going to hit down on it.
00:26 With the driver we want to be settled behind the ball because we want to be sweeping it
00:30 or collecting it off the tee.
00:32 So making sure that your zippers or your buttons on your top aren't straight up and over and
00:36 your spine isn't straight up.
00:38 We want to ever so slightly settle that behind the ball.
00:41 So this just means settling a little bit of weight gently onto this back foot here.
00:47 So it drops your back shoulder a little bit away.
00:50 This arm stays very relaxed, it's a good idea just to swing it back on the club and from
00:54 there you'll be able to swing right the way through to that photo finish that's so important
00:59 when you're trying to get a bit of distance and get that ball soaring down the fairways.
01:04 So with getting yourself into this really decent setup position we want to make sure
01:08 that we've got that weight gently settled on the back foot.
01:12 So every single tee area on the course you've got a nice little upslope, even be it a shallow
01:17 one so you can stand on that and give yourself that feeling of being able to settle onto
01:23 that upslope.
01:24 So just set up on an upslope, set up where the ball would normally be and just wiggle
01:28 yourself and settle that weight gently onto this foot so the shoulders end up perpendicular
01:32 to the slope.
01:34 What you can then do when you come onto the actual tee area is you can stand there, set
01:38 up to your ball and just settle again and almost re-ignite that feeling that you had
01:43 on the slope on the tee.
01:45 Probably one of the biggest faults that I see is lack of body rotation and lack of wind
01:49 up in the backswing when it comes to the driver.
01:52 The swing seems to be powered solely by the arms going up and down.
01:57 Usually this is down to poor posture, people are just sat like this at address rather than
02:01 in an athletic position.
02:03 Being in an athletic position means that we can rotate and wind our body up and turn our
02:07 back to the target.
02:09 When you're not in that position your body can't turn because you're not in balance.
02:13 If you're not in balance you'd probably end up falling over.
02:16 So as a result our arms go straight up and straight down.
02:20 The ball ends up carved down the fairway, it feels a lot of effort yet the distance
02:24 just isn't there.
02:25 So making sure at the top of the swing that you can feel a turn.
02:31 So you're turning that left shoulder under your chin, that lovely rotation.
02:35 And that will give you a lot more power and generate a lot more speed off the pub face.
02:39 [Music]