Take
a friend with you to the range. Have them watch you from the front
as you swing your driver without a ball. If you can, make three
swings with your eyes closed. This does a couple of things. It
forces you to stay balanced and it helps you concentrate on swinging.
Set up like normal, imagine a ball and the target you want the
"ball" to fly to. Try to set up square like you are
planning to hit the ball perfectly straight. Close your eyes and
imagine you are Freddie Couples and make a nice full swing like
you normally would on the course. Make the 3 swings without moving
your feet from the setup position. This will be extremely important
to the process.
Your
friends' job is important too, so take someone you trust and will
listen to. Make sure they will not add their own flavor to this
experiment. They are simply to watch your swing and focus on the
club head and the path it makes when you swing. Their sole purpose
it to find out where the bottom of your swing arc is. When they
are confident they know where the club head is at the bottom of
the swing arc, they should put a teed ball there to mark the spot.
You should now attempt to swing the club again and this time let
the ball get in the way.
I
assume you know that with a driver, the ball should be struck
as the club head is rising from the bottom of the arc. I will
bet that the bottom of your swing arc is at or beyond the left
toe. Most people set up improperly and try to hit the ball from
inside their feet somewhere. If that is the case, many things
can happen, but the most important one is that you lose club head
speed. The second is, that you are hitting the ball early with
an open clubface and you know what happens when you do that.
For
now, I suggest working with the ball at the bottom of the arc.
Later, you can move it left another inch and that will be perfect.
In golf, the details are critical. Once you find the bottom of
your natural swinging arc, you must be able to find it again and
again. You must trust the setup every time you swing your driver.
Be precise and find a way to repeat the setup every time so that
you are sure your swing will bottom out in the same place every
time you swing. Build this into your pre shot routine. The pros
are making money on this but you will be losing strokes.
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