We’re here to help. I’ve been scratch-ish—sometimes worse, sometimes better—since I was 16 years old. My current index is a +1.2, although that’s sure to bite me once the weather warms and I have to play to my late-season handicap despite early-season rust. I have played dozens of rounds with men and women who’ve told me I’m the best player they’ve ever played with. And, once they shake off the nerves, these have often blossomed into some of my favourite days on the golf course. The key is knowing what to do, and more crucially, what not to.

Here are the dos and don’ts of playing with a scratch-level player.

Don’t insist on playing the same tees

Warren Little

You’re coming from a good place—you don’t want to be a burden, and you figure having everyone in the group play from the same tees will speed up play. Only it’ll have the opposite effect: You’ll be looking for balls and hitting so many extra shots. Always be ready to step right up to the tee when it’s your turn, and any added time will be minimal.

Be very careful with your “Good shot!” shouts

Your standards for a good shot are very, very different than the scratch players. You might be thrilled every time you make solid contact with an iron from the fairway, but I can tell you from experience that hearing “Great shot!” when a ball is flying right to a bunker gets very old, very quickly.

Don’t ask him if he’s ever thought of turning pro

The difference between a scratch golfer and a touring pro is, functionally speaking, wider than the difference between you and the scratch golfer. Unless this scratch golfer is 14 years old or younger, or a highly delusional person, there is very little chance he or she will ever turn professional.

Don’t be afraid to get some action going

laflor

There’s a reason the handicap system exists, and it’s to mitigate differences between players—even if those differences are huge. Theoretically speaking you have a 50 percent chance of winning the match. Don’t be intimidated.

Do give gimmes

Some mid-handicappers I’ve played with have assumed that I’m keeping score as though I were playing a tournament, so they’ll hesitate to pick up the 18-inch par putts after a missed birdie attempt. Unless your playing partner explicitly says, “I’m going to putt everything out today,” you should absolutely kick away anything that’s within the leather. If it’s longer than that, simply look at them. Their reply will tell you how he feels about putting that one out.

Don’t offer swing advice

You might think this goes without saying but you’d be surprised. My tempo is quick, and I’ve had legitimate 15-handicaps tell me after a bad shot to “slow down” or “that looked pretty quick.” There is nothing more infuriating than hearing advice from a non-PGA professional who is significantly worse at golf than you.

Don’t ask for swing advice

Unless they’re a teaching pro, the last thing they want to do is spend an afternoon trying to help you stink less.

Play fast, but don’t rush

Andrew Redington

I’ve had playing partners visibly rush because they’re so worried about slowing everyone down—that just makes the good player in the group feel guilty. That’s not to say you shouldn’t pick up when you’re clearly headed for a quadruple bogey or worse, because you absolutely should. But take your time when you’re in the hole.

Don’t apologize for your game

You have nothing to apologize for, so hold off on the sorrys after you slice one into the trees. It doesn’t make your bad shots any less bad, and it only contributes to a sense of imbalance that you’re trying to avoid. Do you. Play your game.

Be yourself

A scratch player is good at a game—they’re not some sort of freakshow. So don’t treat them as such. Be you. Don’t be afraid to talk and shoot the breeze as you would in your normal foursome. This golfer just happens to swing a club better than your buddies do. Nothing more, nothing less.

Main Image: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

The post The dos and don’ts of playing with a scratch player appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

Tiger Woods, as he is with many things, has a few different options to choose from. His Old Course 3-wood jumps to mind, as does the 3-iron fairway bunker shot at the 2002 PGA Championship.

But for me, it’s the bunker shot on the 72nd hole of the 2000 Canadian Open. 218 yards from a fairway bunker over water to a tucked pin, which won him the tournament.

Back in 2001, Golf Digest asked him about that shot, and what golfers can learn from it. Turns out, quite a lot.

“It seemed like a miracle shot, but believe me, it was more dramatic than it was difficult,” he said.

That’s because of a few simple keys that the rest of us would do well to remember:

1. Ball in the middle of your stance

“Solid contact is crucial when playing a fairway bunker shot,” Tiger writes. So all the tweaks he makes involve ensuring solid contact.

The first of those is moving the ball back in your stance slightly, which will help the club hit the ball first, before the sand.

2. Raise your chin

The only swing thought golfers should have through the ball, Tiger says, is to “stay tall through impact.” A simple way of doing this, Tiger writes, is to “raise your chin slightly just before starting your backswing.”

3. Club up

Tiger also makes clear that you should take at least one more club from fairway bunkers than you ordinarily would. Probably more like two. For reasons we’re about to find out…

4. Dig in

One of the hardest things about swinging off sand is that it’s an extremely unstable surface. Your feet are prone to sliding around. So, to prevent this, dig your feet into the sand.

5. Choke down

Once you’ve dug your feet into the sand, it’s time to choke down on the grip. Tiger uses a pretty simple formula for this:

“I choke down on [the club] in direct proportion to how much I dig my feet into the sand—usually about half an inch.”

6. Slow down

Both those things alone are enough to make taking some extra club the right move, as is Tiger’s final tip:

“I decrease my swing speed by about 30 per cent,” he writes. “This not only increases accuracy but also allows me to keep my balance.”

The combination of all of these things can upgrade your fairway bunker game, and provide the foundation for one of the best shots of Tiger’s career.

Main image: Supplied

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The short answer is no—nor can you remove recently repaired grass or tamp down grass in a divot hole to ensure it won’t impact your next shot. You also can’t repair a pitch mark or any other uneven surface on your line if it’s off the green. All of this is covered in Rule 8.1 and comes with the general penalty for a violation (loss of hole in match play or a two-shot penalty in stroke play). To be clear, you can remove loose impediments on your line of play, but if it’s something like a weed, and it’s growing, plucking it out of the ground is a penalty.

Albeit rare, this rule is even violated by professionals. Annika Sorenstam was penalised at the 2006 LPGA Championship for removing some sod in a divot hole that was deemed to improve conditions affecting her next stroke.

So now that you know you can’t go full greenskeeper on the land in front of your shot, here are a few things to remember about this rule:

1. It is not a penalty if it’s unlikely your actions on the line of play would give you a potential advantage in playing your next stroke. For example, there’s a divot hole several yards in front of you on your line of play that you repair before hitting a 150-yard shot into the green.

2. It is still a penalty if you improve conditions on your line of play for a particular type of shot, even if you opt for a different type of shot that would not have been impacted by the improvement. For example, going with a lofted wedge shot instead of that bump-and-run in the scenario that began this article.

3. It is not a penalty if you repair damage on the putting green (Rule 13.1c(2)) regardless of whether your ball is on or off the green. So if you’re worried about that pitch mark on the green impacting that bump-and-run you’re about to hit, go ahead and repair it.

Main image: microgen

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In a perfect world, you’d avoid all the wet stuff, precisely placing your drive in the highest and driest part of every fairway. Of course, that’s not likely to last, as eventually even a piped drive down the middle will likely find its way into a huge puddle. Thankfully, it’s not a hazard that will cost you a penalty stroke—provided you know the proper way to get yourself out of the soggy situation.

What we’re referring to here is something called “casual water,” which can generally be found in low points on the golf course, particularly in bunkers. Causal water is also described as “temporary” water. The more official phrase used in Rules of Golf is “Abnormal Course Conditions” (see Rule 16).

The two basic things to keep in mind if you’re ball ends up in casual water, er, Abnormal Course Conditions are, as the Rules of Golf put it, 1) These conditions are not treated as part of the challenge of playing the course, and free relief is generally allowed except in a penalty area, and 2) The player normally takes relief by dropping a ball in a relief area based on the nearest point of complete relief.

RELATED: Rules of Golf Quiz: How many penalty strokes are you taking to ‘play’ this par 5?

This rule covers a number of different Abnormal Course Conditions, including casual water, ground under repair, immovable obstructions, etc. But right now we’re focused on casual water and how to proceed when your ball ends up in it, be it in the fairway, rough or bunker. To put it simply, if your ball is in a giant pool of water that isn’t in a penalty area, you take free relief at the nearest point of complete relief (a dry area) no closer to the hole, measuring one club length to create your relief area and play from there. The only instances you are not allowed free relief is if your ball is out of bounds or in a penalty area. One other thing to note: If your ball finds casual water in a bunker, your point of free relief still has to be in the bunker. If you did want to take it out, you’d have to assess yourself a one-stroke penalty.

Graphic courtesy of the USGA

Free relief is also granted if the casual water is affecting your stance. Your ball may be in a perfectly dry spot, but if you take your stance and water begins seeping out of the fairway, you are technically standing in casual water and allowed to take relief at the nearest point of complete relief.

Same goes for casual water on the putting green. If your ball is touching it or it’s affecting your stance, you may place a ball at the nearest point of complete relief on the putting green, or in the general area.

You’ll notice we keep saying “complete relief.” That’s not by accident; it’s an important nuance of the rule. You’ll hear announcers mention it during golf broadcasts when players are getting relief from a cart path. To properly take relief, you need to make sure where you’re dropping your ball is not in a place that can still be defined as casual water or that your stance will still be casual water. The Rules of Golf describe it as relief from all interference by the abnormal course condition.

The only situation that seemingly could get a little dicey is if your ball ends up in a rather large pool of casual water, say in a bunker, and you cannot find it. If it is known and virtually certain that the ball is in that pool, the player may take relief using an estimated point of where the ball last crossed the edge of the casual water. Once a new ball is put in play in this situation, the player may no longer play the original ball, even if it is then found before the end of the three-minute search time. If it is not known or virtually certain that the ball came to rest in the casual water, however, the player must play it as a lost ball and take stroke-and-distance relief.

Main image: Andy Cheung

The post Rules Review: What is casual water and how do I play around it? appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

1: You’re playing a four-ball match today and it’s time to tee off, but your partner hasn’t shown up. A coin flip determines that you are away. What should you do?

a. Take a loss-of-hole penalty and hope your opponent shows up on the next hole.
b. Take a two-stroke penalty and play your opponents by yourself.
c. Play your opponents by yourself, no penalty.
d. Request a 10-minute delay of the tee time and let another foursome go ahead of your group.

2: The late-arriving teammate debacle aside, it’s your turn to play and you hit your tee shot toward a penalty area on the right side of the hole. You don’t see it splash, but everyone hears something like a splash and a group of ducks in the water scatter as you hear the sound. What should you do?

a. Since you’re not 100 per cent sure it’s in the water, call for a provisional ball and play it until you can find the original.
b. Since your partner has yet to arrive, you’re entitled to play two balls against your opponents and you hit another in the fairway.
c. Search for your ball, you’ve got five minutes to find it before it’s considered lost.
d. There’s enough evidence to consider it in the water, so add a stroke to your score and take a drop estimating the relief by where it likely last crossed over the margin of the penalty area.

3: One of your opponents looks a little nervous. After taking a few practice swings on the first tee, he’s ready to go, but his first stroke is a whiff. The gust is strong enough to make the ball fall off the tee, but it stays behind the tee markers. What should he do?

a. Count the stroke and play the ball as it lies.
b. Re-tee the ball, no penalty.
c. Count the stroke and re-tee the ball.
d. Don’t count the stroke but play it as it lies.

4: After your opponents get off the tee, you walk to your balls only to look back at the tee and see your partner is trying to get your attention. Since he’s less than five minutes late for the tee time, he’d like to tee off and join the competition. What should he do?

a. Take a two-stroke penalty for arriving late and join the competition mid-hole.
b. Pick up his ball and move out to the fairway to give you advice on how to beat your opponents now that it’s 2-on-1.
c. Tee off and join the competition on the first hole, no penalty.
d. Although his score doesn’t count, tee off and play the hole anyway as a warm-up for the next hole.

5: One of your opponent’s tee shots embedded in mud in the rough just off the fairway. He claims he’s entitled to lift, clean and move the ball out of the pitch mark without penalty. What should he do?

a. Lift, clean and replace the ball in the relief area that is no closer to the hole than the spot where it is embedded. No penalty is applied.
b. Lift the ball, but don’t clean it, before taking penalty-free relief.
c. Take an unplayable lie, add a penalty stroke, and play on from the proper relief area.
d. Since it’s in the rough, and not embedded in turf that is fairway height or less, there’s no relief. Play it as it lies.

6: After advancing the ball from near the penalty area, you’re ready to hit your next shot when you notice that between you and hole, only five yards away, is an irrigation control box. You’re worried you might hit it. What should you do?

a. Consider it an immovable obstruction and take relief to get clear of the irrigation control box, no penalty.
b. Play it as it lies.
c. Play two balls, one with free relief, and one without, and let the committee decide after the match.

7: Your opponent is about to hit his approach shot but he can’t see the green. His partner goes in front of him and stands on a hill near the green, indicating his line of play. What should happen next?

a. The partner should stay at that spot until the teammate’s stroke is completed.
b. The partner should move before his teammate hits.
c. The partner is not allowed to indicate the line of play until the putting green. They should be penalized.
d. The partner should move before his teammate hits, but he can leave a club or another marker on the spot to give the teammate something to aim at.

8: You’re in position to hit the green with your next shot and your opponent has a similar lie from a similar distance. After you knock it on the green, pin-high, you walk back to put the club in your bag and your opponent comes over and watches you replace the club to determine how to play his next shot. What should happen next?

a. Your opponent is out of the hole for trying to obtain advice on how to play the next shot.
b. Your opponent gets a two-stroke penalty for spying on your club selection.
c. There is no penalty, and your opponent plays his next shot with the newfound information from your club selection.
d. To avoid disqualification, your opponent is required to announce that he committed a rules violation by spying on your club selection.

9: You reach the green and are standing over a putt to win the hole. You’re a touch nervous and when making a practice stroke, you accidentally hit your ball. What should you do?

a. Add a stroke to your score and play your next stroke from the new position.\
b. Add a stroke to your score and play your next stroke from the original position.
c. Play the ball as it now lies, no penalty.
d. Replace the ball in its original position, no penalty.

10: You’re on the green 20 feet from the hole. Both your opponents are in greenside rough, short-sided, about 15 feet from the hole. What should you do?

a. Wait for both your opponents to play onto the green before putting.\
b. Wait for one of your opponents to play before taking your turn.
c. Hit your putt.
d. Offer for your opponents to play first to save time.

ANSWERS

1. c (Rule 23.4)

2. d (Rule 17.1c)

3. a (Rule 6.2b(5))

4. b (Rule 23.4)

5. a (Rule 16.3, Rule 14.1c)

6. b (Rule 16.1a)

7. b (Rule 23.5, Rule 10.2b)

8. c (Rule 10.2a)

9. d (Rule 13.1d)

10. c or d (Rule 6.4a)

Main image: Wavebreakmedia

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Hovland has talked a lot about his wedge transformation and even shared a few of his tips for improving around the green. But according to him, one of his biggest “hallelujah” moments was when he dialled in his sand game.

On a recent episode of The Smylie Show, Hovland recounted a time when he was even contemplating not competing in the Memorial Tournament, an event he won this year, because of the difficult bunkers that line nearly every fairway and green at Muirfield Village Golf Club.

“I just had no chance,” Hovland said, “In those bunkers you’re always going to be on a downslope, and if you can’t catch the ball cleanly out of the bunkers, you’re not stopping the ball on the green.”

This was a problem for Hovland, who was chunking his sand shots at the time, something that might sound familiar to many amateurs.

Hovland attempted to correct the issue by using his upper body to control the speed of the shot. But, it wasn’t until Hovland teamed up with Golf Digest Best in State Teacher Joe Mayo, his current coach, that he had his breakthrough.

Together, they reinvented Hovland’s short game approach by introducing more “spin loft” to these short touch shots. You can read a more in-depth explanation of spin loft here, but in simplest terms, Hovland began swinging down on the ball with a steeper angle of attack.

While spin loft was the cause of Hovland’s breakthrough in the bunker, he also shared a setup key that has played a crucial role in his successful sand game.

The Key: Bending his lead knee

During his interview with Smylie Kauffman, Hovland mentions how important it is that he maintains a bend in his lead knee through the finish.

 

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A post shared by Smylie Kaufman (@smyliekaufman10)

This position is worth copying because it helps keep your weight forward throughout the entire shot—which Hovland says is key to pulling off any bunker shot.

It’s hard to throw your clubface or release the club properly if your weight isn’t already forward, Hovland says.

That’s because weight in the front leg creates a fixed point for you to rotate around. Which eliminates sway from your sand shots and produces more consistent strikes.

A bent lead knee also opens up your stance, making it easier to rotate around your post leg and turn through the shot completely. A simple change that will make a big difference if you tend to hang back on bunker shots.

Lastly, bending your lead knee will increase your stability. If you watch the clip above, you’ll see how little Hovland’s head moves when he makes his swing—something most amateurs should strive for in their bunker game.

Most amateurs bob up and down when hitting sand shots, a move that’s often exaggerated under pressure. While this might feel like you’re hitting down on it, the vertical movement is actually causing you to lunge at the ball, which leads to frustrating inconsistencies from the sand. It’s probably why you chunk one then thin the next.

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There have been a number of incidents on the pro tours in recent years where golfers have played the wrong ball with disastrous — and expensive — consequences. Mark Hensby was assessed a 10-stroke penalty, yep 10 strokes, for playing a wrong ball in the 2021 Palmetto Championship.

In 2022, Mackenzie Hughes got hosed at the Farmers Insurance Open when a volunteer set a flag down next to a ball in the rough that turned out to be another player’s ball. He played it, took a triple after the penalty, and ended up missing the cut.

 

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A post shared by United States Golf Association (@usga)

We could go on, but you get the idea. You’re not alone if you’ve mistakenly played someone else’s ball. (We’ll get into incidents when a golfer intentionally plays someone else’s ball a little later in this article. That happens, too).

So how do you proceed if you accidentally play a wrong ball? Under Rule 6.3c, in match play you lose the hole. In stroke play, it’s a two-shot penalty and you must correct the mistake by going back and playing your ball to finish the hole. If your ball is lost, proceed under the stroke-and-distance penalty (yes, that means a third extra stroke to your score, sorry!)

This rule is pretty easy to understand, but let’s take a slightly deeper look at a few wrong-ball scenarios that often happen. One is when opponents in match play happen to hit each other’s golf balls. The way to handle this situation is to assess the loss-of-hole penalty to the player who hit the wrong ball first. If you and your opponent aren’t sure who hit first, there is no penalty and you should play out the hole with each other’s golf balls.

And to clarify the stroke-play procedure, you’re only hit with two shots for playing a wrong ball no matter how many strokes you take on a given hole with it. However, if you start the next hole with the wrong ball, you’re disqualified. If you’re wondering why Hensby wasn’t DQd, it’s because the tournament was using Model Local Rule G-4 allowing for a two-shot penalty on each hole where the player used a wrong ball.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what happens to a golfer who intentionally plays a wrong ball and is caught, well, Rule 1.2 covers it. The cheat is banished.

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She was just the seventh woman in history to try, and for a while, it looked like she might. Thompson played her way inside the cutline deep into her second round., but her rounds of 73-69 meant she was likely to miss as play continued on Friday. Her run but her run captivated and inspired the golf world along the way. And her good play wasn’t just the result of elite skill, but clever game management.

How Lexi chased roll

On the course, the primary issue that Thompson, like the trailblazing female golfers before her, was a relative lack of driving distance.

Thompson played from the same set of tees as her male counterparts at the Shriners. Her average ball speed hovered around 155 mph for most of the tournament. The PGA Tour’s average tour speed, by contrast, is 172 mph. It led to a distance discrepancy that left Thompson ranked 116th in the field in Driving Distance, with a 301-yard average.

Yet through an adept combination of elite level skill and smarts, Lexi was able to mitigate this disadvantage, and put herself in contention to make the cut anyway.

Thompson’s stock shot off the tee is a draw — a shot that moves from right-to-left. But as the tournament unfolded, golf fans watching closely could see Thompson turning the dial up and down on her draw at different points during her round.

On certain holes where Lexi didn’t need to stretch more distance out of her drives, she would turn the dial down, hitting a shot that that flew higher than her standard, with slightly more backspin, and mostly straight.

We saw this on the second hole, which moves severely from left-to-right (an awkward fit for her right-to-left draw players) during her first round.

We saw it also on the reachable par-4 15th hole during her second round. Lexi had the distance required to reach the green with a driver, so the priority became landing something soft enough to hold the green—which she did.

She’s got the ?????!@Lexi drives the green on the 296-yard par-4 15th @ShrinersOpen. pic.twitter.com/3CFrK7MrKQ

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) October 13, 2023

Then, on holes where Thompson needed as much distance as she could muster, she turned the dial up. Her stock right-to-left draw became bigger and more severe, which reduced the amount of backspin on her drives. When Lexi turned to this shot the ball landed and rolled — a lot. It allowed her to maximite her driving distance to her fullest extend, especially as the fairways began firming up over the course of her rounds.

We saw this on the fourth hole, one of the longest par-4s on the course, during her second round.

Lexi roping right-to-left draws to maximize roll on a course that's firming up.

46 yards of roll on this drive

So awesome. pic.twitter.com/0mKtZJPpFj

— LKD (@LukeKerrDineen) October 13, 2023

You could also spot it on the nearly 600-yard 13th hole during her first round.

It’s not easy to conjure up this amount of curve on your driver and still maintain enough accuracy to hit the fairway, but Thompson did. She ranked inside the top 20 in driving accuracy over the week, which helped her SG/off-the-tee ranking (81st) jump higher than her driving distance ranking (116th).

It was an impressive display of control and creativity from a player who makes her money on the LPGA Tour leaning on her distance. But that’s what great players do. When the circumstances call for it, they adapt. That’s what Lexi did, and it was a joy to watch.

What the rest of us can learn

As for the takeaway for the rest of us? That too much backspin on drives is a driving distance killer. If you hit a slice, you almost certainly have too much distance-killing backspin. Same with if you have a driver that isn’t fit for your swing. It’s all about landing in your optimal zone.

Main image: Michael Owens

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Here’s a couple of demonstrations of the grip that have popped up on my social media feeds recently. And rather than calling it the social-media-putting-grip-that’s-trendy-in-Japan, I’m officially titling it the butterfly grip, because golfers’ hands kind of resemble a butterfly when they hold the club this way.

 

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The main components of the grip basically involve clasping the ring and middle fingers of your left hand with your pinky, ring, and middle fingers of your right hand. This intertwines your fingers in a way that actually has a few benefits:

@stevejohnstonpga

Try this new putting grip. It levels out your shoulders….clever! Want to take your golf game to the next level with ?FREE instruction of a modern day Golf Swing Method? Click here for ?7 days ?FREE? access to Eureka Golf Swing https://www.eurekagolfswing.com/ Link in instagram bio ? ggolfggolfswingeeurekagolfswingggolfrggolfingggolftipssshortsyyoutubeshortsrreelsiinstagramreelsggolflifettaylormadeccallawaygolfttitleistppingggolfaddictggolferggolfpracticeggolfpornggolfreelsggolfdrillggolfclubggolfballggolfcourseggolfstrikeggolfimpactpputtingg#golflesson

♬ original sound – Steve Johnston PGA

• It places the grip deeply in palm of both your hands, which can prevent the wrists from taking over your putting stroke.
• It tucks your elbows into your side as a result, which allows the shoulders to power your putting stroke.
• It places both hands relatively level to each other, which levels out your shoulders for a more level strike over all.
• It’s hard to squeeze too firmly with your fingers so intertwined, which keeps grip pressure soft in both hands.

Give the butterfly grip a try if you’re looking to shake up your putting, and remember who first termed it the ‘butterfly grip’ when some tour player wins with this grip in about two years and sends the method mainstream.

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If you have read our previous Discover Golf editions, you should be familiar with how to hold the club, address the ball and swing the club. Now I will take you through some key points to help you use the driver as effectively as possible.

What is a driver?

The driver is the largest of all the clubs in the bag and the go to start most holes that require maximising the distance you can achieve from your swing. This is possible due to its large volume of head size, length of shaft and aided by lower lofts and lighter weight.

Understanding Low Point

Low point, in golf terminology, refers to the point in the swing arc where the clubhead is at its lowest position before it starts its upward trajectory. When hitting the driver, the position of the low point is crucial. A suitable low point helps ensure that you make contact with the ball slightly on the upswing, which is a crucial element for maximising distance and achieving an optimal launch angle.

To establish a consistent low point, focus on maintaining a shallower sweeping movement of the club through the lower part of the swing and avoiding lowering the body dramatically during the downswing, something that can be common when incorrectly trying to ‘keep the head down’ something that should be avoided. When the low point is well-managed, the driver’s loft can be utilised effectively, leading to longer and more controlled drives.

3 Keys to unlock your driver’s potential

1 Using of a tee and tee height?

Using a tee and adjusting tee height when hitting a driver in golf is essential for optimising your performance with this shot. A tee is used to elevate the golf ball above the surface providing us with a guaranteed perfect lie every time. Because of this, it is easier to launch the ball into the air as it provides the opportunity to strike the ball without making contact with the ground and assist with striking the ball more on the upward part of the clubs movement.

A useful starting point is having half of the ball above the height of the driver face, however finding the optimal tee height requires experimentation during your practice sessions. Pay attention to how different tee heights affect your contact and ball flight and adjust accordingly by either increasing the tee height or lowering it.

2 Ball Position

Next up to help create the optimal strike with the driver is the strategic placement of the golf ball in relation to the stance. Altering this will have an effect on the body positioning and if the ball is struck on the up or downswing, greatly affecting your shot outcome.

For drivers, a great place to start is positioning the ball inside of your front heel. This placement ensures that the low point occurs just before the ball, enabling you to hit the ball on the upswing. When the ball is positioned too far forward, closer to the front foot, the low point could happen too early and potential mishits. Conversely, if the ball is too far back in your stance, the low point may occur after the ball, resulting in an overly steep angle of attack and reduced distance.

3 Width of Stance

The width of your stance plays a vital role in achieving the proper swing shape for hitting the driver effectively. A stance that is too narrow, you may have trouble staying balanced, leading to inconsistent shots., while a stance that is too wide might hinder your rotational movement and timing. 

When addressing the ball with the driver, aim for a stance that is wider than shoulder-width. This provides a stable foundation while allowing enough ability to rotate and have the body positioned suitably during the swing. The wider stance also encourages a sweeping motion, which aligns well with the shallow angle of attack required for successful driver shots.

Putting It All Together

As we discussed, the upward strike on the ball typically creates a more optimal outcome. To help with achieving this put the previous points into play and focus on maintaining a shallow, sweeping motion in the downswing. 

Putting this together and discovering the appropriate movement in the body to simulate the correct arc is to try the following drill. 

Simply by placing a headcover (a ball or an additional rubber tee) in front of the tee where your ball would sit creates feedback of where the low point is and increases the likelihood of a more upward strike. Through doing this you will start to gain awareness of the suitable body movement that avoids contacting the object, if you do it is likely that your low point is too low and too left producing a downward impact into the ball. Practise swinging through, clipping the tee, and avoiding hitting the object in front. Avoid excessive attempts to scoop the ball into the air, by shortening your arms as this can lead to inconsistent contact and reduced distance. Practising this aspect of your swing can lead to more consistent and powerful drives off the tee. 

Remember that consistency and improvement in these areas require practice and dedication. As you gain a deeper understanding of how these factors influence your shots, you’ll be better equipped to unleash the full power and potential of the driver in your golf game.

Conor Thornton is a member of the PGA Professionals team at Golf Saudi-managed Riyadh Golf Club

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