Eric Cogorno here with Performance Golf Zone. In today's video, we're going to talk about
two killer death moves with the driver. I want to talk about what these are, give
you a drill to fix those, so by the time you play next time, we're hitting that driver
a lot straighter and farther. So, what are the two killer death moves? Well, the two things that I see most often
that cost you guys the most in distance and direction.
The first part has to do with weight transfer. So, no doubt, overwhelmingly, and there's
a bunch of different reasons why this happens, when I watch an amateur golfer, from the top
of their backswing, a lot of you guys and gals are hanging way too far back on your
back foot throughout the entire swing. Sometimes, your right foot's still being completely
on the ground by the time you finish your swing. Now, if you watch a player who hits the ball
long and straight off the tee, you'll always see them getting into a finish position that
looks something like this. They're up over their left side, their foot
is on their right toe, their body is turned towards the target and forward. And, obviously, there's a lot of variables
involved with that, but it's very important we get to that finish position. Now, why is that important? Well, when you guys are making swings and
you hang back on your back foot, a couple things come up with that. The biggest issue is swing direction. Now, there's a huge correlation with swinging
over the top and where your weight is in your feet.
So, let's say, 90% of people, during the downswing,
swing their club over the top or outside, outside and across or to the left, something
that causes those slice shots, right. So, with this pattern, you're getting pulls
and slices. Now, where the weight is in the feet is a
huge indicator of that. When I make a downswing, the more my weight
stays on my right foot, or my back foot, you can see, the more the club wants to be outside
the plane and swinging to the left, getting those pulls and those slice shots, compared
to, from the top, if I can start to shift my weight to the left as I swing through. Does that guarantee I fix that over-the-top? No, of course it doesn't, but it helps my
odds with it. It puts me in an opportunity where I can do
some things, then, to swing from the inside and get incredible distance increases.
That's part number one. Obviously, when we're hanging back, too, hitting
the ball in the middle, the face, gets more difficult, to moving more forward. There's a lot of pieces for both solid contact
and direction. So, I would use the same drill as some of
the other videos, where I would put a club underneath my foot and make sure that club
falls out before I get to my finish position, or just checking where my finish position
gets to. So, if I go ahead and do an example, I'll
do a good one first, which is, I come off my right foot and finish up onto my left side.
So, there would be a good version of the swing. Again, I'm fully up over my left leg, my right
foot's up on my toe. That ball went pretty far and straight. Now, if I do the bad version, which would
be my weight staying back on my right foot too much, again, I'm going to expect this
to come a little bit more over the top. I don't expect to produce as much speed or
distance as normal with this option. So, here's back on my right foot. So, there's a little bit of a fade. Now, I would have hit that in the fairway,
but that probably was 70 to 80 yards, literally, shorter than my first one. Imagine, if you want to produce speed and
hit the ball far, how much speed can you produce if I stay back here on my right foot? I can't turn a lot from there.
I can't shift and use the ground a lot from
there. You may hit fairways that way, but you're
losing a tremendous amount of difference compared to the speed I can produce if I push off my
right foot and get all the way up into my left side. So, that would be the death move number one
with the driver that I see most often, that we want to fix. You can shift off your right foot right from
the top of the backswing. You can do it a lot. Get all the way off it by the time you get
to your finish position. Now, death move number two is angle of attack.
So, speaking of distance increase or decrease,
angle of attack is a tremendous influencer here. So, basically, in a one-to-one, the more with
my driver that I hit downward on the golf ball, so the club coming from some amount
up in the air, the more that it strikes down on the ball with my driver, the shorter I'm
going to hit the ball, one-to-one. So, the more I hit down, the shorter it goes,
and then the opposite is true. Then, the less I hit down, or even the more
that I could actually hit the ball slightly on the way up, the farther it goes. With a normal club head speed, if you were
to hit downward 5 degrees…what's 5 degrees? I'm just going to call that a bunch down…and
I got you to swing upward 5 degrees, so hitting down quite a bit to hitting up quite a bit,
you could be talking about 30, you know, 25, 30 yards off the tee difference with the same
club head speed.
Most of you guys watching this video aren't
going to be able to add 10 or 15 miles per hour to your club head speed, which would
be required to hit it 30 yards farther, but you can change your angle of attack easier
and get those 30 yards with the same club head speed. So, a downward angle of attack is death move
number two. Why do you swing downward and hit down? There could be multiple variables. The first thing I'm always looking for is
the setup position. If I took a normal driver setup, the more
back or to the right the ball is in my stance, the more, all else equal, I would hit down
on the ball.
The more back in my stance, more down, and
then the opposite is true. The more forward in my stance, the more up
I would hit on the ball. Where should you put the ball for a normal
setup? Well, it depends, but I would say, for a stock
model, you'd be looking at somewhere, roughly, your left heel, or a better marker would be,
of your upper body, you want to go somewhere between your armpit and your shoulder territory.
If I'm swinging my club on just a normal circle
around my body, roughly, my armpit or shoulder territory would be just forward of where my
low point would be. In other words, that's where I could hit up
on the ball. If I really wanted to hit up, I'd move the
ball a little bit even more forward in my stance.
How far forward am I allowed to go? You can go as far forward as you want. There's no rules here. I can move the ball as far forward as I can
functionally make work. There's a point where there's diminishing
returns, but fine for you, just understand, more forward, more up, more distance. Tee height is an influencer. If I want to hit up on the ball, would I tee
the ball very low to the ground? Of course, you wouldn't, because you have
no room to get to the ball. I would tee the ball up a normal tee height. It's kind of half the ball above, half below,
or higher than that. If I wanted to increase the odds of hitting
up, I would tee the ball high, move the ball forward. So, there's these little checkup setup pieces. Now, for drill-wise, for feedback, I would
typically use an object. It could be a driver head cover or a towel,
something along those lines, and I'd put it in front of the golf ball as a little piece
that's in your way, just to monitor where the club head goes.
And I'd start without a ball there, and I
would start clipping the tees. I'd put the ball where I said, about roughly
in line with my left shoulder/armpit, and I'd start clipping the tee and missing that
head cover, and learning what it feels like to get the club head moving upward. Now, notice, I'm making very small swings. I'm not going full speed, full swing length
in the beginning to learn this. I'm going short and slow, and I'm feeling,
what do I feel like I need to do to get upward on it? Well, I feel a couple things from there, personally. I feel like my legs are extending up. I feel that my arms and the grip are working
up and left compared to normal.
I can sort of feel my shoulder working up
out of the way. You can feel whatever you want to feel. If you do the drill and it produces the results,
anything goes with this, but you'd be looking at you coming up as you're turning, making
the grip and hands working up, and extending into your follow-through to hit the ball farther. So, in a perfect world, if I wanted to hit
my ball the best and the farthest, I would put those pieces together, which is, I want
to do, get rid of killer move number one, which is hanging back on my back foot, and
I want to get rid of move number two, which is hitting down.
If I wanted to put those all together, I'd
set up with the golf ball pretty far forward in my stance, teed up nice and high, and I'd
make a swing where I'd make sure I'm off my right foot and I feel like I'm coming, extending,
going upward into my follow-through to maximize the angle of attack. And, hopefully, that would look something
like this. And that was pretty high and long and straight
for me. I'm on my left side. It felt like I swung up more on the way through
to maximize my club head speed. So, those are the two killer moves off the
tee. Don't hang back on the right foot. Don't hit down on it. Figure out, use those drills or other ones
to hit more up, get off that right foot. You'll hit the ball longer and straighter. Hope that makes sense. If you guys liked the video, click the Like
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please leave a comment if you guys have any questions.