High Tee
Tiger Woods drove his BMW and stop at a gas station for a top up after golf. As he was about to come out from his driver's seat, a couple of golf tees he left in his trouser's pocket slipped out and dropped onto the car seat. The pump attendant, an old man came to deliver the usual service, spotted the couple of tees on the seat and enquired what those were.
So, Tiger trying to be nice, patiently explained that "oh, these are tees that I use to prop up my ball when driving" to which the amazed old man exclaimed: "Damn, these people at BMW sure thought of everything for the driver!"
Drivers Today
Take a look at all the latest drivers in the last few years and you will notice their huge size from club face height to the length and its entire perimeter from front to back. How do we take advantage of technology since the art of driving has dramatically changed throughout the years? Long time ago, driver size was about the size of today's no.3 fairway woods and when you hit it, it gives a low-rising flight and now it is replaced with a high trajectory with less spin for more distance. Therefore, making small adjustments with your technique will enable you to use your new driver the way it was designed and intended to be hit high, long and straight.
When you look at your driver today you will notice that the club face is so much deeper from top to bottom and as a result, the sweet spot is no longer at the bottom or middle of your club face but located more towards the top end zone. Hitting it on this zone will result in optimum spin and at the correct launch angle and getting more distance.
Longer Tees
Firstly, you will need longer tees to tee the ball higher up. By teeing up higher you are ensuring that you can make contact correctly above the equator of the club face. There is a rule governing how deep a club face can be and how long a tee is allowed. This is so because the higher you hit a ball the greater the distance you can generate. People often have the mistaken notion that you get longer distance by hitting lower because you wasted distance on a high trajectory. Take a stone and throw it - one with a low trajectory and one high and you will see the lower one dropping very quickly whereas the higher one soars and goes further. To get the ball further it has to reach a maximum top height, an apex to gain optimum distance. Of course it also depends on each individual's launch angle since we all hit it differently but that is the general position.
Club Face
Most of today's newer drivers do not have grooves in the middle of the club face so as to impart reduced spin on the ball because simply put - lower spin and higher launch is the way to a longer drive. You will also notice many drivers come with a 10.5 degrees or 9.5 degrees as opposed to old drivers at 10 degrees and 9 degrees. The extra 0.5 degree is a means of compensation to aid you because of the lower spin as some golfers may have difficulty launching the ball high enough and lowering spin on the club itself can pose a problem so the 0.5 degree is to help compensate you. Tiger Woods was using an 8.5 degrees but today he has switched to a 10.5 degrees and hitting more fairways. By and large, many folks still buy a 9.5 degrees driver thinking that it will help them hit longer but this is not the case unless you have your launch angle measured by a pro and that is the recommended loft or when you have a very high swing speed which results in very high shots but that is usually unlikely. Getting the right ball can help too depending on our swing speed and launch angle.
Stance & Set Up.
To ensure that you launch your ball higher, try taking a slightly wider stance with an increase in your spine angle. As a minimum, you legs should at least be shoulder length apart during set up or just a wee bit more for better balance but you have to do it while standing tall and not slouching otherwise you will look like hidden dragon and slouching tiger. Increasing your spine angle means you have to be tilting your spine in such a way that your top half of your spine is tilted slightly away from the target. Just picture yourself and your spine angle when you are trying to hit the ball from a slight upward slope. That is the angle to prepare you to launch the rocket! However, it is important for you to ensure that you maintain that spine angle in all your shots as quite often not maintaining our spine angle is the cause of some bad shots.
To ensure that you launch your ball higher, try taking a slightly wider stance with an increase in your spine angle. As a minimum, you legs should at least be shoulder length apart during set up or just a wee bit more for better balance but you have to do it while standing tall and not slouching otherwise you will look like hidden dragon and slouching tiger. Increasing your spine angle means you have to be tilting your spine in such a way that your top half of your spine is tilted slightly away from the target. Just picture yourself and your spine angle when you are trying to hit the ball from a slight upward slope. That is the angle to prepare you to launch the rocket! However, it is important for you to ensure that you maintain that spine angle in all your shots as quite often not maintaining our spine angle is the cause of some bad shots.
Do not be afraid to try it out. Once you get adjusted, you will find out how much you have been missing out! You flight mates may be quite angry with me. This is a bit like Breaking The Magician's Code. If I have in any way help some, I would may also have inevitably hurt some. This being the case, like breaking the magician's code, I will soon be wearing a mask. Perhaps employ two pretty ladies as assistants too. Just a bit of trick and you will get amazing results. Well, tee up and go for an all time high! Here's Rita Coolidge confirming it:
Golf as in life, play as it lies.
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