Day 8: How to Shape the Driver
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Learn how to shape the driver off the tee to put the ball exactly where you want on every hole. Learn a secret of the pros that makes shaping the driver a piece of cake.
All right, bonus time.
We've talked a lot about the Irons over the last few days.
Of how to start playing like the pros and start thinking your way around the golf course and shaping the ball the right way.
Instead of just trying to manipulate and fabricate some miraculous shot that you can pull off one out of a hundred.
It's not the goal.
The goal is always to hit the low, excuse me, to shoot the lowest score as possible and hit the most consistent shots that you can.
Golf's the only sport in the world where you, once you get to a certain level, you don't want to get any better.
You want to keep hitting the exact same shot over and over and over again.
So if you can hit a seven iron perfectly straight or hit it exactly where you want to, depending on your shot shape, 160 yards every time, what's the point of hitting 170? You've got a six iron for that.
Don't change what you've got that's working for you.
That's what the pros do so well.
They know their limitations and they hit the shots that they know they can pull off every time.
Now, when it comes to the driver, this is where every boy gets separated from the man, right? When this club comes out of the bag, a lot of stuff can go right or really wrong really quick.
And especially when it comes to trying to shape shots.
Now the tendency for the driver, for most golfers is they pick it up and they swing really steep.
And of course the club face just doesn't have the mass for the toe to want to rotate over.
And so they start hitting these big banana slices.
Now, of course, as you're working on RST, you've got all those swing plane stuff figured out.
If you haven't, Please go back and watch the Swing Plane video because it's going to show you how to fix it and what's causing your swing plane problems.
So I'm going to assume that you're well down that path already.
And now what you want to do is learn how to hit a little baby draw, a little baby cut with the big dog and put it in play every time.
So just like when I talked about with the irons, the setup on the tee markers is the same.
You're always putting yourself in a position where you're close to the trouble, aiming sometimes, believe it or not, even at the trouble and working it away from it.
So that as the ball comes to rest, it's going to be working always away from the trouble.
It seems counterintuitive, but a lot of times I'm actually going to set up an aim at trouble or close to it in that direction.
But I know that the ball is going to shape to the other side.
That gives me margin of error.
Now, of course, if you're not sure if the ball is going to shape to the other side, you don't want to aim at the trouble, But you're going to be aiming more in that direction while working the ball away from it so that if you do, hit it straight, it still doesn't go in the hazard.
So how do we do that consistently with the drivers? Things are happening so fast and it's hard to control the hands.
There's so much momentum and inertia.
And how do we do all this stuff? Here's a little secret.
Ball position.
And it's not the ball position you think of.
Ball position, when set up correctly with the driver, makes hitting these little shots super easy.
You're going to be a draw or cut expert by the end of this video.
So how do we do that? Well, the simple reality is that the club, The mass of the driver and the way they're designed these days has a tremendous horizontal and vertical gear effect.
That allows you to simply manipulate ball flight by moving the ball around on the face a tiny amount.
Did you know that for missing the center of the club face by a half inch, do you know how much that ball will tend to go offline? About 20 yards.
So just by missing the center of the club face, that tiny amount there, that ball is going to curve 20 yards.
Now, which direction is going to curve? Depends on which side of the face you hit it on.
So in this case, if I hit it off the heel, that's going to hit a cut.
The horizontal gear effect, the physics are going to always make that ball spin to the right.
If I hit it off the toe, it's always going to spin to the left.
You can't overcome this.
So no matter what, that ball is always going to curve when it's not hit in the center of the club face.
For every driver on the planet, physics can't be beat.
Mr.
Newton was right.
So you hit the ball in the center of the face, everything's perfectly square, club face is square, path is square, the ball should go straight.
Hit it up.
Same thing, club face square, path square, slightly, slightly, maybe an eighth or even a quarter of an inch toward the toe, ball is going to curve.
You don't have to try and release it.
Now, of course, you can do the exact same drills, and that's what I recommend you do, so you have both in the bag.
So you still work on the releases with the driver, but it is more difficult.
The club is moving much faster.
It's much further away from you.
It's much longer.
It's much more difficult to control.
than hitting a draw with a pitching wedge.
So you can take those variables out or mitigate them by releasing the club the way that you normally would with a draw, but also moving the ball out toward the heel or the toe, either one, a little bit and getting the same effect.
So that takes it so that you don't have to try and really release that club really hard because the driver is so much more unwieldy.
Just move the ball toward the heel or toward the toe a slight amount, and the ball will curve.
I guarantee it.
So practice this on the range first.
Just move the ball around just a tiny amount and start getting used to your driver.
You may find, and in most cases, it's always this way, that the sweet spot is actually not where you think it is.
It tends to be more toward the heel of the golf club.
That's where actually the ball will go straight.
So use some marking tape or spray some Pam or something on the club face.
So you can see where you hit the ball and what the ball did.
Now, of course, if your path is way off, we've got a whole nother set of problems, but if you're following RST and you watch my swing plane video, your path should be great.
So little changes with ball position and you're going to start looking like a tour pro on the tee.
Julie
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Julie
OC
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
ALEXEY
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Mark
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Marcel
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jared
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
David
Chuck
Marcel
Marcel
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)