Driver Setup Adjustments
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How to set up for the driver is something that I get asked all the time. All the golf magazines and pundits on TV talking about how you should tee it high and set up with the ball way forward in your stance, so it must be correct, right? Well, sort of...Find out how to make the necessary setup adjustments for the driver with the Rotary Swing Tour.
- As a rule, use the same swing with every club in the bag
- There are some adjustments that will provide extra distance with the driver
- Move the ball about 6" up, so you catch it on the upswing
- The new ball position will cause pull - close your stance slightly to compensate
- Use the adjusted shot for special situations but continue to practice the standard swing with the driver for consistent release position
A lot of golfers ask, should the swing be the same for every club in the bag?
Absolutely, you don't want 12 different golf swings.
But, at the same point, the driver, especially over the last 10 years, has changed dramatically in its design.
And now that we have launch monitors available very easily, you can see how setting up and using the equipment the way it's designed now can get you a lot more distance if you use it correctly.
But, at the same point, there are adjustments to your golf swing that have to be made.
And so, what you're going to find is that if you swing exactly the same with every club in the bag, the whole point of that is to be able to get your release point and the swing to feel exactly the same, you won't be optimizing the driver to hit it as far as you possibly can.
Is that necessarily a bad thing?
If you look at the tour average, they hit down about 1.
3 degrees.
So, they have a negative angle of attack of over a degree.
And, of course, we all know that if you want to hit the ball as far as you can, you want to catch the ball on an upswing slightly.
And, depending on your swing speed, that's all going to vary a little bit.
But, typically, a few degrees is enough to get you quite a bit more yardage and get the ball to fly a little bit further and carry a little bit more distance overall.
So, why do the tour pros hit down on it when they know that they can hit it further?
The reason is the same thing that I've been teaching you to get your release point and the same point every time for consistency.
They have enough speed to give up a little distance for the sake of accuracy and consistency.
I do the same thing.
My negative angle of attack is almost exactly the same, about 1.
4 degrees.
So, I hit down on the ball a little bit and I hit the ball a little bit lower and it cost me some yardage.
But, my release point feels the same with pretty much every club in the bag.
Now, there are times, though, when I want to hit the ball a little bit further.
I need to get it to carry that extra yardage, to carry a bunker or a hazard and land softer and fly a little bit higher.
Or take advantage of some wind to get to a long par 5, etc.
And, those are times where I won't hit down on the ball as much.
So, my swing, I will make adjustments and that's what I want to show you here.
So, I've got a yellow ball here that's going to show where I would have the ball and how I would set up normally on a normal stock golf shot.
This is where I'm going to hit down on the ball a little bit.
So, the ball is going to be basically in the exact same spot it always is.
Just a hair forward just so I can take some negative angle of attack out because with my irons, I'm about 5 or 6 degrees down.
So, the angle of the shaft helps or the lie angle helps a little bit.
But, to get us a little bit more, I'll move it just a hair forward.
We're talking half a ball width for a stock shot.
But, it's not enough to make a dramatic difference.
So, that's going to be my normal setup.
And, I've got this shaft here so you can see because I'm going to show you how I adjust my alignment a little bit to make this work.
So, as I come into impact with this yellow ball, my face should be squared up.
Now, this white ball up here is about 6 inches in front of this one.
And, the reason for that is in a second, I'm going to show you how I would adjust to hit the ball higher.
But, by the time I release here, the club face would be slightly shut in relationship to my yellow line here, my alignment line.
So, if I didn't hit the yellow ball and I hit the white one instead, the ball would go left of my target line.
It would be a big pull because the club is working on an arc and it's working back to the left and shutting down.
So, by the time it gets to that ball, the club face is going to be closed.
So, this is going to be a straight shot.
This is going to be a pull.
But, I need that shot sometimes where I want to hit it really high and get some more carry out of it.
So, the ball has got to be up in my stance closer to where this white ball is.
So, what do I do to adjust for that?
Well, let's look at this logically.
First of all, if my face is square with the yellow ball and now it's going to be shut up here, but I want it to launch on that target line, how would I do that?
Well, the simple answer is I would square up my, excuse me, close my set up just a little bit and that's going to allow me to get a positive angle of attack and get the ball to start on my target line.
Because now, as I said earlier, this is a pull, but if I close my stance, I'm now set up to the point where this club face would now be squared up instead of a pull.
And if I went open with it, this would be a bigger pull.
So, all I'm going to do is adjust my setup a few degrees enough that the club face is now going to match up with my alignment here.
So, if I'm set up here and now I'm here, the club face is now just going to be square to where I'm aiming.
I'm going to be releasing at that point.
So, all you're going to do in order to get the ball to launch a little bit higher and create a little bit more positive angle of attack, which you can accomplish by moving the ball up in your stance slightly, is alter your stance slightly shut.
And so, now in relationship to where you're swinging, the club face will be square to your alignment at impact, but shut in relationship to your body where the ball is at impact.
So, again, this is normal.
This is squared up now for a positive angle of attack.
So, all you need to do is just adjust your setup slightly shut and the ball will come off square to your target line.
And that will help you create a more positive angle of attack and get a little bit more carry out of it.
At the same point, I think it's very, very important that you practice hitting a lot of drives in your normal ball position with the driver.
They're going to fly very low in relationship to what this other one's going to do, But it's important to teach yourself how to release the club in the same point with every club in the bag, so that you have the release points the same.
And that's going to help you learn to hit the ball straight with every club in the bag.
So, like I said, your driver's going to fly low.
You might take a little bit of a divot with the driver when you're practicing this.
Perfectly okay.
I have a lot of my tour players purposely do it.
Because they start getting to this point where they try to create a lot of secondary axis tilt to create a really positive angle of attack.
And so now, all of a sudden, we've got to fix that.
So I start having them work on staying more tall and hitting down a little bit so that the driver releases just as the three wood or three iron or pitching wedge would.
And then once we've got that zeroed out and everything's squared up, the ball's coming out low but on line, then we make little setup adjustments to allow them to create a positive angle of attack without trying to get their spine leaned way back at impact.
Because you want your body to be basically the same for every club in the bag.
So, change your setup just a little bit and that will help you hit the driver further when you need it.
But practice hitting it square every time with your normal setup so that you get the release point in the same place.
Matthew
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
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