Instruction

Scott Hamilton: How to unlock distance potential from your drives

Published

8 years ago

Aug 31, 2016

You really only need to do a few things to unlock a ton of potential distance from your driver. The funny thing is you probably don’t do them and when you don’t, you have almost no chance of hitting your driver anywhere. Watch the full lesson below and then use that short summary video as a quick checklist for you to go through before the next time you tee it up. You can watch me teach this lesson to a regular golfer and help him gain close to 80 yards on his driver, here.

Watch the full video of the lesson below

Watch Hamilton use this same lesson to help Ricky gain serious distance on his site, OnTOURgolf.com.

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Scott Hamilton

Currently teaching 14 PGA Tour players, Scott Hamilton is a staple on the PGA Tour range each week. In 2015, a poll of PGA Tour players conducted by Golf Digest ranked him as the No. 2 instructor on the PGA Tour. His players like him for his ability to conduct a complete analysis of their games and return a simple solution to help them play better. “You get the result you want without all the big words.” as Scott often says.

24 Comments

Erick

Dec 4, 2016 at 10:53 am

Some of the come-back comments have been flaming with venom. You’re passionate about the vital role that a PGA instructor plays in our golf game. I get that. Is it possible that your comments have been a bit vicious? Could it be that you have jumped on folks with some radical venom? The pros have instructors who work with them constantly to keep their swing at maximum efficiency. If the pros need coaching, we weekend warriors surely need coaching 3-5 times a year.

I am a 22 handicap and at the prompting of a friend, I just got custom-fitted new clubs. Fitting me for irons took 2+ solid hours of hitting ball after ball with various combinations of five club heads and a variety of shafts.

My old clubs were too short, the heads were too heavy, the shafts were too heavy.

We narrowed down the selections to three clubs that gave the most distance, then I chose the club and shaft with the best feel… the Callaway XR. I went from hitting my 7 iron 120 yards with my old 7 iron to consistently hitting the ball 155 yards with my new 7 iron.

Getting fitted for clubs is not just for low handicappers; It’s vital for high handicappers. My pal who pushed me to get my clubs fitted did so because he got fitted clubs, and they knocked 12 strokes off his game, and helped him win the Member/Guest Championship Tournament at his club this year.

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Bobby

Sep 28, 2016 at 1:24 pm

Thanks Scott, I have started using the setup as in your video and have become more consistent with distance and accuracy using this setup. Thanks, Bobby

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ButchT

Sep 25, 2016 at 2:34 pm

nevermind – figured it out!

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ButchT

Sep 25, 2016 at 2:22 pm

I must be doing something wrong? I cannot get past the first few seconds into the lesson with the student – screen just goes black?

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Guy

Sep 1, 2016 at 8:35 am

Nice teaching manner but be careful of signing up for his website as there is no easy cancelation method.

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- Guy
  
  Sep 1, 2016 at 9:17 am
  
  Just to add to the above. It seems a like a post to the ontour forum is the way to go. I got a reply within minutes.
  
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NLS

Sep 1, 2016 at 3:44 am

Hit up on it but please keep the face flat! Too many will hit up on the ball and hit the ball out the bottom of the face. With the newer drivers it won’t hit to hit it slightly hit on the face

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KK

Aug 31, 2016 at 10:05 pm

Didn’t watch the video because I smash drives longer and straighter than everyone I play against. Good luck.

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Thankyou

Aug 31, 2016 at 9:06 pm

This is a pro I would pay to see. Simple, straightforward, and to the point. Awesome stuff and looking forward to your next instruction tip!!

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JOEL GOODMAN

Aug 31, 2016 at 7:33 pm

IF ALL THESE “TIPS” ON HOW TO HIT IT LONGER WERE REAL, MOST PLAYERS WOULD BE HITTING THEIR DRIVER 400 YARDS. STOP YOUR SLICE And HIT IT LONGER ARE WET DREAMS AND NOTHING MORE… GO TAKE A LESSON FROM YOUR LOCAL PGA PROFESSIONAL IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE. NOTHING LOWERS YOUR SCORE BETTER EXCEPT CHEATING

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- alan
  
  Aug 31, 2016 at 7:53 pm
  
  uhh this dude has a STABLE of pga players. and more golf knowledge in his pinky than most “pga (teaching) professionals”
  
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- Justin
  
  Sep 1, 2016 at 1:36 pm
  
  All of these “tips” are 100% real. The main problem is that the average person is a very poor teacher for their own swing. Almost no one I know watches their own swing on video and even the few who do don’t always know how to correct what they are doing wrong. So you are right that most people should at a very minimum have a better player or preferably teacher look at their swing and get it on video. There are a few free phone apps you can download that will allow you to draw lines along swing planes and do other things to help you visualize the correct position. Everyone learns differently and some people will have to be physically put in the position and learn from repetition while others can see what they are doing and learn from that.
  
  I really hope the assumption that most players would be hitting their driver 400 yards is simply an over-exaggeration on your part because that’s just ridiculous. I may be able to count on one hand the number of people in the world that could hit a true 400 yard drive even once in benign conditions (completely flat surface that is neither soft nor hard, no wind, no humidity, at sea level, etc). Whenever you see 400+ yard drives on tour it’s usually due to firm conditions and/or a tailwind (usually both).
  
  Oh ya, and STOP SHOUTING! haha
  
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- Patricknorm
  
  Sep 28, 2016 at 2:09 pm
  
  Joel please take cap lock off. This is a simple, straightforward checklist to hitting consistent longer drives. It’s so good you can implement these yourself. It’s got me an extra 20 yards. Same driver, same ball. It works especially under pressure. The weather up here in Canada is only 50 degrees someday so , it’s important to have proper fundamentals.
  
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Steven

Aug 31, 2016 at 5:39 pm

I like how simple the fix is. All instructors could work on being this straight forward. It is something I started doing a last year and improved my distance and accuracy. My only concern is similar to others. The transition to irons is a little difficult because my mind makes me think they are 2 different swings even though it should just be a change in ball position.

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Mike

Aug 31, 2016 at 3:28 pm

I like this move when my drive is falling apart but I found that if I incorporate these actions into my typical driver swing they slowing start to permeate my iron swing too despite my best efforts and then it erodes into shank city.

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L

Aug 31, 2016 at 1:03 pm

Yeah you had better decrease the loft on that driver too if you’re gonna go from 2 down to 2 up, that’s 4 degrees of difference just from that tilt switch, so if you hit that same swing without changing that 10.5 degree head you’re gonna hit balloon balls and gonna wonder why Scott lied to ya, so you might want to at least get an 8.5 degree head for this move if you want to maximize it

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- Fredo
  
  Sep 1, 2016 at 12:42 pm
  
  Switch to 8.5 degrees wtf, I think you should start smoking crack :-0 Anybody that needs a change in anything should start with a PGA teaching pro and end up with a good qualified club fitter. Peace out. ??????
  
  Reply Report comment
  - L
    
    Sep 1, 2016 at 4:17 pm
    
    4 degrees of change. He told you to change it with 4 degrees of change, from 2 down to 2 up.
    You’re going to need to change your driver head with that much change.
    
    Logic.
    
    Reply Report comment
- gdb99
  
  Sep 13, 2016 at 7:37 pm
  
  Did the student in the video change his driver? It didn’t like it. And, he carried it 80+ yards farther with a 5* launch angle increase.
  
  Reply Report comment
Buford T Justice

Aug 31, 2016 at 12:44 pm

I bet that Oban Revenge helps with Carry distance as well.

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Tom

Aug 31, 2016 at 10:44 am

easy to remember, easy to do.

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James G

Aug 31, 2016 at 10:35 am

Scott’s a wonderful instructor. Keeps it simple and what he teaches works.

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Christosterone

Aug 31, 2016 at 9:56 am

Great addition to Golfwrx….
This is why I come to Golfwrx…

Thank you

-Christosterone

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- Don
  
  Aug 31, 2016 at 12:03 pm
  
  Simple and it works!
  
  Reply Report comment

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Instruction

Clement: Laid-off or perfect fade? Across-the-line or perfect draw?

Published

1 week ago

Apr 24, 2024

Shawn Clement

Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!

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Instruction

The Wedge Guy: The easiest-to-learn golf basic

Published

1 month ago

Mar 29, 2024

Terry Koehler

My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.

As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.

The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.

Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:

Mis-aligned hands

By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.

The position of the grip in the upper/left hand

I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.

To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.

Too much lower (right) hand on the club

It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.

Gripping too tightly

Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.

So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.

Clement: Stop ripping off your swing with this drill!

Published

2 months ago

Mar 4, 2024

Shawn Clement

Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?

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