Why You Need This: Today I'll teach you to "Avoid These 3 Common Set up Faults with the Driver"

Wouldn't you love to hit the ball further off the tee than you currently do.

The stats show that consistently hitting the ball further is the quickest way to lowering your scores.

When you're closer to the greens on your approach shot, or hitting less club into the green, the results are better.

There are three mistakes that I commonly see being made when you set up to hit your tee shot.

Today I'm going to show you what these mistakes are and teach you how to avoid setting yourself up for failure before you even pull the club back.

And I'm bringing an axe today, so you don't want to miss this.

Let's get started...

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 10:57

Video Transcription:

Now there’s a few common setup issues that I see time and time again. I think it stems from the axe motion. It feels really powerful when we have a golf club.

Let’s imagine this is a golf club for a second. If I feel like I’m going to hit this golf ball, and I bring this thing over my head and I chop down into the golf ball, it feels like I have tons and tons of power., tons and tons of speed.

I feel like I could have chopped that golf ball in two, and I think every golfer from when they very begin to start playing, the want to feel that powerful motion. In golf, unfortunately, it doesn’t really work.

Instead of having that over the head chop-type motion, and I’ll fix that, don’t worry about the tee, you need to be coming from the inside to get the club in the slot and then feel like you can deliver that club with a good path to have tons of power and tons of speed.

If we continue to set up in ways that get us into that chopping-type position, we’re going to lose speed, we’re going to lose distance.

So in this video, I’m going to talk about three of the most common set up myths, set up problems, that get into that chopping position rather than being into a powerful position where we can get into the slot.

Once you get set up the right way, you’re going to hit the ball a lot farther.

All right, so jump right in here. Let’s talk about the first issue that can really wreak havoc on your speed. If I’m kind of imagining that powerful feeling of me coming down and chopping into this golf ball, we all know we don’t want to do that, but it feels so good doing that.

If I visualize that, one thing that I’ll do with my set up is I’ll set up in a position where I would have a lot of power coming down in this angle.

If you notice my shoulders, so if I was to put a golf club across my shoulders here, this would be level with the ground. This would be a little tilt away from the target, my head getting farther behind the ball.

My spine being kind of angled away from the golf ball. That’s really good. But if I’m set up in a way that I feel like I’m going to come down into this golf ball really powerfully, a lot of times what will happen is my shoulders will get level.

I’ll get too far kind of to the left if you’re looking at my shoulders, and now I’m in this position that feels like I can slam down in this golf ball with a lot of speed, with a lot of energy, but it really just doesn’t work in golf. That’s the first key.

What I want you to do, go ahead right now. Even if you’re not on the driving range, grab a club, grab a broom, whatever you have to do. Follow right along with me on this, and this is really going to help a ton.

Put a club across your shoulders, so hold it right on the tips of your shoulders here. Go ahead and bend forward into your posture, and then I want to feel like my belt buckle goes a little forward toward the target.

My upper body gets a little bit more behind it here, my head’s behind the golf ball, my chest is behind the golf ball, and you’re going to notice how I create a little bit of an angle with my club there.

So just a slight angle is plenty, I don’t have to go like this and go really a ton, but what I want you to do is set up very level, and then I want you tilt away, let’s call that about 10 degrees or so with my shoulder angle.

Doesn’t have to be more than that, a little more, a little less, not a big deal. So go ahead and do that about 15 to 20 times, just get comfortable getting behind that golf ball just like this. Then I’m going to go ahead and do the same thing with my club repeating that same action.

Here I’m setting up, I’m getting a little tilt away, and now all of a sudden I’ve tilted everything much more to the inside. I’ve created this big area right here where I can swing my hands and arms from the inside.

I can get that club into the slot, and that’s going to make it a lot easier to create the real speed that we need and not that over the top type speed.

Let’s go ahead and try that out. I’m going to hinge forward, a little tilt to my shoulders, my head is behind the golf ball, let’s give it a whirl. OK, nice draw right down the left side of the fairway.

All right, now the second piece of this is going to be a little trick with your elbow.

If you get your elbow in the right position, it makes it so much easier to come down from the slot, to come down from the inside like we’re talking about to get rid of that axe chop type move that kills our distance, kills our power.

What we’re going to do here, and the way I want you to do this, go ahead and set up to the golf ball. If you’re in your living room, just set up to an imaginary golf ball, either way’s fine.

Now I’m going to get in my shoulder tilt first. I’m going to get about 10° or 15° or so of shoulder tilt like I talked about.

Then from there, that’s when I’m going to add my hand. If I add my right hand from this position, it’s going to be much more under or from the inside when I’m adding the right hand.

That helps me to get my shoulders a little more square to the target, it helps promote that tilt, it helps promote me coming more from the inside when I’m doing that.

If you look at my palm of my right hand, it’s going to feel much more underneath the club versus if I’m too level with my shoulders, and I add the right hand on there, now all of a sudden my palm is on top of the club.

 

That’s what’s called a weak grip, and it’s very easy for that to turn into a slice or kind of chop down over the top move.

So get in the tilt, 15 or 20 reps. Add the right hand in there, and then we’re going to close our grip.

A little bit goes a long way. You don’t have to have the hand way under here like this, like I’ll see some people really trying to exaggerate it. Just get a little bit to the right.

If you’re looking for a few key checkpoints there, I’m looking for the index finger and my thumb, if I cinch those together, that’s going to be pointed roughly toward my right shoulder.

So that’s when you know you’re getting about the right amount of it. Should look something like that.

The second piece of this right hand trick is what I talked about with the elbow. A big mistake when you get shoulders too level, I’m going to put this hand on top, palm down, and now my elbow pit is pointed toward the target.

That sets me up way too level with my shoulders, way too far to the left, and I really have nothing I can do from this position, rather than to chop down over the top and really make a weak swing here.

So as I’m adding my right hand, I want to feel like my elbow, if I look at the pointy part of my elbow, the bottom of my elbow, I’m going to feel like it’s in toward my hip a little bit when I’m doing that.

Now you can also see from this position if I’m looking from down the line, how that’s a little bit under my right forearm. So I’m exaggerating here so you can see that on camera, but this is under or lower.

This would be over top. I don’t want this or I’m going to really chop down into it.

So set up, get your tilt, add your right hand, palm up, and then feel like that elbow is kind of toward your hip there. Now I’m in a powerful position where I can really get it inside from the slot and get that great really athletic setup.

Now the third piece of this really athletic, powerful set up is going to be my stance. I see players all the time go wrong with this, and it’s actually become some pretty common instruction that last few years, is we want our stance fairly narrow or just shoulder width apart.

Now we could argue that, but there’s a great test for this. Here’s what I want you to do. Go ahead and set up to the golf ball, and I want you to start with your stance really, really narrow.

Just have your feet almost together, touching. What I’m going to do is go ahead and make a swing now, and I’m going to try to kill this golf ball, I’m going to try to hit it absolutely as hard as I can and see how far I can hit my driver.

I’m even going to get my tilt and everything like I was trying to do with my shoulders and my arm, and let’s see what happens.

I smoked that one, that’s about as good as I can hit one swinging from that way. Down the right center of the fairway. According to my FlightScope I swung 107 miles an hour and about as dag-gone good as I could hit one.

I hit one 280, so not too bad. If everything else in your body is working well, if your hands, arms, shoulders, all that is delivering the club properly, you can do a lot of things with the lower body wrong and still get some good distance like I was talking about there, where I showed there.

Now what I want you to do is gradually widen that stance up. I’m going to grab a couple golf balls here. I’m gradually going to go wider and wider until I find my most athletic stance width.

You don’t have to listen to me, I’m not in charge of exactly what you have to do, find out for yourself. Start very narrow, and then go wider and wider in your stance until you feel like you’re the most athletic.

For you, let’s say you have this really wide powerful stance like this. That’s OK. As long as you move your feet a little bit, that’s going to be completely fine. You can set up that way and still be really good.

What I found for most players, is they like to set up – and I’ve tested this with quite a few players – a little wider than shoulder width apart.

So if I stand straight up and down, you can see about how wide my feet are here. If I drew a line vertically from the ankle, it would be outside my shoulders, both my right foot and my left foot.

This is about the most athletic I can get for my own personal stance. This is about the width that I see for most players. So a couple inches wider than your shoulders is perfect.

Look at Rory McIlroy, the longest pound for pound hitter on the PGA Tour. You’re going to see a nice, wide stance like this. This is athletic. My legs are bent. I feel like I could really drive off the ground when I’m doing this.

Now the one thing you don’t want to do from here, is I don’t want to keep my feet still. I don’t want to keep my feet kind of suctioned to the ground there and be swinging all arms.

I have to go ahead and let my feet move. On the backswing my left heel’s going to come up slightly. On my follow through, I’m really going to let that right foot rotate all the way around.

That’s a very, very good key. But as long as I’m doing that, I can go as wide as I want and still have the movement and the freedom in my golf swing.

So here, I’m going to go ahead and set up what I feel like is my most powerful stance and let’s tie all three things that I talked about together.

Number one, I have a little bit of a shoulder tilt. Number two, my right hand is coming into the club, a little bit more from the bottom, with my right elbow pit up.

Number three, I have that nice, athletic, wide stance, a little bit of knee bend. I feel like I’m playing short stop here.

Now I’m in a position where I can really hit this golf ball pretty dag-gone hard. Let’s give it a whirl. All right, hit that one nicely, right down the center.

So what do we need to do from here? In this video we’re really talking about one of the key fundamentals in the Top Speed Golf System. We’re talking about the Stable Fluid Spine.

When I get that little shoulder tilt, when I get my right arm more under. That gets my spine tilted slightly away from the target.

Now if I go to the Top Speed Golf System, the top navigation, the Instruction tab. Then go to the Top Speed Golf System, then click on the Stable Fluid Spine section, I’m going to work on level 1, and work through all those drills if I really want to make this a habit.

If I do this one video, and I go out today and I start ripping drives, I’m hitting it so good, my set up is awesome and then I forget about it, it gradually fades away and my shoulders get level, my hand gets on top, and all of a sudden I’m into the same bad habits.

The solution to that, if you really want to build this into your swing forever, where you never have to think about it again, is to work through that system that we get enough reps until it becomes completely a habit.

You grab a golf club, you don’t even think twice, and you automatically start to set up just like we’re talking about here today. That’s exactly what we’re going to do.

So I challenge you to go the Stable Fluid Spine section, start working through those videos, and not only are you going to hit it more powerful like we talked about today.

You’re also going to be more consistent with your divots, because now my spine and my head aren’t moving around all over the place. I’m keeping that nice tilt away from the target, and I’m going to have a lot more fun on the golf course because it’s going to seem a lot easier.

So best of luck, I’ll see you in the Stable Fluid Spine.