Why You Need This: In this video, you'll learn how to hit up on the driver.

I know you want to boom your drives...

But what does it take?

Well, here are a few things you need to do...

1. launch the ball high with tons of carry distance, and
2. put less backspin on the ball so it penetrates through the wind.

The opposite of this is hitting it low and putting too much spin on the ball.

I see this often with golfers that aren't getting the distance they want.

The ball launches low, then it rises quickly with tons of backspin.

That just kills your distance. So you need to learn exactly how to hit up on the driver.

Let's first start off by addressing what's causing your poor distance.

Coming in too steep with your launch angle puts way too much backspin on the ball.

Even if you have great club head speed, you won't get much distance due to the amount of backspin.

As you'll see in the video, I demonstrate what not to do... but I still put up 118 mph club head speed.

Normally, that much club head speed should equal a long drive.

But because I put so much backspin on the ball (4168 rpm)...

The ball started low but rose sharply due to the backspin.

So, with an impressive 118 mph club head speed...

...the distance was only 263 yards!

Next, let's find out how to hit a solid, super long drive.

3 tips to hit your drives farther...

1. Aim for the top of the club face. The club face rounds a bit so hitting higher on the face means a higher launch. Also, the gear effect adds more loft and reduces backspin.
2. Play the ball a bit forward in your stance and widen your stance. Both these moves will allow you to hit the ball at a higher angle of attack.
3. Bow your wrist in the downswing.  This will help flatten your club and reduce the loft of the driver. You'll get less backspin, so combining the move of bowing your wrist with the previous tips, you'll almost feel like you're hitting up on the ball.

Putting these tips together will produce a higher angle of attack with less overall backspin.

Now let's compare the key stats of my good swing (higher launch, less backspin) vs my bad swing (lower launch, more backspin)...

• Bad swing: 118 mph club head speed, launch 7.8, spin = 4168 rpm, total distance = 263 yards
• Good swing: 113 mph club head speed, launch 10.3, spin = 2679 rpm, total distance = 296 yards

See how important the tips are in this video?

A great swing with lower club head speed equaled more distance!

Watch this video now so you know exactly how to hit up on the driver...

Hit with less backspin...

And get tons more distance!

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 5:19

Video Transcription:

Hey guys, and welcome back. We all want to boom those drives, and to be able to do that we have to launch the ball high, get it to penetrate through the wind, and get a lot of carry distance.

Now the opposite of that would be launching it low and getting too much spin. So what happens sometimes when we launch it low?

I see a lot of players doing this without even realizing that they’re doing this. So we’re hitting down into the ball too much.

Maybe some of you guys out there, I know a lot of people struggle with – I used to struggle with the same thing – is coming down too steep over the top.

I’m hitting down into the golf ball in a very negative kind of angle of attack. So my ball is going to naturally launch lower. The more I hit down in that golf ball, I’m taking loft off the club and hitting it more down into the ground, so I get a lower launch.

As I hit down on the ball, a lot of times I’ll flip and add loft to that. So I’m hitting too far down, and I’m getting a lot of spin on the ball. Let’s go ahead and try that out.

I’m going to try to hit down into this one too much, get a lot of spin on it. Let’s see what our launch angle and our spin rate is with our FlightScope. There we go, perfect example.

So that one kind of took off low, rose up, and then faded off. That’s one of those that you see that kind of do this, and then they kind of fade out. If we look at this on the FlightScope now, it’s going to tell us some numbers for our launch.

Our club head speed on that one was 118, so good club head speed. 260 total distance, so not a lot for a 118 club head speed, that’s not a lot of distance.

The vertical launch was only 7.8, so that means I’m really launching it low, that ball’s taking off low to the ground. My spin was 4,168, that’s a lot of backspin on there. Ideally, I’d like to launch that ball let’s say at least 11°.

If that one launched here, I want to crank that up a little bit so it’s going higher. Now that if I take that spin off of there, so that one kind of went like this and it lost a lot of energy going up and down.

If I take the spin off, it’s going to penetrate, launch high and then penetrate through the wind to get the maximum amount of distance. Let’s go ahead and try one now, and I’m going to give you three tips.

Let’s actually do four tips that are really going to help you to launch it higher and to take the spin off that shot.

Number one, I want to aim for the top of the face. The higher I hit this ball on the face, the higher it’s going to launch. Your club face is actually rolled a little bit, so the top of the driver, there’s a little bit more loft.

That’s going to get a higher launch angle. It also has what’s called a gear effect. Now gear effect means if I’m looking at this golf ball – let’s try to go close to the camera – if I hit it off the top of the driver, what happens is the driver face actually opens up adding more loft, getting more, higher launch.

Then that, because the ball is stuck to the face, it rolls the ball forward and gets a little bit of topspin on there. Now that’s not really topspin, it’s actually just a little bit less backspin. But that’s the idea with it.

I’m going to hit it off the top of the driver, that means I need to tee it up nice and tall, I usually go about a half a ball above the driver. If this is my normal ball position with my driver, kind of off the logo of my shirt or my left ear, I’m going to go ahead and play it a little farther forward.

Now I’m also going to make my stance just a little bit wider, especially for those of you guys that have a narrower stance. If I drop my right foot back a little bit, now I’m getting more behind this golf ball.

So I’m going to hit it higher on the face, that’s going to give it more launch and lower spin. I’m going to play the ball a little bit farther up in my stance, that’s going to get it to launch higher.

I’m going to drop my back foot back, now I’m tilted behind this ball, that’s going to get to launch higher. Then lastly here, I want to feel like I’m letting my wrist bow.

So we talked about coming in steep, there’s a section of the website called The Move. So if you go to the Top Speed Golf System, we talk about The Move where I’m actually shallowing this club out and I’m getting my wrist to kind of bow this way.

That takes some loft off the driver, and that’s going to help me to take some spin off of there. So now I’m hitting up on the ball slightly, positive angle of attack.

Everything is getting this ball to go higher and higher, and I’m going to go ahead and take some loft off this driver so that I had the sensation that I’m kind of doing this.

I’m taking negative loft and hitting up on the ball to get a little bit of topspin. I want to have the idea that I’m going to launch it high and get it to spin forward even though that’s not really going to happen.

That’s the idea that I have in my mind as I’m doing this. Let’s try these factors out, and ball a little bit up. High on the face, stance a little bit wider, and now I’m going to feel like I really bow this lead wrist and I have this right wrist bent back so I can take the loft off the driver.

Again, that’s going to be my feeling, and we’re going to see if we can get this nice, high knuckle ball. Let’s go ahead and give it a whirl.

There we go. So I didn’t quite catch that one perfect, had a little bit too much spin on there, but let’s see what the numbers were. So 296 total distance.

Club head speed wasn’t as good, I actually didn’t rip that one, it was only 113. My launch angle was 10°, so again it wasn’t perfect.

My spin rate was down to 2,679, so I took off a lot of spin, got it to launch higher, and picked up a good 30 yards with 5 miles an hour less club head speed. If I caught one a little bit better, hit it harder, I’d be well over the 300-yard mark.

So take those tips out there, you’re going to launch it higher, spin it less, you’re going to rip the ball.