Why You Need This: Today I'm going to talk to you about what to do when your driver isn't working.

You get to the course for a very important round.

Whether you're playing with someone you want to impress, or it's an important tournament round, you really want to play well today.

You're not doing anything different than any other day, but today you can't hit a fairway to save your life!

Your usual, consistent drive is nowhere to be seen.  It's very frustrating....

Well, you're not alone.  It happens to ALL of us!

In today's video, I'm going to show you 4 sure-fire tips to get you back on track when your swing has derailed.

Let's get started....

Golf Pros Featured:

Instructors Featured: Clay Ballard    

Video Duration: 11:22

Video Transcription:

What do we do when the driver absolutely not working at all? It’s going all over the place.

Maybe you’re playing the first round with a new playing partner, or a coworker, somebody that you want to impress, maybe your boss.

You show up to the range that day, the driver is absolutely going everywhere. You’re hooking it, you’re slicing it, you’re hitting it thin, you’re hitting it popping it up, doing all kinds of crazy stuff with the driver that you normally don’t do, and you’re really worried about it.

Maybe you’re about to tee off in your club championship or a local tournament, and this is happening to you. It really kind of freaks you out, you’re kind of worried, and you’re thinking Oh, man, this is going to be a terrible day.

Well I’m going to give you four sure-fire tips, when you’re having that bad day with the driver. You follow these, you’re going to get right back on track. Let’s go ahead and get started.

All right, so tip number one. We want to choke up on this driver. I we’re having trouble with this, and we’re really having the ball go a lot of different ways, one of the easiest ways to do this is to choke up.

Now I recommend taking your hand and the bottom of your pinky should be about two inches or so from the bottom of the grip. That’s a good amount to choke up.

If we go way, way choked up like this, we’re almost down on the shaft itself off the grip, then we’re going to lose so much speed, it’s going to be tough to get any kind of distance.

I want to choke up just a little bit to get more control of the head and to be able to feel the driver face a little bit better. But the down side of this is it is going to hurt our distance a little bit.

Let’s go ahead and hit one here with my FlightScope, and we’ll see what the distance is choking up on the driver. Then I’ll hit another one full speed, and see what happens there.

So here’s the choked up driver, let’s see how far this one goes. There we go, right down the left side of the fairway, I hit that one really, really solid, so I think my numbers are going to be pretty good.

But we’ll notice my club head speed is probably a little bit down. So if I take a look at my FlightScope, we’re going to see my club head speed was 114.

I mean, I absolutely killed that thing, though, hit it dead solid. 282 carry, after the roll out, 313 total distance.

So it’s not like I’m losing a ton, but I am going to lose let’s say two or three miles an hour of club head speed by choking up on the grip a couple inches there.

But what this does, the reason this works, is when I choke up, I’m essentially getting the club head closer to my hands, and now I have more control of the club head. It’s like swinging a children’s club.

You have this little short club, it feels really easy to swing, you’re probably not ever going to miss the fairway using a junior club, you’re just not going to hit it as far as you do your normal driver. So that’s the first tip, choke up on this.

Now the second tip, I want to make sure, again, I can feel the club head, I can feel the face of this club.

When the driver isn’t working, about 85 percent of the direct that ball starts is dictated by the face. So if that ball starts way to the right or way to the left, that’s because the face is open and closed.

The better we can feel this face, the easier the day’s going to be. Now a great to help you feel the face when things are off, when your timing’s off, is to flip that club upside down and make about four or five practice swings, keeping your hands really light, trying to feel the grip end of the club.

So I’m holding it at the very end of the shaft with the grip pointing down, and I’m making four or five little practice swings here.

What this is doing, this shaft is so much lighter than the club head, when I flip this back over, now I’m really going to be able to feel where the club head is.

The last thing you want to do, is grab two or three clubs, sometimes I’ll see people grab two or three irons, hold them all together, and swing those to loosen up.

Because that’s so heavy, when I have two or three clubs in my hand, I’m going to lose feeling for where the driver face is, and that’s going to make the ball go all over the place.

So four or five swings, just a few swings to get loose, to really feel light with your grip, and then turn that club over and I want you to do a couple things for me.

Number one, we’re going to release that face a little bit more. So I want you to make three or four practice swings releasing the face, getting those hands to turn over a little bit more. That would be your draw swing.

Now I can start to feel that face turning over, and then I’m going to have two or three swings where I feel the face a little bit more open, which would be my fade swing.

So again, you’re not having to hit shots here, you’re just getting a feel for the face, getting a feel for releasing the club a little bit more.

If you’re struggling slicing it too much, that’s what you’re going to want to feel. If you’re struggling hooking the ball, you’re going to feel having the face a little bit more open.

Now let’s go ahead and hit one with my normal swing speed, and let’s see how much distance we gain or lose, or my normal length of my grip here.

So the first one I swung I believe 113 or so, and I hit it so solid it went 313. Let’s see if I can get a little bit more swing speed now with my club all the way on the end here, and see how that affects how far this ball goes.

All right, there we go. So that one, again, down the middle of the fairway, but I didn’t hit that quite as solid as the one that I choked up.

I’m not loose out here today yet either, this is the first video of the day, so I’m not always going to be hitting the driver dead solid right off the bat just like everybody else.

On that one I had three miles an hour extra club head speed, but you’ll see 276 carry, about 7 yards shorter than the one that I actually swung slower and I choked up on the club.

And 295, so 15, actually a little bit more, little bit closer to 18 yards shorter on that one even though my club head speed was higher.

If you’re having a tough time hitting it solid and controlling where the ball goes, just choke up on that a little bit.

Now the next thing we’re going to do here to really get a feel for this is the step drill. So what I want you to feel, when I’m struggling to hit the ball solid, usually my weight shift is off.

Sometimes I’ll be falling back, falling away from the golf ball. You start to get those tops, you start to get the balls that go up in the air, a lot of inconsistencies with that.

Sometimes I really just feel awkward like I’m having to use all hands and arms because my weight shift isn’t good.

Let’s do a sure-fire drill, it’s going to make this really, really easy. I want you to set up with your feet together.

I’m going to have the club kind of hovering over the ground. Now as soon as I start my club swinging back, I’m going to go ahead and start stepping forward.

Well this is going to ensure that I do, is as my left foot is in the air, so let’s go ahead and do one little small swing so you can see what this looks like.

But as my left foot is in the air, that ensures that all my weight is on my right side. That’s the backswing. As I’m making this backswing I have to shift my weight to the right side. As I make my downswing I have to shift my weight to the left side.

There’s tons of research out there showing pressure plates, so they have these plates that they put under your feet to see how people shift their weight.

I have never seen one player, one great player, that doesn’t shift their weight to the right on the backswing, and shift their weight to the left on the downswing.

Lots of people say, oh, I feel like I’m centered. I’m staying on my left, or they’re keeping their weight the entire time.

When you put this to the test, when you look at the science behind this, that’s simply not happened.

Every player has a weight shift to the right, and a weight shift to the left. If I cheat it by doing this drill, it makes it way easier.

So as I keep my feet together, as soon as my left foot lifts up, my right foot is the only foot on the ground so it has to be a weight shift to the right. There has to be all my pressure to the right.

Now as I step forward, the only way to get my foot to move forward is to have a weight shift to the left. Then as I let my foot push into the ground on the downswing, I’m going to let my right foot come all the way up on the ground here.

So just my toe of my right foot is on the ground. That ensures that all my weight is on my left.

If you do this drill, there’s really no way to mess this up. As long as we get the timing right, it’s just a sure-fire way to get your weight shift nailed every time.

So start with your feet together, the key trick here is as soon as you start your backswing, that’s when you want to begin the step forward. What I don’t want to do is get all the way to the top of my backswing, and then step forward on my downswing.

I’m stepping forward as soon as I start my swing, and then as I finish, I’m making sure my toe is all the way on the ground, and my chest is rotated all the way around.

I’m finishing over my left foot and really pausing there for a second or two so you can make sure that you’re in balance.

Do four or five of those while you’re on the range, while you’re on the first tee, I guarantee it’s going to be way easier to hit straighter shots.

Now finally here, the last key is what is your go-to shot? Everybody has one type of shot whether it’s a fade or a draw that they can hit time after time.

Now for me, if I have to get one in the fairway, it’s a little easier for me to do a fade.

The problem is I lose a little bit of distance when I’m doing that, but if I’m hitting the ball pretty wild, and it’s the first couple holes, I want to make sure I get some in the fairway, I’m going to tee that ball up a little bit lower.

What that’s going to do, is that’s going to ensure that I don’t hook it, it’s very tough for me to hook the ball when the ball is teed up really low. So I’m going to tee it up a little bit lower.

If this was my normal height, I’m just going to go about a half-inch lower than normal. Then I feel like I’m going to hit a fade out there. So let’s put all three together.

Number one, I’m going to choke up. I’ve done my drills where I swing the club head nice and light, I’ve got a feel for the face.

For me, again, I’ve done my step drills to feel my weight shift, and now I’m going to play my go-to shot, or if I had to bet a thousand dollars, what would I be willing to say hey, I’m going to be able to hit this one pretty good, I’ll bet you a thousand dollars I can do this.

That’s my go-to shot. This one’s going to be a face, I’m going to lose a little bit of distance, but I’m going to find that first fairway.

All right, right down the right center. I hit that one nice. Follow those four steps, you’re going to get started with some more confidence, and you’re going to hit a lot more fairways.

If you’re currently a member of the Top Speed Golf System, here’s what I want you to do. I don’t want you to stop here. Now we’ve talked about how to get things back on track.

When the train goes off the tracks, here’s the four steps that are going to help you to save the day, get some confidence, and get the ball back in the fairway.

But in reality, that’s not really what we want to do. What we really want to is show up the beginning of the day, we want to smoke 10 or 15 drives right down the middle of the driving range.

Feel like a million bucks, feel really confident, and can’t wait to get to the first tee. That’s the feeling that we all want to have.

That’s going to be built from having the proper technique. So what I want you guys to do, let’s do two things.

Number one, let’s go to The Move section. A lot of times I’ll see players coming in with the club much too steep, and then we have to reroute and manipulate the club. That can cause a lot of problems.

Choking up, feeling the club face that’s going to make things easier, but it’s not getting to the root cause.

Start from the very first video on The Move, do those drills, and work through that system. As you do that, you’re going to build that muscle memory.

You’re going to engrain these feelings to where you don’t have to worry about it, you don’t have to save it, you’ve got the technique that’s going to last, and you’re going to play a lot more good days with a driver than you are bad days.

Then from there, let’s take it to the Power Turn. Let’s really get this turn going back and through so that we can lengthen up the swing, especially for guys that are tighter.

I have some sure-fire tips that are going to help you to loosen it up and get more effortless swing speed. That way even on your bad days, like I did today, we’re getting closer to 300 yards, or we’re getting closer to a longer drive, maybe for you guys that’s 240, 250, 260, even on a bad day.

That way we’re going to be hanging out there with our friends, our playing partners, and still driving as far as they are, even when we’re a little bit off. So let’s go ahead and get started in the Power Turn.

You put those two things together, and you’re going to be a really good driver of the golf ball. I’ll see you in The Move and the Power Turn.