What you can learn from the best drivers I ever coached.

You might be thinking, What could I possibly have in common with tour players? Actually, they’re trying to do exactly what you’re trying to do: drive the ball as far as possible and keep it in play. They’re just as in love with distance as you are – maybe more – but they’ve found a way to create a lot of speed without sacrificing everything else. In this article, we’re going to talk about the secrets you can steal from some of the best drivers of all-time. For a few of them, it’s the way they use the lower body; for others, it’s the hands and arms. Or it’s what they do during the backswing, or as they move through the ball. Your job is to decide whose technique you should copy based on what you know about your driving. If you’re a smooth swinger, maybe you follow Freddie Couples. If you play a fade, it might be Dustin Johnson. If you want to feel more in sync, skip straight to Tiger Woods. Then, I’m going to show you a drill you can use to groove that pro move. With better focus and some practice, you’ll be on your way to driving it great this summer. Ready?

 Norman: R&A/Getty Images

Greg Norman: Great footwork

The best 18 holes of golf I’ve ever witnessed was Greg Norman’s final round at Royal St George’s in the 1993 Open Championship. He never missed a shot, including hitting every fairway with the wind blowing 25 miles an hour. Coming to the last five holes, he had a two-stroke lead over Nick Faldo and Bernhard Langer. He was playing with Langer, who stepped up on the 14th tee and pushed one straight out-of-bounds. Greg was up next, and for me as his coach, it was a hell of a stressful moment. The 14th is a par 5, not real long but easy to lose it right. Greg could have played an iron off the tee, but he took driver and hit an absolute bullet. He went on to make birdie, his sixth of the round, to basically put away the tournament, eventually shooting 64. To me, that drive was the shot of the day – and the defining week of Greg’s career.

One swing key that Greg and I talked about a lot was having “soft ankles”. He was keenly aware that he needed his hips and lower body working well to support all the speed he generated with his upper body. Keeping his ankles limber allowed him to turn his hips and make a full wind-up, and then move forward on the downswing. I wanted him to feel like he was covering the ball with his chest at impact, avoiding his old tendency to tilt back. To Greg, the feeling of soft ankles helped him shift his weight away from the target going back, and then drive through the ball. It’s a great swing thought from perhaps the greatest driver of the modern era.

Go through the ball 

Locked legs and a restricted weight shift, the opposite of Greg’s swing key for the ankles, is a common amateur fault. To add power to your swing, make sure your weight always moves in the direction the club is moving – back on the backswing and forward on the forward swing. Too often amateurs are backing up as they swing down, which takes away power and leads to poor contact. Practise hitting shots with the step-through drill: make your normal backswing, but step towards the target with your back foot as you swing through impact [above]. This drill is great to use as a practice swing on the course, too. I bet you will see better strikes and longer drives.

 Johnson: David Cannon/Getty Images

Dustin Johnson: One shot, multiple gears

A bout five years ago, after we worked a lot in practice, Dustin decided he was going to play a fade exclusively with the driver, which turned out to be a game-changer for him – and everybody chasing him. Two things about his fade: first, he does it all in the setup, which makes it easy to repeat; and second, he can gear up or down without changing his technique.

Dustin fades it the way Jack Nicklaus did. He aims the clubface where he wants the ball to end up, then sets his body open and simply swings along his body line. This allows him to deliver the club slightly open to his swing path and produce a left-to-right shot. He’s not trying to hold the face open or swing out to in. He just aims the face, sets his body, and rips it.

Now, about gearing it up. At the 2017 Northern Trust, Dustin was battling Jordan Spieth down the stretch. The 18th hole was a dogleg-left with water on the inside corner, so DJ played out to the right, ending up more than 200 yards from the green in deep rough. He was able to make par and force a playoff with Jordan, and they headed back to 18. This time, DJ took an aggressive line way left and bombed a fade 350 yards over the water. The result was a wedge to four feet and a winning birdie. The lesson is, he got a second chance to trust his fade, and he’ll probably never forget that shot he hit. Longest drive of the week.

Organise your setup

The DJ fade is so simple, you should give it a try. It’s all about following the right steps, in the right order, to get set up. Before you take your stance, aim the clubface at your target [near right]. Next, set your feet so your stance line is pointing significantly to the left (for righties). It’s important to make sure your whole body – knees, hips, shoulders – is parallel to your stance [far right]. Finally, swing the club where your body is aimed. The mistake to avoid is taking a square stance and then trying to cut across the ball from out to in, which causes weak, glancing contact. There’s nothing weak about a power fade; it’s a solid strike with a slightly open face. 

 Woods: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

Tiger Woods: Perfect sequence

Early in 2000, the year Tiger won three Majors and six more times on the PGA Tour, I remember we bumped into Fred Funk, the perennial straightest driver on tour. Tiger said to him, “Your reign is over, man. I’m coming after you”. We laughed, but Tiger was only half-joking. At that time, only John Daly was longer than Tiger, and we knew that hitting more fairways would give him a lethal combination off the tee. Tiger didn’t dethrone Fred Funk that year, but he did lead the tour in total driving – a stat that combines distance and accuracy. 

When you have as much speed as Tiger does, there’s one thing you’d better get right: sequence. Tiger and I worked a lot on that, mostly on the downswing. He was so fast with his lower body, his arms would sometimes fall behind, leading to pushes or hooks. But in 2000 especially, his sequence was phenomenal – I don’t know if anyone has ever swung the club better. He was perfectly matched up coming down. His arms would drop from the top, back in front of his body, and then he’d pour on that legendary Tiger speed. 

Tiger has always had a beautiful look to his swing. Of course, some of that is his rhythm and positions, but sequence is what holds it all together. Coming down, everything should happen from the ground up, starting with the weight going to the front foot. Amateurs tend to start down with the upper body, which throws the club to the outside and causes pulls and slices. Tiger’s bottom-to-top downswing is the perfect model.

Diagnose your delivery move

If you’re looking for an indicator of sequence, check your back foot. When the upper body leads the downswing, the back foot tends to spin on its toes, with the heel turning backwards, away from the target. That’s why you see so many twist marks in the turf on tees. Those players are going too hard, too fast with the upper body, and their feet are trying to keep them from falling over. The correct sequence – starting with the lower body moving forward – puts the back heel in front of the toes [below]. It’s a subtle move, but it really tells the order in which you’re unwinding your body on the downswing. When the heel leads the toes, the club stays to the inside and you can swing your arms out to impact. Hit some balls thinking about the heel leading, short shots at first and working up to the driver. It’s a great feel for weight shift and sequence.

 Couples: Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Fred Couples: Clubface control

One of the best viewing experiences in golf is standing on the practice range with Fred Couples watching him hit drivers. I was lucky to do that a lot over the years, and it never got old. Freddie has a rhythm that’s almost hypnotic. His swing is the epitome of effortless power. He’s moving fast enough with his driver
to hit the ball 300 yards, but his swing is so long and graceful, it looks nothing but smooth.

That rhythm is a great swing thought for any golfer trying to hit it longer, but there’s an even better story with Freddie. His grip is super strong on the club, meaning his hands are rotated significantly away from the target. Even more unorthodox for a top player is his lead wrist at the top of the swing: it’s in a cupped, or bent-back, position like you see with a lot of golfers who slice it. Truth is, with that strong grip, if he didn’t cup his wrist going back, which opens the clubface, he’d hook it off the map. 

The big takeaway here is, you want to get the clubface in a position at the top where you don’t have to try to open or close it when you’re going 100 miles an hour on the downswing. So if you want to hit a fade, swing to the top with the clubface a little open, the toe of the club hanging down. For a draw, get the face looking more skyward at the top. Pick your shot, set the face, and go.

Match up to improve your accuracy 

We know the grip has a big influence on the clubface, and the clubface at impact basically determines where the ball goes. So this is important stuff here. It’s useful to think about grip and clubface in pairs. If you have a strong grip, like Freddie does, cup your lead wrist at the top of the backswing to neutralise it [near right, top and bottom]. If your grip is weaker, with your hands rotated more towards the target, a flat lead wrist at the top is ideal [far right, top and bottom]. There are all kinds of variations between these two combinations, but this is a good starting point to understand that your grip and the clubface have to work together. 

  Kang: J.D. Cuban

Danielle Kang: Power booster

Danielle is the player I’ve worked with the most during the past couple of years. Her swing is naturally geared for driving: she’s flexible, so she gets a big wind-up, and she really lets it go with a full release through the ball. But she doesn’t force the club down. In fact, the coolest part of her swing is the transition, where her body is driving forward but the clubhead stays back. As a result, she actually increases her wrist hinge on the downswing, which stores more power she can use for the strike.

Two things have to happen to get that extra hinge: (1) a smooth backswing where your arms and wrists stay loose; (2) a commitment to swinging your fastest through the ball, not before the ball. When a lot of amateurs try to hit it hard, they rush the backswing and then jerk the club down. There’s no flow in that kind of swing; it’s just effort. Flow is what creates acceleration. So your focus should be using the whole forward swing to build up your speed, all the way to the finish.

An important distinction here is arm speed versus hand speed. One thing I tell Danielle all the time is, “Swing your arms faster to the finish”. I don’t like the concept of hand speed for power because it creates an image of the hands flipping at impact, which is highly unpredictable. Arm speed is smoother, more reliable and without a doubt more powerful.

Save your speed for impact

Here’s a drill I use with players who are “throwing” the club from the top – in other words, unhinging their wrists too soon. With a middle iron, take your normal backswing, then pump the club down halfway, go back to the top, pump halfway down again, go back to the top, and then hit the ball. When you stop with each pump, check that you’re maintaining the hinge in your wrists [far right]. Do this drill in between normal shots, and try to incorporate the feel of fully loaded wrists as you start down. Couple that with fast arms going through, and I know you’ll see some serious distance gains.

 Scott: Stuart Franklin/Getty Images

Adam Scott: Hook-proof draw

The weekend before Tiger’s 15-shot win at the 2000 US Open, Adam and Tiger played a round together at Rio Secco, the course next to my golf school in Las Vegas. It was blowing 30 miles an hour that day, and Tiger shot 64 to set the course record. Adam, who had just turned pro, shot about even-par. After Tiger left, Scotty said to me, “If that’s who I have to beat, we’ve got a lot of work to do.” 

Two years earlier, when Adam arrived at UNLV, he came to me for a look. I’ll never forget watching him hit balls for the first time. I thought, I’ve seen this before. His swing looked just like Tiger’s. One difference was, he didn’t have as much speed, so he could make a releasing draw swing without worrying about the face shutting and the ball hooking. Tiger always played away from the hook very effectively, but Adam had this beautiful full release that produced tight draws. 

The best way to avoid a hook is to keep turning your body through the ball. If your body stalls on the downswing, the club whips past you and your hands turn over, closing the clubface. What Adam does so well is, he clears his left hip out of the way as he starts down and keeps turning his body to the finish. So if you see too much hook, turn through faster. That’s how you get rid of it.

Finish your turn

This isn’t so much a drill, rather a checkpoint. If you do a good job turning through, your trail shoulder (right shoulder for righties) should be closer to the target than any other part of your body [below]. This ensures that you’ve fully rotated your upper body and haven’t swung off your back foot – another reason the club flips past the body and causes a hook. Make some practice swings, checking where your trail shoulder finishes. And when you play, if a hook is your typical miss, you’ve now got a great swing thought: shoulder to the target.