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Hi Wayne, thanks for the great website! I have learned a lot from your site, but now I thought that I need an online lesson. I am a 4 handicapper from Finland and I am struggling with my swing, especially with the driver. I often hit the irons pretty well, but I am horrible with the driver. This really kills my score on longer courses. I can see that I get stuck with the driver, but I can’t sort this out myself even with the help of your videos. I look forward to hearing your analysis and starting to work on your suggestions. I am confident that you can help me sorting this out. I can’t wait to start driving it better!
Antti exhibits the classic symptoms of using one swing for both balls on the ground and balls up on a tee (tee shots, not par-3’s). In most cases the player either hits the driver well and struggles with iron, hybrid and fairway wood contact, or can’t control the driver while compression the other shots nicely. When you see Antti’s iron swing, you will probably agree with me when I say it is excellent. He is on plane and achieves a very nice forward leaning impact with plenty of sustain past the ball. If you watch his driver swing you will find that at regular speed it looks fine, but given his account of how bad he is hitting it we know to look for some reasons why which may not be so obvious. Everyone needs to understand the major difference in hitting a driver off a tee and hitting a ball off the ground. Instead of the clubhead descending into impact, producing a low point well past the ball, the driver is optimally delivered to impact while ascending. Thus, we use the widest stance and play the ball the farthest forward to help the center of the body move more to the right of the ball, allowing for a more upward path. When the hands reach impact’ they should be much more even with the ball as opposed to forward leaning, which means the left arm will be more in front of the body and stretched out, which means that you must stand further from the driver than the rest of your clubs. I believe that if Antti moves significantly away from the ball at address (the left arm will still be lightly connected to chest but the shoulder will feel more forward), widens his stance, makes sure the ball is played opposite the left heel, and centers his hips and shoulders rather than leaning them to the left, that his natural swing will have plenty of space to swing out in front of him and up into the ball, and his driving will improve dramatically.
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