We got a question from Jackie on the blog. We going to look at her situation and see if we can help her out and everybody else. Jackie says, “I'm having problems off the tee box with my driver. I will start off hitting the ball well the first couple of holes and then they start going out to right field by the 9th hole. I'll be hitting my 3 wood and it goes straight. My question is, why can I hit my 3 wood straight and my driver so right? Is it ball position or hands or neither?”
Realistically, Jackie, it could be everything. But I thin k I'm going to start off by saying historically, in all the lessons I've given and all the golf schools I've given, many players always ten to hit their driver better on the first couple of hole if they haven't really warmed up a lot on the range because they're not really loosened up yet. So in many cases, they're not turning too much. But after four or five holes where they get loosened up, all of a sudden, next thing you know they start winding up a little bit more and go after the ball and start hitting a little bit harder and now they're turning a little bit more. We're looking at the left foot coming up, the knee goes in and you get more turn. Next thing you know your spine angle is changing, swing's getting longer and deeper and you're out over the top and then, boom, there comes the slice. And all because you loosened up and your swing started getting too much movement and too much turn and got too long.
So I think the key is when your start losing those shots to the right, start looking and start feeling, is my swing getting too much? Too much turn, too long, too much activity, too many angle changes. As you know, in the Peak Performance Golf Swing we say golf is a game of angles. The less angles the better.
The second issue that can b e causing this is that you 3 wood is definitely shorter then your driver nd it has a lot more loft on it. Even if you were somewhat slicing across the ball, outside in a little bit with a 3 wood, well a 3 wood will always go a little bit straighter because as you hit a ball with a 3 wood the ball runs up the face more and get diagonal spin as compared to a flatter driver face where any action across the ball, the ball runs sideways and gets more left to right spin. The fact that the drive is longer and with less loft will maximize right spin on and bad shot much more than a 3 wood will.
The driver may be getting too long for you and it might be too stiff or too weak, but a club fitter can help you with that.
My guess is that if you hit the driver pretty good for starters, look at the amount of swing you're making by the time you get to the 9th hole. If you're letting it rip, you might be over turning and over swinging and that's where the real issues are coming in.
The Surge!