Monday, May 09, 2011

Drive Your Ball Into the Fairway With a Safety Shot

Probably the hardest thing to do in golf, and yet the most important, is to get your drive in the fairway. Recreational golfers have a love-hate relationship with their driver. They can't hit it that well, yet they can't stop pulling it out of the bag. It's time for you to get this most difficult golf club under control, and you do it by thinking of the drive as a safety shot.

In general, a safety shot is one you fall back on when your swing starts acting up and you have no idea where the ball will go. It might be a half-swing with a 7-iron or maybe one of your hybrid irons. It's a shot you rely on to go straight and eat up enough yards that good scores are still possible.

To hit this shot, you slow down your swing, shorten your backswing, and concentrate solely on making clean contact with the ball. That is the way you should hit your driver, too, all the time.

Go to the range with your driver, just like everyone else does, only instead of trying to knock the ball over the boundary fence 300 yards away, try to hit your driver 125 yards, dead straight. As I said before, slow down your pace, shorten the swing, and concentrate on clean contact. Make sure the left hand leads the club through the ball.

After you get the hang of hitting a soft, graceful shot with the Big Dog right to the 125 flag, you're all set. You have figured out what it feels like to swing so that you make centered contact with your driver. From there, all you have to do is speed up your swing enough to get playable distance out of the shot.

Speed it up to the point where the swing feels "polite," that is, you feel no effort at all at any time. You never have the feeling of HIT in your swing. That's your safety shot with the driver. Use it for tight driving holes on par 4s, and on all par 5s.

There will be a few holes on which you need to hit the ball farther than this wing will let you. These are the long par 4s with a wide fairway, where you switch from the Safety Drive to the Bomb It Safely Drive. To make the switch, use a moderately faster version of your safety swing. You're still focusing on square, centered contact.

It's still an effortless swing, grip pressure is light, your backswing is still short, your rhythm is still flawless, but your sense of propriety is gone. Bang the ball. You should be good for another 15-20 yards, and still straight.

Let the pros flail away on the tee. If you swing the driver only so fast as you can make perfect contact, you'll hit the ball straighter than you ever imagined, and hit more fairways than you can count.

At last! A golf instruction book for the 15-handicapper and above. Better Recreational Golf shows you how to play consistently, starting from where you are. Weekend golfers, this is the book you've been looking for. Get started right now by reading this FREE download at www.therecreationalgolfer.com.

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