Play a Draw With the Driver

Learning to play a variety of shots in golf is a great advantage. One of the best shots to learn is a draw and a big advantage on any hole is hitting good drive. So if you can play a draw with a drive you have a great advantage.

In this article I am going to describe how to play a draw and why it gives you an advantage.

To play a draw you need to have an inside-out swing and a square club-face through impact. For me one of the easiest clubs to do it with is the driver.

An inside-out golf swing sounds easy enough but so many players struggle to get it right. From my experience this is from trying to hit the ball too hard by swing with the arms. It is far easier to control the swing path if you simply let your body rotate and keep the connection between your arms and torso intact.

Firstly the "how" to play a draw with the driver.

Here are a couple of things that should help:

Place the ball on the inside of your target foot toe - that is the left foot for a right-handed golfer.

Ensure that the club face is square to the target at this point. To do this imagine two parallel lines - one running along your toe line and the other from the ball to the target. Set you club face square to the ball to target line.

Now move your non-target (back) foot two inches back. creating a slightly closed stance but keeping that club-face square to the imaginary line.

Cock your head so that it is behind the ball and not directly over it.

Move your hands back so that the shaft is in line with your spine and your hands are not ahead of the ball as would be the case with your irons. This is to get you to strike the ball on the correct launch angle which, with the driver, is on the up. This slight hand movement should mean you have to drop your non target shoulder slightly. This is perfect.

Start your backswing by turning your target shoulder away from the target concentrating on keeping the connection between your arms and torso the same throughout the swing.

Take the club back along your toe line. Remember that you have moved the non-target foot back slightly so it should be a slight inside take away.

Start your down-swing by turning your hips back towards the target until your belt buckle is facing directly to the target.

Keep the club on the toe line on the down-swing and follow through making sure that you finish with high hands.

If you do everything correctly you will have a nice draw.

Now for the "benefits" of playing a draw with the driver.

First and foremost is distance. The inside-out swing (going across the ball) with the square club face creates top-spin and top-spin creates roll which will give you more distance. That's what we want with a driver - maximum distance. The closer you can get to the green the shorter your approach shot will be. Unless you are very different (I nearly said a freak!) playing a 9 iron is far easier and more accurate than playing a 5 iron.

Secondly is you have a bigger target if you can hit a particular shot such as a draw with the drive. Knowing the ball will curve from right to left (again for the right-handed golfer) means you can safely aim for the right hand side of the fairway. You have the entire width of the fairway - left of where you are aiming - as a landing area. Aiming for the middle would mean you only have the left half of the fairway to play with. I hope that makes sense!

So there you have how and why you should play a draw with a drive whenever possible. Sometimes though you will get holes that are not set up for the draw which is why you should learn to play a variety of shots.

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