3 Big Distance Killers for Driver

hello golfers PGA teaching professional Todd Kolb and we're here today talking about three big power leagues three things that you very well could be doing in your golf swing that are costing you big time when it comes to distance and these are probably the three most common things that I see when I watch people hit golf balls and they come into the academy and they say hey coach I want to hit the golf ball further what do I need to do well there's three things right away that I'm looking for though we're going to talk about today I'm going to give you some education on that because I know it's going to help you hit the golf ball further so the first one we're going to talk about is its golfers tend to hit down on the golf ball we're talking about specifically here with the driver I'm going to tell you why that is killing your distance why it's a huge huge power league next we talk about moving off the golf ball there's a lot of confusion out there about what we call I call displacement or people think hey I got to move off the golf ball I got to get behind the golf ball to give me more distance just not sure I'm going to show you and tell you exactly why that is wrong and how better yet help you fix it and then the third thing and kind of this is the elusive one that poor transition people say oh you're quick from the top or you're swinging too fast well I'm going to tell you exactly why that's impact in your distance and why it's a huge huge power leak for us let's get into it right away so hitting down we're talking specifically here about the driver now one of the things that we know with technology like radars and Club fittings and all these types of things that we can do now is we know without a doubt that in order to maximize your distance with your driver based on whatever your club head speed is is you want to hit up on the driver now why is that because when when you come in contact with a golf ball when that when the club is traveling in an upward motion with the driver what that does is it increases launch which is a good thing all right within reason of course it's a good thing and most importantly is it decreases spin so when you watch a shot if you ever think about if you ever need a golf shot like wow that felt really solid and it takes off and it's just kind of what I would balloons it goes out goes straight up and then just come straight down no roll okay that is a shot that maybe even struck solidly has a lot of spin on it and one of the reasons now there could be many I understand but one of the big reasons could be simply because you're hitting down on on the driver you're getting down on the ball with the driver I should say so hitting up is one of the easiest and best things that you can do to increase your distance and alleviate one of those huge power leaks now we've got some great information at us golf TV on our website or also on our youtube channel specifically that can help you with hitting up on the driver if you went to our site and in the search you just typed in you know hitting up on your driver or increasing distance you would find some great information on that so the one tip I am going to give you because I'm not going to let you get away here without giving you one tip on how to actually hit up on the driver and that is to simply check your ball position when you're hitting your driver check your ball position that ball should be positioned probably more forward than you think very very seldom if I had a student come in and I say you know what you got to move the ball back in your stance with your driver usually I'm telling them hey Jim hey Amy move that ball up in your stance because when you move it up that will help you hit up on the golf ball a little bit so that's number one that's the number one power leak that's the simplest one the quickest one the most common one that I see is golfers tend to hit down on the golf ball with their driver so that will help you right away now the next one is moving off the golf ball and this is one I'm pretty passionate about because I I have spent quite a few years working with the swing catalyst system and if you if you're not familiar with that you should check it out check out swing callus go to their website read some of the information because what swing catalyst is is it's it's a it subtracts the interaction between the golfer and the ground and so we use a pressure plate so we can tell where is the pressure on the feet and what I did a video on pressure movement a little bit ago and you should check that out if you want more details of vodka what is he talking about what's pressure movement and the difference between weight and pressure movements a really good information there but at any rate if you check out swing cows and you read some of the research and some of the stuff that's that's coming out right now is is that what you're going to see is what we're really looking for is to rotate basically kind of around the golf ball versus off the golf ball and most importantly we want to create some force down into the ground all right so one of the common things that a lot of golfers say is a hey I want to hit the golf ball further so they want to move off the golf ball they literally take their upper body and they shift off the golf ball cuz they're thinking themselves hey I kind of get a lot of pressure or a lot of weight they'll even say the word weight which is quite honestly incorrect but anyhow they're like I got to get weight into my right foot all right now you can get weights if you want to call it use the word weight it's pressure but if you you can get pressure into your trail foot your right foot which would be for a right-hand golfer without displacing your upper body okay now why is that important because when you displace a big of your upper body a lot you start to move the low point of the golf swing which gets into contact and a whole nother hold it's a whole nother video okay but you can still rotate I can rotate and still stay relatively centered but also be applying a lot of pressure down and into my trail foot and it's the rotation combined combined that's important combined with pressure into the right foot into the ground not on the right foot but literally into the ground listen up this is important that gives you the ability to push forward okay so when I just move off the golf ball move off the golf ball that's like that's like throwing a ball and going I mean it looks good but that's not how people throw through a ball that's not how they throw a punch what they do is they rotate and apply force down it's the force down that gives you the ability to push off think about this when you watch a runner or sprinter and they're in the blocks all right why do they have something behind them why do they have the blocks that they're in why do they have that so they can push off that and get going forward same thing happens in the golf swing when you rotate if you don't push down into the ground into your right foot you have no starting blocks and you're trying to sprint and you've got nothing to push off all right so don't confuse off the golf ball with rotation and turn they're two completely different things so we've got some great information on that like I said earlier I did a long video on the difference between weight and pressure and check out a youtube channel or on our site you're going to find some really good information there so that was number two a lot of people say hey I got to move off the golf ball that's just not good information the third one and probably the most elusive one is poor transition the move from backstroke to down stroke and that's kind of that's where the magic happens you know I'm not going to lie that's where the magic happens and for some people that move is pretty easy and for some people that move is kind of hard all right so I want to talk I want to talk about what should that look like in terms of the club so when we think about this here I get the club on the backstroke all right I mean I'm in the backstroke now what we want and I'm just going to use it a term here we're going to call it like the balance point or the weight of the basically the weight of the weight of the club okay and I know that's not like scientifically perfect but we just want to create some an analogy for he for you here in some some information so when I get to the top in the first move if the first move is for the club head to go out and the club shaft to kind of what we would call stand up it should be standing up if that happens in the first move the transition you've lost a lot of the power a lot of the built-up power that you've created in the backstroke art is now gone it's like you've emptied the tank early alright people Los Angeles say where you're swinging out or across I mean that's kind of a phrase I'll use but and that's true but what's happening this is when the balance point and this discussion rabbin here like I said this is just kind of basic 101 but when the clubhead stands up and the club head falls too far out early early all right early in the transition you lose a lot of power now what do we want to see well we're here at the top we want to see that first magic move of what we would in golf terms call the club shaft laying down the club shaft laying down and when the club shaft lays down the balance the weight of it kind of falls back and behind and then that's when the energy is stored up and you can release that into the golf ball and now so you think of yourself okay Wow like that's like that's pretty deep right that's pretty deep like what what is he time well so let's let me give you a couple analogies so I'm sure most of us has a kid at some point you went maybe you went tubing or water skiing something like that and your dad or your uncle or whatever they were pulling you behind the boat and you're going along and you're going in a straight line all right so if you wanted to create some more speed the person who's driving the boat what would they do well they would kind of take the boat and they would kind of turn it pretty quickly and that would sling you out and around that's kind of similar to what we see you know in the golf swing a better analogy however though to kind of really make the point is is it's football season right now as we're shooting this video is think of a kicker years ago when I was a little kid all the kickers how did they kick the ball they kicked it straight on boom just like this like just as just straight on very accurate but they couldn't kick me like a 35-yard field goal was a pretty long call pretty a 40 45 yards was unheard of you know 50 was like the record now you watch on the NFL college they're kicking the ball 50 55 60 yarder sometimes it's crazy but how do they kick it now look you get from the sidearm or what we would call soccer style so they come in they're kind of on the side and then boom ice they swing the leg out and around same thing in the golf swing when the club shaft shallows or when it drops the weight falls behind and then much like the field goal the foot can sling out kick out and you can create some speed now if you're listening this you're like holy smokes how the heck am I going to think about that my golf swing I don't want you to think about that your golf swing but I want you to least understand the concept you need to understand the concept and once you understand that alright then you can do some drills so once again if you look at our our YouTube channel or even our website us Golf tv.com we have some great drills one of them specifically specifically you want to look for what we call the transition drill the transition drill that's a great drill that can just instinctively help your body create that motion all right so let's recap here these are three huge power leaks that I see on a regular basis are probably that these are the most common ones that I see all right when people come in and they want more distance the first one is they hit down underground we're talking about driver only they hit down on their driver bad deal don't want to hit down the drive you got to hit up hit up on the driver the simplest and easiest way to do that is maybe move the ball forward a little bit alright check that out number two is they move off the golf ball people think you got to move off the ball or move your weight to the bat not even weight move your way to the back foot or you know pressure that's what okay you can increase pressure in the back foot by staying relatively centered and rotating think of the analogy of like the sprinter the hundred meter dash they're not just standing up right there down in a position but more importantly they're in a position that is allowing them to push into the ground so they can go forward when you make your rotation the backswing if you don't have any force down it isn't going to matter we've got some great things for you to check out like I said on our website about that and then the last one and this is the system I go I this is probably the most challenging one is what we call poor transition this is the magic move this is the separation move right here and when we know when I get a student in here they have that transition this smooth I'm like oh man here we go I got something to work with and so the concept there just to understand that that the way to the club the balance whatever word we want to for today's discussion that when it stands up early you're going to you're dumping all the energy all the pressure out too early when you let it shallow or flatten out a little bit you store it longer and you can kick it out a little later much like the field goal kicker and you can create some late speed which is what you want so hopefully you know we haven't confuse you too much the idea here is to give you some some in-depth information and also provide you with some resources if you want to learn more about how you can eliminate some of these power leaks and hopefully help you start hitting the golf ball a little further

Channel: US GOLF TV

Views: 368,288

Rating: 4.6395602 out of 5

Keywords: usgolftv, us golf tv, golftv, Todd Kolb, PGA Professional, golf driver, golf driver tips, golf driver distance, golf driver swing technique, golf driver swing tips, golf driver distance killers, golf, usgolftv power leaks

Id: sP_As-D8hec

Length: 13min 53sec (833 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 29 2016