3 Big Distance Killers for Driver

Hello golfers, PGA Teaching Professional Todd Kolb, we're here today talking about three big power losses. Three things that they very well could be doing in their golf swing that are costing them a lot when it comes to

distance

, and these are probably the three most important. Common things I see when I see people hit golf balls and they walk into the academy and say, Hey coach, I want to hit the golf ball farther, what do I need to do right? There are three things I'm looking for right away. What 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 farther, so the first thing we're going to talk about is that golfers tend to hit down.

In the golf ball that we're talking about specifically here with the

driver

, I'll tell you why that's killing your

distance

, why there's a huge energy leak. Next, we'll talk about how to get away from the golf ball. There's a lot of confusion about what we call displacement or people think, hey, I have to get away from the golf ball. I have to get behind the golf ball to give myself more distance. It's simply not true. I'll show you and tell you exactly. why that's wrong and, better yet, help you fix it and then the third thing and pretty much this is the elusive one that people with bad transition say oh, you're fast from the top or you're swinging too fast, well, I'm going to Tell you exactly why that's affecting your distance and why that's a huge energy drain for us, let's get into it right away, so we're going to talk specifically here about the

driver

, now one of the things that we know with technology like radars and club accessories and all these types of things that we can do now, we know without a doubt that to maximize your distance with your driver based on your club head speed, you want to hit the driver now, why? because when you come into contact with the golf ball, when the club moves up with the driver, what it does is increase the launch, which is a good thing, within reason, of course, it is a good thing and the most important.

Does the effect decrease? So when you look at a shot, if you ever think about if you've ever hit a golf shot, you think, "wow, that felt really solid and it takes off and it's like what I would call balloons, it comes out, it comes out." up and then just down without rolling okay that's a shot that maybe even hits solid it has a lot of spin and one of the reasons why another could be a lot I get it but one of the big reasons could be just because you're hitting the driver, you're hitting the ball with the driver, I should say, so hitting is one of the best and easiest things you can do to increase your distance and alleviate one of those huge energy drains now.

We have some great information on us golf tv on our website or also on our YouTube channel specifically that can help you find the driver if you visited our site and in the search that you just typed in, you know, find the driver. your driver or increase the distance, you will find excellent information on that, so the only advice I'm going to give you is that I'm not going to let you get away without giving you advice on how to get to the driver. and that's just checking the position of the ball when you hit your driver, checking the position of the ball, that ball should be placed probably further forward than you think.

Very, very rarely have I had a student come in and tell you, you know what you have to do. move the ball back in your stance with your driver I usually tell them hey jim hey amy move that ball up in your stance because when you move it up that's going to help you hit the golf ball a little bit so that's it number one that's the number one energy loss, the simplest, the quickest, the most common that I see is that golfers tend to hit the golf ball with their driver, so that will help you right away, now that the next one is moving away from the golf ball. and this is one that I'm very passionate about because I've spent quite a few years working with the oscillating catalyst system and if you're not familiar with it you should check it out, check out oscillating catalyst, go to their website, read some of the information because what The catalyst for the swing is that it takes away the interaction between the golfer and the ground, so we use a pressure plate so we can know where the pressure is on the feet and I made a video on the pressing motion. a little bit ago and you should check it out if you want to know more details about, what is he talking about?

What is pressing movement and the difference between weight and pressing movement? There's really some good information out there, but anyway, if you check out the swing house and you read some of the research and some of the things that are coming out right now is what you're going to see is what we're really looking for is rotating basically. around the golf ball instead of outside the golf ball. and most importantly, we want to create some force into the ground, so one of the common things that a lot of golfers say is, "Hey, I want to hit the golf ball farther so you want to get away from the golf ball that you literally take." ". their upper body and they move away from the golf ball because they're thinking to themselves, hey, I have a lot of pressure or a lot of weight, they even say the word weight, which is honestly wrong, but they still say I have to put weight on my right foot, right now you can put weight if you want to call it, use the word weight, it's pressure, but if you can put pressure on your trailing foot, your right foot, which would be for a right-handed golfer without shifting the top of your body, okay, why is it so important?

Because when you shift your upper body a lot, you start moving the low point of the golf swing that comes into contact and another whole, oh, that's a whole other video, okay, but I can still rotate. I can rotate and still stay relatively centered, but also apply a lot of pressure down and into my trailing foot and it's the combined rotation that's important, combined with the pressure on the right foot toward the ground, not the right foot. , but literally. on the ground, listen, this is important, it gives you the ability to push forward, okay, so when I move away from the golf ball, I move away from the golf ball, that's like throwing a ball and moving forward I mean, it looks cool, but that's not how people throw throw a ball that's not how they throw a punch what they do is rotate and apply downward force it's the downward force that gives you the ability to propel yourself think In this when you look at a runner or sprinter and they're on the block, okay, why do they have something behind them?

Why do they have the blocks they are on? Why do they have that so they can push it and move on? The same thing happens in the golf swing when you rotate if you don't push off the ground with your right foot, you don't have starting blocks and you're trying to run and you have nothing to push off so don't confuse the golf ball with rotation and turns, there are two completely. different things so we have some great information on that like I said before I made a long video on the difference between weight and pressure and check out our YouTube channel or on our site you'll find some really good information there so that was number two , a lot of people say, hey, I have to get away from the golf ball, that's not good information.

The third, and probably the hardest to achieve, is a bad transition, the back to down movement, and that's where the magic happens. you know, I'm not going to lie, that's where the magic happens and for some people moving is pretty easy and for other people moving is a little difficult, so I want to talk, I want to talk about what that should look like in terms of the club, so when we think about this here, I understand well the stick in the back, I'm in, I'm in the back, now what we want and I'm just going to use one term here, let's 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 scientifically perfect, but I just want to create an analogy so you hear some information.

So when I get to the top on the first move, if the first move is the club head coming out and the club shaft coming up, this would be standing up if that happens on 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 your back is now gone, it's like you emptied the tank early and people lost things and they'll say, well, you're swinging or on the top, I mean, that's kind of a phrase that I use, but and that's true, but what happens is when the balance point and this discussion that we're having here, like I said, it's basics 101, but when the club head rises and the club head falls too early early very early in the transition a lot of power is lost now what do we want to see well we are here at the top we want to see that first magical move of what we would do in golf terms called lay club shaft, lay club shaft and when the club shaft places the balance, the weight falls back and forth and then that's when the energy is stored and now you can release it into the golf ball.

So you're thinking to yourself, okay, wow, that's pretty deep, right, that's pretty deep, what is he talking about? So let me give you a couple of analogies, as I'm sure most of us did when we were kids or at some point. uh, maybe you went tubing or water skiing, something like that and your dad or your uncle or whatever is pulling you behind the boat and you're going in a straight line, okay, so if you wanted to create a little bit more speed, what would the person driving the boat do well? You would take the boat and spin it pretty fast and that would throw it out and around, that's kind of similar to what we see, you know? in the golf swing, a better analogy, though, to make the point is this football season right now while we're filming uh uh, this video is a thought from a kicker years ago, when I was a little kid, y'all the kickers, how did they do it?

They kicked the ball, they kicked it directly into the boom, just like that, very precise, but they couldn't. I mean, a 35 yard field goal was pretty long, you know, nice, 40. 45 yards was unheard of, you know, 50. It was like the record you see now in the NFL college, they're shooting 50 55 60 yards is crazy sometimes, but how do they kick it? Now they kick it from the side or more, what we would call football style, to get them in. They're like sideways and then boom, they move their leg out and around same thing in the golf swing, when the shaft of the club gets shallow or when it lands, the weight stays behind and then just like the kicker field, the foot can be thrown outwards. kick and you can create some speed now if you're listening to this you're like holy smoke how the hell am I supposed to think about that?

My golf swing. I don't want you to think about that in your golf swing, but. I want you to at least understand the concept you need to understand the concept and once you understand it then you can do some exercises so again if you look at our YouTube channel or even our website usgolftv.com we have some exercises great. practice one of them specifically, specifically you want to look for what we call the transition exercise the transition exercise which is a great exercise that can instinctively help your body create that movement, so let's recap here, these are three great energy leaks that I see on a normal bait, these are probably these are the most common ones that I see when people come in and want more distance, the first one is they hit their, we're talking about the driver, they just hit their driver, bad treatment.

I don't want to hit the drive, you have to hit the driver, the simplest and easiest way to do that is to maybe move the ball forward a little bit, okay, check that number two is to get them off the golf ball. People think you have to move off the ball or move your weight back, not even the weight, move your weight to the back foot or you know press the back foot, okay you can increase the pressure on the back foot by staying relatively centered and rotating, think about the analogy with the sprinter, the 100 meter race, not only are they standing, they are down in a position, but more importantly, they are in a position that allows them to push off the ground to be able to move forward when you do your rotation, the backswing, if you don't have downward force, it won't matter.

We have some cool things you can check out, like I said on our website about that and then the last one and this is the I'm not going to lie, this is probably the most challenging, it's what we call a bad transition, this is the magic move, this is the separation movement right here and when I bring a student here and they have that transition and it's smooth. I'm like, oh man, here we go, I have something to work with and the concept there is just to understand that the weight of the club is the balance, whatever word we want to use for today's discussion, that when you get up early you're going to you're throwing away all the energy, all the pressure too soon, when you leave it shallow orit flattens out a little bit, you store it longer and you can kick it out a little bit later, like the field goal kicker, and you can create some late speed, which is what you want, so I hope you know we haven't confused you Too much with the idea here.

It's giving you detailed information and also giving you some resources if you want to learn more about how you can eliminate some of these energy leaks and hopefully help you start hitting the golf ball a little bit more.