THE SECRET TO EFFECTIVE DRIVING | Paddy's Golf Tip #12 | Padraig Harrington

Welcome back to Paddy's

golf

tips. uh by request we're actually going to talk about

driving

the gold medal winner and

golf

champion of the year is Podrick Harrington. A lot of

driving

revolves around the position of the ball, the height of your t really. This affects the type of play you're going to have off the tee, so I'm going to set it up absolutely neutral to start, so essentially you'll probably find that my golf ball is off my left heel, maybe halfway of my height. foot, the golf ball is positioned approximately halfway above the height of the driver.

The two widest stances lock your body in, so you don't really want to open yourself up too much, maybe if you're climbing up and over something, so it's a nice comfortable stance. said hands it's not a big deal if you're pushing forward it's not that big where they start from is where the finish is most important so nice and relaxed in a nice and relaxed position which is my neutral place to hit a drive from well, trying to make a straight drive now, here are some little things that will happen depending on how you tee up, so if you can watch a pro event, you can see people do this, if you see a gain on the low ball, it means he's trying to tighten the ball and hit it low, they are not a safe driver or they are trying to hit the ball low, so you will find that shot if I putt under the tee, the ball goes back an inch or two because it is instinctive.

I'm going to aim a little more to the left because I want to press down and the ball is going to come out very low with a fade. I'll do it on holes that have our limits, holes that are tight holes that are upwind maybe not even not maybe not upwind because you can go further by hitting high into the wind, but anywhere you're afraid to hit a big wide one I'll do if you see a high pro level, he's open wide or he's confident or he's a short hitter, short hitters will tie high because at the end of the day they're not hitting a crooked shot and they want it to loop so that if you play high the ball will tend to go a little further forward, so it comes up to my toe, okay, I will tend to hit more up, which will help achieve a draw, so it is more likely that get a draw, a high draw from t on the high ball, I'll hit under it.

This is the position that most amateurs should play from because they are always trying to get to the back of the ball there and hit a high shot to give themselves clear distance. If you hit the ball 300 yards in the air, I want there to be a pretty wide hole to do that, so you'd have to be a very confident driver, but a short hitter is hitting 220 and he's never going to hit it that crooked, so they must push it forward as much as they can. can and hits the back of the ball creating less backspin, what we call a little more overspin so the ball runs out there more and goes through the wind more, so I'm going to take these three shots to show you.

Two more little tricks off the tee before I do that, so if I put the ball on the left side of the tee box here by moving here, the fairways obviously moved a little bit to the right, naturally the fairway is now there, so if that was my normal setup I look up and now the fairway is beyond look what happens I move to aim for the fairway what brings the ball back brings me back I have a better chance of getting a tie by placing the ball on the tee to the left side of the tee box and certainly if you want to hit the ball at range, put the tee on the left side so that you are swinging down the fairway towards the target area which will encourage a draw and the opposite of that. which is always crazy on the par trees, you'll always see people always playing in this ball field on this scoreboard here, but if it's on the right side, it's fine, I set it up like most people , I set it up nice and square, I look up. and of course the fairway because I have placed the tee here, the fairway is now more here to my left.

I'm going to encourage a cut, so if you're on the right side, you're encouraging an out and a crossover. swing to cause a cut, if you stand here on the left side, you're encouraging and you make an overswing that causes a draw, okay, so those are two things you need to keep in mind when you practice and when you play. I'm going to go to the neutral medium. I'm going to take three shots for you. I'm going to start with the bass, which is the easiest for me. Hit the ball like that and I'm going to squeeze it out there.

It shouldn't be too high and a nice low shot, a little fade there, very nice, okay, I'm going to hit the other two shots so we'll go high and again you see the ball coming forward, there's a little bit of back tilt with me here. . We're probably going to hit high attractiveness, beauty, high attractiveness, and lastly, as you can see, the change is so neutral, a little bit too high, so neutral, okay, best of the day. Okay, things to keep in mind when it comes to driving, so again, I guess. We're going to get more into the golf swing here, but it's a lot about your footwork, okay, so you have to move to drive the ball, you can't stay still, you can't keep your head down, okay, you can't. keep your hips. locked in you have to move don't open too much because it blocks you don't let your head drop because it blocks you get nice and relaxed ok, nice and relaxed now look my right knee has to go down and my right hip has to go up and back, okay, it's essential I want my hips to create an angle like this on the backswing, so I start with my hips level, but I have to create this angle now.

The reason we want to create this angle is because I want ground force and you get ground force by pushing down, we are at the angle to push down on our downswing so when I get to the top of the backswing I have that angle that allows me squat down to my left side, okay, that's it. I'm going to give myself the best ground force reaction if I lock my hips and I'm like this, my hips are level when I'm trying to hit the golf ball. I want to create downward pressure, the only way to lower pressure towards my left leg, if my hip is high is actually to make my right hip rise, which is the dreaded forward confidence movement that no one wants in the swing. of golf, so if you are a forward leaner, your hips are most likely your right hip.

It's not high enough on the backswing, so you're trying to create some height to put pressure on your left leg, so what we want to do is make sure that our left knee crosses a little bit underneath to give this angle and power. press to the left side, okay, it's crucial that you get that angle because if you don't have it, you're going to create that downward pressure by lifting the right hip, which we don't want, okay, so you cross, don't follow. everything still for you know if you're getting older, really let go of those hips, you know, don't restrict those hips at all, hip knee cross, squat over to the left side now from here, assuming you have a strong face type here leaning Okay, this left leg is now going to pop again and we're going to get the longest left side we can, we're going to stretch as much as we can on the left side and the right side is going to sink in, okay, that's where the reaction of the earth force we have loaded it and we are going to push hard up on our left side, but the key is that we are not pushing up on our right side, we are actually pushing hard. with our knee coming forward on our right side, our right side is creaking, it's sinking, we have this action with the right side and we have the left side coming up, there's a setback there, I actually see people doing this when you know, you see some training of speed and they think, well, I need to jump and you know they go and they swing and they crouch and they jump, but you're actually jumping with your hip here, which is the only thing you don't do.

What I don't want to do in the golf swing is get the hip out with the proper exaggeration of the jump so that the proper exaggeration of the right hip high on your left side explodes up and back with your left side, your head, everything goes up and back, but your right side can go up high but the knee has to come in so your hip this hip has to go under the left hip has to go under you have to squeeze very hard there so it's a real squeeze that It goes down so you can Look now, the height of my left hip is now higher, so we don't want to jump like that, we want to jump back with the left leg and forward with the right leg, so it's better to jump if you go to practice trying to achieve that. strength on the ground, the best jump is this one, so my left leg went back and my right leg went forward, so it exploded again and it exploded like that, okay, some would even say it should explode a little, but look like that Anyway, I never want to see I'll do those two jumps again so if you're going to practice ground strength in slow motion I'll do it this time.

I did it wrong the first time, so crouch down, it's not that jump forward because that hip is going to come out. we'll do it the right way this one back this forward so slow motion like this so you can see that one wants to move forward while that one comes back that's the explosion it's a turn as you go up explosion okay, that's the ground force we're looking for never we're looking for the one that we don't want to trust that way we want to trust that way and that's where you get the ground force.

Actually, you know that ground force is very important for the golf swing. In fact, I use special templates. You have to come here and see this. I have victory templates. These are carbon fiber insoles, so you'll see that these are the ones that all the athletes are smashing with their personal best. which are like you get about an eight percent improvement, uh, they've shown it in clinical trials, so this has given me more ground force reaction, it also helps my recovery, but it helps with speed because I want to push myself so hard. strong like me I can and while I'm pushing I want the energy to come out of her again.

I bet you didn't know that you hit the golf ball further out of a hard T-box than a soft T-box. There is a little advice. Obviously, the firmer the ground, the more energy you put into it, the more you get out of it than soft ground and that's why those carbon fiber soles are there, so that's pretty much all there is to riding it. the position of the ball has a huge effect on what you're doing, you know, forward you'll encourage a low cut, you'll encourage your slice. Most amateurs should practice with the teeth of the ball higher than they are comfortable with to help them hit. back of the ball, uh, again, watch where you're putting the tee on the right side for a slice, on the left side for a draw.

Outside of that you know there really isn't much else, like I said the golf swing is pretty standard, flip it. right hip you crouch on the left side you get that strong arched wrist from there you troll the club a little bit so the wrist I guess I didn't explain it so the wrist is strong in this position the club face if it's 20 degrees arched or pronated there with your left wrist, there may be five degrees at impact, but it means you're throwing at 15 degrees and eventually the club should release beyond your body. You know, if you have a good pitch, it should come loose. so the first thing that comes out after the golf ball is the club head and everything is still fine, it's not that movement, you don't want the club to follow your body, you want everything to stop and let the club continue, let it release , OK?

I think that's it for the driver's swing.