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Drivers - simply harder to swing and is the size or looks the problem with consistency?

Luchnia

Luchnia

You will never conquer golf.
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It makes sense that the larger club is harder to swing, yet why is it that some of us cannot work out the inconsistency with that club? I find that I can be fairly consistent throughout my bag even to my 5 wood, utility iron, 5 iron, etc., yet with the driver it simply is overall my most inconsistent club.

There are days when I hit it well and days when I don't. It is the only club in my bag that holds that honor the higher percentage of time. Yes, I have issues sometimes with my other clubs, but not like the driver. I am wondering if it is the size, the look, the weight, or exactly what it is. Notice, I am blaming the club and not my swing for the root problem :cool:

I am sure this has cropped up before, but I am wondering what you guys that are fairly consistent with distance and accuracy with your driver do the most to keep it that way? Do you constantly practice a certain "thing" or thought or whatever with your driver, or are you just a natural?

Or is it the look of the club that subconsciously keeps it on track? I know the appearance is as important as anything else because club appearance can affect how a person delivers the swing to the ball. It must have some weight to confidence. I have seen this even in my own bag.

I am a person that believes in purpose driven practice and want to ensure I am heading in the right direction to get the best consistency with the driver. I don't mind up and down days, but I see guys in my age group (old) that are so much more consistent and I just don't see the difference between our swings.
 
It is basically the longer shaft and the flatter face. Two of the biggest factors in hitting the ball straight is how long the shaft is and how much backspin is on the ball. The more backspin the straighter the ball generally goes. That is why a wedge is easier to hit than the driver.
 
Are you referring to inconsistency of the strike, or inconsistency of the ball flight?

One thing I was told long ago was that as loft decreases on a clubface, ball flight error dynamics grow rapidly. A one degree open clubface on a wedge will still give a shot that’s pretty consistent. Whereas a one degree open face on a driver will put you in the right woods.

I think a lot of the inconsistencies are simply due to these physics and how the driver amplifies errors due to having such low loft. Another way the think about it... don’t beat yourself up (too much) for draws and fades with driver, beat yourself up for off-center clubface contact.
 
The lower loft, longer length, and less spin make a driver much less forgiving. Errors in ball position, swing path, face open/closed, angle of attack, etc are magnified with the driver. At a carry distance of 200 yards a 1* change in face angle causes a 4 yard miss. Many golfers set up and or deliver the face at impact 5 or more degrees open or closed, resulting in a lot of missed fairways. Golf is hard.
 
tahoebum said:
The lower loft, longer length, and less spin make a driver much less forgiving. Errors in ball position, swing path, face open/closed, angle of attack, etc are magnified with the driver. At a carry distance of 200 yards a 1* change in face angle causes a 4 yard miss. Many golfers set up and or deliver the face at impact 5 or more degrees open or closed, resulting in a lot of missed fairways. Golf is hard.
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Great info and certainly makes perfect sense to me. I was thinking of how to refocus my practice with the driver to be more effective. If we need to get the club face delivered better at impact there must be a way that we can work on that area of weakness to improve the quality of strike with the big club instead of simply working on things that are not producing any results.
 
Buster1 said:
Are you referring to inconsistency of the strike, or inconsistency of the ball flight?

One thing I was told long ago was that as loft decreases on a clubface, ball flight error dynamics grow rapidly. A one degree open clubface on a wedge will still give a shot that’s pretty consistent. Whereas a one degree open face on a driver will put you in the right woods.

I think a lot of the inconsistencies are simply due to these physics and how the driver amplifies errors due to having such low loft. Another way the think about it... don’t beat yourself up (too much) for draws and fades with driver, beat yourself up for off-center clubface contact.
Click to expand...
I would state aim and distance inconsistencies - probably both of what you stated to some degree.
 
Depends on what kind of inconsistency you're seeing. More backspin and more loft on a driver head will increase consistency out of the box so to speak. Other than that it's just being comfortable with your shot shape and aiming accordingly.
 
For me it is all about tempo and maintaining the same speed of swing. As soon as I try to go harder it can get wonky on my. Timing is so important in the driver swing.
If you are having issues maybe it could be a shaft issue? Have you had a fitting to make sure that shaft in your driver is a proper fit?
 
To me, the driver requires a different setup and different swing. Where I might have a very slight spine tilt with my irons, I have a much more pronounced tilt with the driver. I also want to feel that I "throw" the clubhead at the ball approaching impact with the driver rather than "cover" the ball as I do with my irons.
 
When I started playing again 3 years ago after a decade long layoff, the driver was absolutely my worst club. I developed a nasty snap hook. Got to the point where I just dropped the ball on the tee box and took out my 5 wood. I retired 3 years ago. So I had plenty of time to work on it. I experimented all kinds of ways.
What got me going in the right direction was hitting the ball half speed. I hit it as far as it would go without hooking. It started to hook around 150 yards. So I just worked that swing. I felt weird with this slow swing. I didn't go to the course for several months. Just kept trying to develop the swing and slowly increase the yardage.

Over time that hook started going away and I could increase the swing speed. Once I felt I could hit 200 yards safely I finally went to the course. My playing partners just thought I was swinging like an older guy because I am an older guy. Over the next year I kept tweaking it and finally found something I could work with. Lol, I remember one time the first hole I just decided to let it fly and swing as hard as I could. I hit it around 270 yards down the middle. My playing partners were shocked. I told them "I still have power. I just couldn't use it before because of that snap hook".

The past year and half the driver has been one of my most consistent clubs from round to round. Its one I have confidence in now. It took a long time to get there though. I never would have had the time to work on it as much if I wasn't retired.
 
Maybe change your goals and expectations with it? I mean start by honestly asking yourself what those are with it, and then what they are with say, your 5W, and how they differ. And if you're swing and mental approach are working towards those expectations, or against. How they might be influencing what you 'try' to do with each of those clubs in your hands. Are you maybe even doing sightly better than you think your are with it, and the expectation just creates a bigger perceived gap vs. result too? Little bit a a sidenote, but these questions are why I'm a data junkie. It can create clearer perceptions and expectations, and then better results.

If your goal is just to be in the fairway at any distance longer then your FW, then just put your FW swing on it, spin it a little, and march down the fairway. If your goal is (or should be, or is with other clubs) to just make center contact, then try to work towards just that, with no other expectation, and see what happens over a stretch.

What and how a person practices matters too, like you're asking. Over my last 100 shots with each I'm 36 yds shorter and 10% less accurate with a 3W. Part of that is fit, like @Snickerdog mentioned (been trying new 3W's that aren't perfect fit yet), and part of it is practice. I don't use a 3W nearly as often, so I'm less good with it by a small margin even when it is a great fit. And I expect that, because it's honest and fair to. I used to hit it at the range more, but I might use it once/twice a round, so I don't much these days compared to things that more directly affect scoring. Realistic expectation is that it won't be my best club. My driver is in my hands a lot and I practiced like crazy with it to make it a strength. I have different expectations for it now than I did.

My feelings on some of this are pretty clear in historical posts, and the data collected by basically every study, app, etc are blindingly so. People as a whole are barely more accurate with a 3W compared to a driver. They're just a heck of a lot shorter. The physics of the club don't make some massive difference in how many fairways they hit. What's between the ears does. So I start with what's going on there.
 
Most people that struggle with driver simply have a poor setup, and setup mistakes can be easy to see on others, but not so easy to feel for yourself. So just record a video and post it online for others to look at, I bet you see good results from just a few setup tweaks.

But of all clubs the one that comes with most poor advice is driver, so much bad information out there it's no wonder so many struggle, you have to filter out the bad information and there may even be some in this thread, it's that common.
 
Snickerdog said:
For me it is all about tempo and maintaining the same speed of swing. As soon as I try to go harder it can get wonky on my. Timing is so important in the driver swing.
If you are having issues maybe it could be a shaft issue? Have you had a fitting to make sure that shaft in your driver is a proper fit?
Click to expand...
I did have a fitting, but it was cold and not the best fitting. Probably should go for another one.
 
for most of my golf life, the driver has dogged me. Mostly it was my over the top steep swing that let me hit an iron decent but was total miss when it came to the driver. In past few years my swing has improved across the board and in 2020 I saw the driver start to go straight and the negative angle of impact mostly went away.

Now I can say the error I see is just related to the driver being longer and less loss, and every now in again the urge to kill it.
 
More great advice and much appreciated. I am excited to put some more of this advice into practice.
 
for me, a part of it is confidence in the swing...i can find fairways, i know that...but getting that distance out of the driver with a good set up and confident swing has helped me get more out of the driver lately...taking more lessons has helped...not as much fun as just buying another driver, tho :LOL:
 
Perhaps the longer shaft exaggerates any swing path error and thus the resulting ball flight is worse. I am lucky to not have a big problem with my current driver except it doesn't allow me to work the ball as old fashioned drivers did.
 
You have an adjustable driver. Throw in a shorter shaft and try it out...Try choking up your current set up. Worth a try.
 
I started with my first driver at the standard length before last year, but I already use a shorter driver and did for all of last year. I think mine is 44.5 right now which seemed to work the best for me so far. I have used them from anywhere from 43 to 46.
 
Luchnia said:
It makes sense that the larger club is harder to swing, yet why is it that some of us cannot work out the inconsistency with that club? I find that I can be fairly consistent throughout my bag even to my 5 wood, utility iron, 5 iron, etc., yet with the driver it simply is overall my most inconsistent club.

There are days when I hit it well and days when I don't. It is the only club in my bag that holds that honor the higher percentage of time. Yes, I have issues sometimes with my other clubs, but not like the driver. I am wondering if it is the size, the look, the weight, or exactly what it is. Notice, I am blaming the club and not my swing for the root problem :cool:

I am sure this has cropped up before, but I am wondering what you guys that are fairly consistent with distance and accuracy with your driver do the most to keep it that way? Do you constantly practice a certain "thing" or thought or whatever with your driver, or are you just a natural?

Or is it the look of the club that subconsciously keeps it on track? I know the appearance is as important as anything else because club appearance can affect how a person delivers the swing to the ball. It must have some weight to confidence. I have seen this even in my own bag.

I am a person that believes in purpose driven practice and want to ensure I am heading in the right direction to get the best consistency with the driver. I don't mind up and down days, but I see guys in my age group (old) that are so much more consistent and I just don't see the difference between our swings.
Click to expand...
IMO, much of the struggles with the driver are more due to people trying to kill the ball and hit it as far as they can, instead of just swinging within what they are capable of and hitting it to a specific distance.
 
While controlling the dispersion with the driver has always been a struggle, it isn't like I'm lights out with my other clubs. Two-way misses throughout the bag.
 
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