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Why play DRIVER?

I actually play my driver better than my 4 wood, so for me i choose driver everytime (on longer holes)
 
Why play DRIVER?

I have always played my 4 wood a lot better than my drivers. I believe it is because hitting a ball with a wood feels similar than hitting it with the rest of the clubs. With a driver, it is almost a different game since you are swinging up on the ball. I am a bad player as it is and once i start changing things, my game goes downhill fast. Having said all of this, when i am swinging the driver well, those long shots make the game easy...but to this day, a fairway tee shot is a lot more reliable for me.
Some say that if you are going to hook or slice a ball it will happen with a driver or a fairway. My response is: yes, but with the driver it will be 40 yards into the woods and with the fairway it will be in the 2nd cut.


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I'd probably ditch my putter before I ditched my big "boom-boom" doggie dog.
 
Nate said:
I'd probably ditch my putter before I ditched my big "boom-boom" doggie dog.
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Thanked just for the phrase "big "boom boom" doggie dog".
 
AmberLamps said:
Simple question, why even play Driver when I can get a much more consistent shot with my 3w and only lose 20 yards or so. Recently I have just been leaving the Driver at home and teeing off with the 3W, I just shot my best round to date (90). I know i suck, but i really suck with Driver, as do most armatures.

I mostly just play my local city coarse, and I understand a driver is probably needed on some courses, but I feel most players would benefit by leaving it at home, unless your hitting fairways consistently with it.
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There was a thread not too long ago where most players agreed they would give up distance for accuracy. That's what your trade-off is here.

That said, learning to master the driver gives you the ability to hit your max yardage and makes you a more complete player. As part of a program to master that driver, there's nothing wrong with choking down (or even trimming the length of your driver). Varying your tee height and trying different shots is always good too, because you know you're going to see a lot of variety in holes out there.
 
Try a shorter shaft (just an inch longer or maybe equal to the three wood) and see if that helps with accuracy.
 
I can hit good and bad shots with any of my clubs... so if I'm going to miss the fairway or be in the woods, I'd rather be closer to the hole when I hit my next shot from wherever it is. I'll try to "play smart" sometimes and hit a 3 wood or hybrid off the tee and it usually just puts me in a worse position. There are times I hit one of those instead of driver when there is trouble that my driver will hit into mainly, but on average I'll hit driver as consistently as 3 wood/hybrid. I have gone through periods (years ago) where I didn't carry a driver as I was struggling hitting the driver I had at the time and just hit 3 wood off the tee. If you hit it far enough or play courses short enough, it was fine.
 
Right now my driver is my best club in the bag so it's going to be in play whenever possible.
 
I find it much easier to find the relative center of the face of my 45.5" driver over a 43" 3 wood. Also, I've always fought a two way miss with 3 wood while the driver is more consistent that way. I've said before figuring out how to hit a driver was the biggest break thru in golf for me and was the point when the game went from a constant struggle to fun most of the time...
 
Smallville said:
Try a 12° driver and/or a higher launching shaft.

You don't have to go low degrees on your driver.
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This ^
A driver with more loft reduces side-spin, which will help you keep the ball in the fairway. With driver you will have a much larger sweetspot for forgiveness, more distance, and similar accuracy to a 14-15* fairway wood. As others mentioned, a shorter shaft may help as well (~44.5*).
 
I agree with a number of posts (points made) in this thread. It is a question that seems to pop up from time to time and did so fairly recently. I always maintain the thought that the driver is unique because it is (generally speaking and special circumstances aside) the only club meant to unusually be hit as far as you can. Doing away with driver all together imo it sort of makes one what "pattyboy21" above refers to as incomplete. There is a legitimate reason to use the driver. Its for when we have the need (or desire) to hit the ball as far as we can. There is no longer club for that (as long as of course we learn to hit it).

I think it depends what your end goal is. Plenty of people gave up on driver and never use one. I been around so many players that don't carry one and havnt carried one for years and you know what? they are very happy and that's great. But again, I think it depends what your goal is, what satisfies you, and whats going to make you happy. Golf (as "blugold" ) often mentions is - "hard".
Imo one should learn to hit driver. I think many people use it when its not necessary but that's another subject. I don't think one should make it a life long project. After all we do want to enjoy ourselves. But I know I wouldn't be happy if I at least didn't make a good solid effort at the ranges through "some" time to try to make it work so I can hit it successfully enough to use it when needed. It just wouldn't satisfy me not to make those efforts. I just think the role (again imo unique) the driver plays is too important to simply let it go without some good effort. But that's just me.
 
Here are some reasons I hit driver:

1. I tend to hit it more consistently than I do a fairway wood.
2. I would much rather hit a 6 iron into a green than a 4 iron.
3. Hitting driver is fun.
 
rollin said:
I agree with a number of posts (points made) in this thread. It is a question that seems to pop up from time to time and did so fairly recently. I always maintain the thought that the driver is unique because it is (generally speaking and special circumstances aside) the only club meant to unusually be hit as far as you can. Doing away with driver all together imo it sort of makes one what "pattyboy21" above refers to as incomplete. There is a legitimate reason to use the driver. Its for when we have the need (or desire) to hit the ball as far as we can. There is no longer club for that (as long as of course we learn to hit it).

I think it depends what your end goal is. Plenty of people gave up on driver and never use one. I been around so many players that don't carry one and havnt carried one for years and you know what? they are very happy and that's great. But again, I think it depends what your goal is, what satisfies you, and whats going to make you happy. Golf (as "blugold" ) often mentions is - "hard".
Imo one should learn to hit driver. I think many people use it when its not necessary but that's another subject. I don't think one should make it a life long project. After all we do want to enjoy ourselves. But I know I wouldn't be happy if I at least didn't make a good solid effort at the ranges through "some" time to try to make it work so I can hit it successfully enough to use it when needed. It just wouldn't satisfy me not to make those efforts. I just think the role (again imo unique) the driver plays is too important to simply let it go without some good effort. But that's just me.
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Why ever try to hit a driver as far as possible? We should all have an idea how far we hit our driver. Just try to hit it that far.
 
I recently made some equipment changes with my driver that I credit for significant changes in both distance and control with my driver. I'm not saying that they will do so for others but I do think that one ought to consider how equipment may be the problem and experimenting to see if you get better performance by tuning your driver to you.

My drivers (Mizuno JPX-EZ & Nike SQ - two bags at different places) had 45.5" length. At a lesson, a pro recommended I get a stiff shaft for the Mizuno so I bought one and, since I now had an extra shaft, I had the old (regular) shaft cut to 44". With the regular shaft at 44" I found I hit the ball much straighter (my miss was a big slice and my way to tame it was also a strong grip to try and get the clubhead square). I found that I could swing the 44" much more freely and really release the clubhead at 44" with a neutral grip.

I then went and had the Nike SQ cut to 44" and had a pro in Little Rock (played some on Champions Tour and was an Adams tech on that tour for years) both shortened it and swingweighted it to D2 with hot melt. When he returned the club to me it was a revelation. I could really put a lot of wrist cock into my swing and release the lag completely. Gave me reliable distance I had never seen before with a much higher accuracy too. On the range, I am now able to pick out targets and hit towards them as I would my irons and wedges. I'm able to pick trajectory and reliable get it (hi/low. draw/fade). Before this, I never had this type of confidence in my driver. Being able to load the lag on this club has been great. It has really changed my approach/swing thought from "swinging my arms" to "swinging the club."

I just had the pro cut the stiff shaft for the Mizuno and swingweight it to D2 as without weight, it was at C7 with the shortened shaft. Only hit that at the range Monday in Little Rock but the stiff shaft at D2 in the Mizuno feels and works great. I just flew back to Philly last night with it and look forward to putting it into play.

So, if you hit a pretty good 3W but struggle with the driver, you might want to consider shortening the driver (and getting the swingweight right) to see what happens.
 
You can get down into the 80's and maybe touch into the 70's without a driver but if you want to get low you need distance.
 
blugold said:
Why ever try to hit a driver as far as possible? We should all have an idea how far we hit our driver. Just try to hit it that far.
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So true.

I think because it's easy to think longer is better off the tee it is easy to get sucked into trying to hit the monster driver. And overswinging the driver leads to a lot of wildness. Sure, you can groove the driver swing on the range so that the 100% effort swing can work but can you walk off the green with your putter, put it in the bag, pull driver and swing 100% effort on the next hole? I can't successfully.

I confess that on the range I can be a little addicted to seeing how far I can bomb the driver (hey, it's a new sensation). I'm realizing that I have to tame that instinct on the course and really work on a solid, reliable 85% swing for that.
 
blugold said:
Why ever try to hit a driver as far as possible? We should all have an idea how far we hit our driver. Just try to hit it that far.
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Hitting driver "as far as possible" means (to me) (and as I mentioned in the other thread) that we must still be within our capability to also hit it well on a regular basis. As you say " we should all have an idea how far we hit it" and to me that duistance would still be considered (for all practical reasons) "as far as possible". If we want something much shorter we would club up.
If one can hit his driver another 20 yards but has very little success trying to do that then imo its not what I consider "as far as possible" because it becomes useless.

So if I explained that the way I intended I don't disagree with you. I simply consider that distance "far as possible". And the driver is what is required for it.
 
To me a bad swing is a bad swing and I really don't notice much more accuracy with my 3w if I'm spraying my driver that day. Driver is important to me as 20 yards is huge and I don't want to be a 2 club difference into a green. Ive really worked on keeping my drives in bounds haha
 
rollin said:
Hitting driver "as far as possible" means (to me) (and as I mentioned in the other thread) that we must still be within our capability to also hit it well on a regular basis. As you say " we should all have an idea how far we hit it" and to me that duistance would still be considered (for all practical reasons) "as far as possible". If we want something much shorter we would club up.
If one can hit his driver another 20 yards but has very little success trying to do that then imo its not what I consider "as far as possible" because it becomes useless.

So if I explained that the way I intended I don't disagree with you. I simply consider that distance "far as possible". And the driver is what is required for it.
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While I agree that the driver should be the longest club in the bag, no where in the rules of golf does it say that every driver swing has to set a personal distance landmark. why not make the mental decision to "try and take 10 yards off" a driver swing? I bet it would smooth out the swing, be more consistent, and maybe even longer
 
Because I'm equally capable of hitting a bad shot with every club in my bag.
 
Hamfist said:
Because I'm too stubborn to be smart.
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For this reason right here. I'm too stubborn to admit I need to take it out of the bag.
 
Why play Driver?

"All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up! See this? This... is my boomstick!"

- it's my favorite club in the bag
- I like hitting it a long way (boomstick!)
- It gets a shorter club in my hand for my approach shots
- I'm totally confident with it
- it feels good (that tuning fork goes off in your loins)
- it makes golf more fun
 
Wakit300 said:
Why play Driver?

"All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up! See this? This... is my boomstick!"

- it's my favorite club in the bag
- I like hitting it a long way (boomstick!)
- It gets a shorter club in my hand for my approach shots
- I'm totally confident with it
- it feels good (that tuning fork goes off in your loins)
- it makes golf more fun
Click to expand...

Shop smart...shop S-mart.
 
I went most of last golf season and a good part of January and February without a driver. I used my SLDR Mini as a replacement. I was happy with the results, but there was a part of me that felt I was leaving something on the table. I wasn't getting the most of my game.

So I got with my instructor and he helped pinpoint my errors with a driver. Then I went and got fitted. There is no better feeling than when you step up with a driver and pipe one straight down the fairway for 250 plus yards. Don't get me wrong when I get fatigued or my swing is off I pull out my 3wood or Mini on the tee box, but when my driver is on my confidence is sky high and for me that usually translates to better play.
 
I hit my driver generally well with good distance. That can completely change how I play longer holes. I also find that if I'm off with the driver, 3 wood or long irons may not be that much straighter. So on most par 4s and every par 5, I live and die by driver. That's how I like to play.
 
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