There’s no feeling fairly just like the one you expertise while you completely flush one off the tee. Positive, sticking an method shot is nice and a well-struck iron is super-satisfying, however actually roping one proper on the middle of the clubface together with your driver is the feeling that retains all of us coming again for extra.

So it makes excellent sense that an instruction story providing not only one however 10 other ways to hit the candy spot off the tee would rank among the many 12 months’s most-read articles.

Written by High 100 Trainer Kellie Stenzel and printed in October, the story is filled with glorious perception from Stenzel’s a long time of educating expertise, and contains steering on the way to excellent your posture, grip, ball place and extra, so that you, can also rip center-cut drives all spherical lengthy.

Right here is Stenzel’s recommendation in full:

An excellent, strong drive is a variety of enjoyable — and intensely efficient. It makes the remainder of the opening simpler. However to catch your tee photographs flush, you want center-face contact.

Listed below are 10 methods to ensure you’ll get that performed.

1. Enhance your posture

Good contact begins with good posture. It’s particularly essential in your drives when distance might be such a distinction maker. Bend ahead out of your hips in a balanced, athletic stance, together with your knees relaxed and your arms hanging instantly beneath your shoulders. Once you let your arms grasp on this means, they’ll return naturally to this place as you come via the ball, with out your having to depend on hand-eye coordination. Follow mirror or with video evaluation, and shortly you’ll be seeing extra drives flying off the middle of the clubface.

2. Correct grip

This may sound like a boring elementary, however your grip has a profound affect in your swing path in addition to on the place of your clubface at affect, each of that are key to catching it sq.. A standard misperception I see amongst amateurs is that the thumb of the lead hand ought to run straight down the middle of the grip. Normally, that is incorrect.

Your lead hand (the left hand for a righty) ought to be positioned onto the grip as your arm hangs naturally, together with your thumb positioned barely proper of middle. It is best to be capable to see the pointer and middle-finger knuckles of your lead hand, simply as you do when your arms grasp naturally.

3. Ahead ball place

With the motive force, correct ball place is ahead ball place. It will mean you can contact the ball on the upswing whereas permitting time for the clubface to sq.. To search out this place, begin in your correct posture together with your toes collectively and the membership centered between your toes. Along with your lead foot (the left foot for a righty) take a small step — nearly as small a step as potential — widening your stance ever so barely. Subsequent, take a bigger widening step together with your again foot, making changes in order that the ball is simply off your left instep.

4. Shoulders tilted, not open

When the ball is positioned ahead appropriately, your shoulders ought to be titled, together with your lead shoulder barely greater than your path shoulder. This tilt will show you how to make contact on an ascending angle. As you tilt your shoulders, it’s essential to maintain them parallel to your aiming line. Too usually, when golfers tilt their shoulders, in addition they twist them, in order that the lead shoulder is pulled again, open to the goal line. From that open place, it’s tougher to hit the middle of the face.

5. Tee it excessive

Most golfers must tee the ball greater than they assume. I wish to tee it excessive sufficient which you could catch the ball with the middle of the face with out the membership head hitting the bottom. A very good rule of thumb is that roughly three-quarters of the ball ought to be above the highest of the membership head at handle.

For those who pop up your drive, don’t assume that it’s the results of having tee the ball too excessive. Extra usually, the offender is a downswing that’s both too steep or too sluggish. For those who break a variety of tees, there’s an excellent likelihood you’re coming in too steeply. It’s okay to hit the tee from time to time. However you need to hit your drives with a sweeping movement, which ends from correct ball place and shoulder until.

6. Know your spacing

It is best to preserve the identical posture and ahead hip bend with each membership out of your shortest to your longest. This may be achieved by altering your distance from the ball for every membership. Stand nearer to the ball with shorter golf equipment and farther away with longer golf equipment. After you’ve set your membership to the ball, place your self by inching your toes ahead or backward till you might be within the appropriate posture that can mean you can ship the middle of the clubface to the ball.

Each golfer’s best posture can be sightly totally different, relying upon their physique sort and shaft lengths — and it requires follow to seek out it! For me personally, I do know I’m in place once I can match roughly one open hand between my palms on the grip and my thighs. Nonetheless you measure your individual place, the bottom line is having the ability to replicate it with each membership. For those who’re too crowded, your contact will are typically extra towards the heel; for those who’re too distant from the ball, your contact will are typically extra on the toe. 

7. Keep balanced

Not simply at handle. All through your complete swing, from takeaway to complete. For those who lose your steadiness at any level, your bodily relationship to the ball modifications, which in flip modifications the contact level, making it troublesome to be constant. Good posture all through the swing is one thing you possibly can work on. A technique is to follow by balancing on one foot at a time, holding your place. Swinging together with your toes collectively is one other efficient technique. Additionally, work on holding your end till you see your ball land.

8. Correct swing path

This begins together with your setup, with a correct grip and good posture. It additionally helps to follow preserving your underarms comparatively near your physique in your downswing. It will permit the membership to method the ball appropriately with the face lined up for contact on the candy spot.

9. Get match

No two swings are alike. To get essentially the most out of yours, you want a membership that matches. Size, loft, weighting, and shaft stiffness are all essential elements in a becoming. In case your membership hosts demo days, I like to recommend attending, because the reps who present you up are professional of their commerce. To check a fair wider vary of choices, I recommend visiting your nearest TrueSpec (TrueSpec and GOLF.com are associates of 8AM Golf), the place you possibly can check out an array of heads and shafts and in each mixture. Deliver your individual driver to see the way it compares. All of the photographs are measured on a launch monitor, which eliminates the guess work. It could be which you could’t discover something higher than your present driver. I’ve seen that occur with a few of my college students. But it surely’s a rarity.

10. Three tee drill and foot spray

Instantaneous suggestions is invaluable as you make changes. One among my favourite methods to get it’s with foot spray. Coat the clubface earlier than you hit, and also you’ll see precisely the place you’re making contact. Consider it because the second of reality.

I additionally wish to follow with three tees: one below the ball, and one on all sides of the ball. For those who hit the skin tee, you might be like making contact towards the heel. For those who hit the within tee, you’re in all probability catching the ball on the 2 of the membership. Use this suggestions to regulate your swing path. It’s a surefire path to higher consistency.

To learn Stenzel’s article in its unique kind, click on right here.

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As a four-year member of Columbia’s inaugural class of feminine varsity golfers, Jessica can out-birdie everybody on the masthead. She will out-hustle them within the workplace, too, the place she’s primarily accountable for producing each print and on-line options, and overseeing main particular tasks, akin to GOLF’s inaugural Type Is­sue, which debuted in February 2018. Her origi­nal interview sequence, “A Spherical With,” debuted in November of 2015, and appeared in each within the journal and in video kind on GOLF.com.