Hitting the ball further is not always the answer

Posted under Basically Golf, Swing Improvement

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I have just come in from a very good 18 holes with a friend of mine that has been working on his game very hard over the last 4 weeks. By very hard I mean he took 2 weeks off work and spent 10 hours in lessons and at least 5 hours a day on the course or the range getting his game trimmed for the start of the new season of competitions coming up in the new year.

Normally I wouldn’t advise going at this so deep but he has had a rough year personally and wanted to just be totally focused on one thing for a while so went for it. It really paid of dividends for him. Before he did this he was very much reliant on getting a massive straight drive off the tee which happened one in ten times. Today his swing was slower more controlled and the club head did all of the work off the tee. He probably dropped 10 yards off his furthest drive as it was 6 weeks ago but this time from 13 drives he hit 12 fairways!

His positioning on the course was second to none today getting a clear shot into every green and his control around the greens lead to a single handicap score for the day. Not bad when you consider he was a 23 handicap at the start of 2007!

This is what lead me to the title of this post, hitting the ball further is not always the answer. I have read so many articles from people who’s advice is to give the ball a good old slap to get it off down the fairway and when people try it they lose the ball or get the ball wet and even worse look like complete fools when they hurt their back! As I have said in the past slow it down get the control then think about the power, in many cases getting the control and getting the club to do the work will mean you can stop thinking about getting so much power because your game will be more controlled and less demanding on the physical aspect.

Of course I am not saying that being fit to play golf is a myth of course it helps a massive amount and helps prevent injury, but knowing the club is capable of doing most of the work is a great way to get ahead on the course.

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