Fairway Woods are the hardest grouping of clubs to hit in your golf bag. I’ve always had trouble with mine and still do in my 20 years of experience. However, today I decided to do something different and that was spend my entire driving range session working on my long sticks.
These are my tips on how to get more consistent with your driver and fairway woods:
- One of the biggest concepts you have to envision with your driver and woods is that you have to get it with an upward sweeping motion. Your woods, which is the classification of drivers and fairway woods, are the least likely to get off the ground. The reason is because of how low the degree of loft is on the club. You sacrifice loft for distance, so best believe that is why woods are hit the furthest distance than any other club grouping in your bag. With this in mind, it is easy to see why it is super challenging to get it off the ground if you are a beginner. Always remember to form a sweeping motion.
- Swing mechanics are a big deal with this club. When I say swing mechanics, I mean keeping that right elbow tucked in to prevent casting. (Casting is leading the downswing with your hands to where your body is moving laterally and ahead of the ball causing it too hook). If you keep that right elbow tucked in, you keep your arms connected to your torso and you also generate power which is what we want for wood.To keep that right shoulder tucked, I recommend using a drill where you take your head cover. Stick it under your armpit. This will keep everything connected and give you that sweeping upward motion needed for success. Repeat for 15-20 swings. Don’t let that head cover pop out at any point of your swing except for when you finish. See what type of contact you get after hitting that ball.
- The next thing in developing consistency in hitting your driver is tempo. As we hit our longer clubs, we generally tend to swing harder. I don’t know if it is a mental thing or what but it is naturally to swing harder for those clubs. We instead should worry about tempo and control. I noticed when my swing speed is faster than normal, the ball tends to either hook or slice badly. It’s because my tempo changes and my normal swing mechanics become out of whack. To control it, think of your swing as a pendulum and take it back nice and smooth and finish nice and smooth. This will help a lot as far as consistency and ball striking.
- Lastly, choke up on the club. To often we look at woods as things to hit super long distances. However, I’m here to ask you what good is distance if you can’t control where you’re hitting it? I understand, we are in an era where we have Bryson DeChambeaus of the worlds and other long distance drivers but those type of players are rare to to come across. Have you ever heard of Drive for Show, Putt for Dough? Well it is so true. We want to hit the ball consistently. Consistently in play that is. Golf is about course management, as long as you can keep your ball in play, you can score. Choking up on the club helps you with control. You can feel which direction your club is from the top of your swing to the bottom of your swing. I highly recommend to get a feel for that and think your wood as an extension of yourself.
These are my tips for getting the most out of your woods. I presently don’t own a driver but I still find away to crush the course without one. I like my handy Taylormade 3 wood which I can get 240-265 yards or my hybrid TaylorMade SIM Max which I hit between 215-245 yards. I recommend grabbing a pack of ETees golf tees too, after about 40 balls, I only used 3 tees. that’s a pretty strong tee I must say and perfect for driving range session like that.
by Erin Grier