This looks like it might be a good club for me.

Another characteristic of the short hotter is no shoulder turn. I've been asked many times how I hit it so far (I'm not straight, but I'm long), and typically it's as simple as turning the shoulders 90 degrees.

Guys are constantly trying to arm hit the ball with poor results.

So try turning your shoulders 90 degrees - then do everything else that's been suggested in this thread and you'll be bombing it out there a mile!

This is the last place I would come for golf advice.

Find a good teaching pro.

Moses, I developed ? a snap hook too in my later days of golf...really discouraging.

As the saying goes, 'drive for show and putt for dough'. Hitting long off the tee is very satisfying but that extra 50 yards is not nearly as important as a good short game. A missed two foot putt counts as much as a drive or long second shot. Develop your short irons and putting. My Dad never hit the ball more than 180 on a drive but was in the low 80's all his adult life. He was deadly within 60 yards of the green.

Nah.

Grip it and rip it...if you don't crack a Lamina in the Lumbar region of your spine, you're not trying hard enough.

Enjoy.

If I could depend on a consistent 200 yard drive well placed every time, I'd take it. Especially if I had a great fairway wood. Lay up in 3 and you're tournament material.

As they say, the short game wins.

Now, after this thread, I'm ready to get my stix out again...:D

Thank you Zeke fore your endorsement. Where do I sign up?:D The most irritating thing I find is when a long bomber hits the ball over the trees on a fairway where you cant see the flag. I have to hit straight ahead and then take another shot to get to the green. However that is golf and not all golfers I walk on the course with are long bombers. I still enjoy the game. Yes I do agree with the above, short game is important. Thanks for the tips pelicaners. Cant wait for spring:). My golf psych. says dont give up. I said dont give up what? He did not respond:D.

Drive for show, putt for dough.

My golf buddies offered me this observation. They said I was standing too close to the ball.


After I hit it.


But unless you're using a wooden driver with a cane shaft it's not the equipment. I learned this in an hour with a pro... my one and only lesson. I am a lefty and was bugged that my 5 iron would only get 125 yds but lots of height. The pro grabbed my club, dropped a ball down and backhanded at least 150 yds. At that point I was convinced not to spend $1000s on more gear. My putter is a $40 oddball from the sale rack and works every bit as good as my buddies $300 one.
Everybody needs an approach shot to the green. Your partner may have 50 yds and you may have 90, but you can still be putting with him if your irons are working. It's not all about the big bomb, although they are spectacular to see. Its all about that little white ball going plunkety-plunk in the hole. Enjoy!

Yup. A right handed golfer hits the ball with the left arm. The right hand is just along for the ride. Completely the opposite of a baseball swing.

My Grandfather was a great golfer...he was a slight Scottish man, with an ill temperament. He made up for his temper with a willingness to fight and athletic ability. He was also competitive.

Mix in a few cocktails.

He ran track and played football in college.

As he aged, he turned his calm demeanor to golf. I have a vivid memory of driving his golf cart for him when I was 12, Thousand Oaks. He was playing my father and two other guys, all three big hitters. He is in his 70's.

They all drive 240 or 250, which was not insignificant in the days of wooden drivers. Pappy spanks a 190 drive right down Main Street.

"Watch", he says.

There was, if I recall, a few sheckles on the table.

Five wood, short grass, like you read about. Ten feet pin high.

And this was all day...and he could putt.

The best round of golf I ever played was in a tournament. Before we started, my partner noticed I had one too many clubs in my bag. He left my driver in his car!

I was bombing irons off the tee all day! Only hit one OB. That's NEVER happened to me. I broke 90 for the first time on a very difficult course. I SWORE I'd never touch my driver again. That oath lasted about a week.

I'm an idiot. I'm addicted to the 300 yard drive and I add at least 10 strokes to each round because of this stupidity.

I don't think that is right.

Otherwise, why would it be that I could hit a baseball or golfball so far, hitting right or left handed, just holding the bat/club with the arm facing the direction I am hitting?

My back is so jacked up since that car wreck in October I could not hit anything about now. Before that, I could really wind my shoulders around and just crush the ball.

GD mini vans

Sorry about your back trouble, Tobra.

If I had to hit a golf ball for distance with only one hand on the club, I'd use my left hand. I am right handed. Once you get the club to the very top of the backswing, you simply pull down with your left hand. Down. The club head comes through the ball all by itself. Unlike a baseball swing where you partly push the bat through the ball. Golf is a "pull" swing.

I tried to emulate Fred Couples. He always drew the club back outside the plane and made a huge turn to get the club in the the slot. He has soft, quick hands and perfect rhythm.

When I was a kid, I took a beat up 2 iron and hit an old car tire with only my left hand on the club. I'm right handed. Most of my power is developed with quick hands, releasing in the last 18 inches before impact.

Superman is right, more or less. If you use too much right hand, you will not hit it in the fairway.

For the OP, my advice would be to get your swing taped and analyzed. Distance comes from clubhead speed. It's mostly timing, but swinging harder and faster does help, if the timing is still good. If the timing is off, the ball will go anywhere but straight. The whole body is involved. If you look at a picture of the body position at the point of impact, this will be obvious. When I played competitive golf at a young age, I weighed all of 150 pounds but I had a very fast, very effortless looking swing, sort of like Fred Couples. Distance, and a huge amount of loft in my irons, was the result.

JR

I have never owned anything but solid persimmon woods. I refuse to use a huge aluminum headed set. When I did hit the ball correctly I could get all the distance I needed. Still have those woods and bet they are worth a fortune now. I think they were made in the early '50's.

I'm a slight man, I've played a lot of golf in my day. When my dad taught me, he was so worried about my keeping the ball in play so I wouldn't embarrass him I never learned to "grip it and rip it" as a kid. So I don't have great distance. But as I got older and put on some muscle mass, I can eek out a 250 yard drive. That's about it. For many years, I realized that my driver was 250 yards but +/- 40 yards wide, but my 3 wood was 230 yards and +/- 5 yards wide - so I kept the driver in the bag and teed off with a driver for many, many years. Until 2nd generation metal woods and graphite shafts came out.

Different swing styles and swing faults eat distance. For me, it's swinging too fast. I have the attention span of 2 year old with colic. So if I swing really fast, I look down the fairway before my hands get back to shoulder level. My best swing is all about smooth. There's a key trigger routine that unless I get greedy, usually results in a nice pop.

Two thoughts: 1) professional instruction; 2) modern equipment.

I completely agree with Moses that it's not the equipment's fault. But do at least have a five year old driver with a shaft that is matched to your swing speed. For example, if you have stiff shafts (which ego dictates you buy) and 100 compression balls (ditto), but have a slow swing speed, you will get more distance (and less slicing, and more control) by using regular flex shafts and 90 compression balls.

BTW, I famously said after my second day of DE's, "Well, this makes golf suck." And I hardly play any more...

Good luck

Distance for a high handicapper is almost certainly a matter of swing path/target path. A high-handicap slicer is usually coming over the top and the swing path is at a tangent to the target path/flight path.

Swing speed matters, of course, but solid contact matters more.