I am strictly a couple times a year social golfer - can hit 220 y, though not necessarily in the direction I want to go. To hit it as far as Tiger Woods (330 + yards), is it just speed of the downstroke or more technique? Would getting a much longer club help distance, or are there rules regulating the length of the club? Just curious as giving me a 350 y drive would becounterproductive (I loose too many balls already)
It’s a bit of both. Clubhead speed and technique. I normally drive about 230. I can get close to 300 if I really give it some juice, but then I have a dispersion cone of about 180 degrees. A longer club may help a bit, but you will lose a bit of control also. And as far as I know, there is no maximum length of a club. There is a minimum of 18" and all sorts of rules regarding club head size, offsets, angles to shaft, grips, etc.
Basically, build up your upper body strength and practice. Practice a lot! Also, you may want to think about getting with the club pro and see if you have a kink you don’t know about. Hitting a ball far isn’t terribly difficult. Hitting a ball far and being able to find it, like in the same county as the fairway, is a different story. To do it consistently, well, that’s why guys like us aren’t on the PGA tour:)
If you can’t hit as far as Tiger Woods, move closer to him. Seriously, though, for a coupla-times-a-year golfer to hit as far and as accurately as Mr. Woods, just on one shot, would be enough to power an improbability drive for six months.
You can’t unless you spend a lot of time at the game, and maybe not then. That is sort of like asking, “Why can’t I pass a football like John Elway, pitch like Roger Clemons, or why can’t I sing like one of the operatic tenors.”
The players on the PGA tour are the best 150 or so golfers * in the world* and most of them can’t hit the ball as far as Woods with any degree of accuracy and control. Even Tiger can’t do it all of the time as he demonstrated in his last tournament. For the casual player to aspire to play any part of the game at that level is a sure road to frustration.
Same way you can play piano at Carnegie Hall. Practice!
Distance is primarily a factor of clubhead speed. Woods swings at about 125 mph, an average golfer is in the 80-90 mph range (those long drive guys are at 150-160 mph). So the question is how can you swing faster? Well, club length will help a little, though you’ll lose accuracy by the boatload. Flexibility helps a lot too. Watch Tiger in slo-mo some time. His shoulders are twisted well past his waist. This coiling of the shoulders is where speed comes from. Most people simply can’t twist like that. Releasing your hands late (keeping your wrist cocked longer in the downswing) helps too. Then there’s timing your weight shift from back to front foot so that you are putting your weight through the ball at the precise time that the club is going through.
Of course, after all that you still need to hit the ball square. A 125 mph swing that hits the ball off the toe of the club doesn’t help at all.
As ** David Simmons** said, it’s also a matter of what your body is inherently capable of. You can practice all you want and master mechanics perfectly, but you’ll probably never be able to throw a 98 mph fastball. Same with smashing monster drives. That said, the average person can much more likely learn to hit a 300 yd drive than just about any other glamour skill in sport (i.e. dunking, throwing a football 50+ yds, etc).
Practice practice practice!
One more small detail. Practice makes perfect, it can even perfect the wrong technique.
Remember, Woods and other top players have been at the game most of their lives. They have had the best of instruction so when they practice they are practicing the correct method. Most of them weight-train. And even though they are the best in the world at what they do, they still pay coaches a lot of money to keep them on track, or help them get back on when they fall off. And, last but not least, they have a gift for golf.
thanks guys, it was useful info, especially about the club head speed. I am putting off practicing until I get more time and my wife and kids lets me, probably about in 20 years when I retire.
Why are we talking about Tiger? He doesn’t even average 300 yards anymore. Hank Kuehne is the big hitter these days.