Drive Like a Pro: 21 Game-Changing Golf Driving Tips for Longer, Better Drives

Hitting the driver solid and long is at the top of the list of things golfers want to accomplish. There is just something about cracking a long drive off the tee that gets golfers fired up.

The key is to use that fired-up attitude to hit the ball long and straight instead of causing you to hit it left or right.

I’ve put together some of the best driving tips in the game; if you want to hit longer and better drives, this list will give you everything you need to get it done.

Key Takeaways

There is a lot of information here about how to hit a golf driver; if you want to come back to it later and just walkway with the most important tips for now, here they are:

• To hit great shots with the driver, you need a combination of the proper club head speed, swing mechanics, and mental mindset.
• The driver is slightly harder to hit because of its length making tempo, timing, and rhythm even more important.
• Wrist extension at the top of the backswing is a major cause for a golfer’s slice; working on decreasing wrist extension will help square the clubface at impact.
• Playing with proper golf equipment is essential, but focus on shaft specifics if you want to see the most benefit.

21 Golf Driving Tips for Longer and Better Drives

Don’t Give Up Your Speed from the Tee

One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing other golfers tell each other they need to slow down. Slowing down and taking a practice swing to feel a swing issue is fine, but eventually, you need all the speed you can get.

There are two data points we look at when we take about speed in golf, clubhead speed, and ball speed.

• Clubhead Speed is the speed of your clubhead just prior to impact. It is measured in miles per hour.
• Ball Speed is the speed of the ball, measured in miles per hour, just after it leaves the clubface at impact.

One other important term that ties clubhead speed and ball speed together is Smash Factor. This is basically the efficiency of your swing. How you can transfer energy from the clubface to the ball.

An ideal smash factor is exactly what we got from the above example, a 1.50. This shows that a swing with a 100 mph of clubhead speed and a ball speed of 150 mph is efficient.

Ball speed is really what ultimately equates to distance. It has been shown that for every mph increase in ball speed, you will pick up approximately two yards of carry distance.

Hit the Ball in the Center for More Distance

Swing speed is not the only factor that influences your ball speed. Most golfers underestimate how important a center strike is.

Where you hit the ball on the clubface is a major component of having a better smash factor and, in turn, creating more ball speed.

By improving where you hit the ball on the face of the club, even without increasing your swing speed, you can increase the ball speed.

Learn to increase swing speed, in combination with hitting more center face shots, and now you are going to be able to get extra distance!

One of the most important features to look for in a driver is a large sweet spot. In addition, make sure that you are making a consistent driver swing each time you take a shot.

Correct the Extension in Wrists at the Top of Your Backswing

Your hands are your only connection to the club, so obviously, a good grip is critical to good ball striking.

Beyond that, the role that the wrists play in hitting the ball straight maybe even more important. Having proper wrist angles at every point along the swing, particularly at the top, is crucial.

Let’s take a quick glance at how the wrist moves.

• Wrist Extension – The movement of the back of the hand towards the top of your forearm.
• Wrist Flexion – The movement of your palm towards the underside of your forearm.
• Wrist Radial Deviation – The side movement of your wrist towards your Radius bone.
• Wrist Ulnar Deviation – The side movement of your wrist towards your Ulna bone.

During the golf swing, in order to have proper clubface control, we need to be aware of how the wrist moves. Especially our lead wrist!

A checkpoint in the swing that is often looked at is how the lead wrist is positioned at the top of the backswing. When the lead wrist is flat, it’s easier to square a clubface at impact. When the lead wrist is extended, the clubface is often open and will stay open through impact.

This is where the HackMotion wrist sensor can come in very nicely.

This wearable device measures a golfer’s wrist angles as compared to tour averages. It creates a 3D model of your hand, wrist, and forearm, which allows you to see what your wrist is doing throughout the swing and how that affects your clubface.

Not only can you see the model and the accompanying data, but you can auditorily hear cues as you swing to tell you if you are in good or bad positions.

This piece of technology is a game changer in giving golfers feedback that directly corresponds to clubface control.

If you can control the face better, you can hit better drives!

Learn to Rotate the Wrists and Forearms to Release

In addition to learning to keep the clubface more square at the top of your backswing, you can also benefit from learning to rotate or release the wrists through the impact position.

As you move from the top of your backswing into the downswing, the wrist position starts to become less and less extended. At impact, with more than 1,000,000 golf swings analyzed, we now know that the lead wrist is in more of a flexed position.

You will also notice that your lead and trail wrists start to rotate to be able to square up the clubface.

Wear the HackMotion and look at how the wrist rotation changes as you move closer to the impact position. If you are still hitting slices, see if you are rotating your wrists a little too late in the swing. Practice with HackMotion in real time to witness what rotation can do for your game.

Spend a Little Time in the Gym

If you didn’t skip right past this section, I give you some credit. Golfers that are stronger drivers of the ball have better physical strength.

To become more powerful in golf, there are a few key areas to focus on in your strength training.

• Core
• Glutes
• Hips

The following video has some excellent exercises to get stronger in these key areas.

How Low Can You Go? Learn to Get Flexible

What goes hand in hand with strength training for better drives is working on your flexibility.

One area of the body that I very often see a lack of flexibility is the hips. You may feel this if you are trying to make a turn behind the ball and instead feel flat footed and stuck in your ability to turn.

A lack of hip mobility can directly affect your ability to hit longer and straighter drives.

Have a look at these great stretches for your hips. Incorporating these into your practice can help you tremendously.

Invest in Speed Training

Can you just walk up to a golf ball and start trying to kill it by swinging as hard as you can? Not quite.

As you start getting stronger and more flexible, you can begin to introduce some speed training.

Long drivers such as Kyle Berkshire, and 2022 World Long Drive champ, Martin Borgmeier, who smashed a 426-yard drive to win, have everyone excited about hitting bombs.

These individuals, as well as cross-over star Bryson DeChambeau, have been sharing tips and tricks on training for speed on social media. You can gain a great deal of knowledge and insight from what these long drivers share.

Following their example and creating a regimen for yourself can help you hit your driver better than you ever imagined possible. Take, for example, this training walk-through with Martin Borgmeier. Speed training is not for everyone, but it has certainly proven to work.

Choose a Shaft that Challenges and Rewards You

I know it’s fun to focus on the clubhead and all that it is capable of, but the shaft is probably more important.

The shaft of the club is often called the engine of the swing. That is not really the case. The golfer is the engine. However, the shaft, and having the correct one for your game, is critical in transferring energy to the clubhead and through the ball.

Many golfers simply don’t have the right equipment for their unique tendencies. This does a disservice to their ability to optimize their game through the clubs they play.

Golf driver shafts are a problem if they are too stiff and if they are too flexible. As said previously, the purpose of the shaft is to optimize the energy transfer of your swing to the clubface and then the ball. If you play a shaft that is too stiff or too weak for your swing speed, you will not be efficient in your energy transfer.

Swing Speed	Club	Clubhead Speed Range	Shaft Flex
Very Fast	Driver	>105 mph	X Stiff
Fast	Driver	97-104 mph	Stiff
Average	Driver	84-96 mph	Regular
Slow	Driver	72-83 mph	Senior
Ladies	Driver	<72 mph	Ladies

Consider Kick Point to Improve Ball Flight

Kick point is the point in the shaft that flexes the most on the downswing and just prior to impact.

The lower your kick point, the easier it is to get a high ball flight. The higher the kick point, the easier it is to get a low kickpoint. Take a close look at your ball flight and see if the kickpoint in your shaft could be the issue.

If you hit sold drives that are more like line drives, you could have a kickpoint that is simply too high for you, switch to something lower, and watch the flight go back up.

• Low Kick Point – Closest to the Clubhead.
• Middle Kick Point – Middle of Shaft.
• High Kick Point – Closest to the Grip End

My best piece of advice regarding your shaft selection for your driver… get professionally fit. It is well worth the investment.

Use Adjustability to Benefit You

If you purchased a driver in the last few years, there is a good chance that the club head is adjustable. This adjustable clubhead can entirely change the performance of the shots that you are hitting.

I was working with a student recently struggling to hit the driver straight and get a good ball flight. We switched the driver from 9.5 to 11 degrees and have seen a tremendous difference in ball flight and total distance.

Years ago, you would have to purchase a new club entirely to see this type of improvement. Take advantage of that not being the case with this great adjustability in your club head. A properly fitted driver can pay game-changing dividends.

Play with a Golf Ball that Matches Your Swing

The ball is another piece of equipment that can help you hit straighter and longer drives.

There are countless choices in the world of golf balls. Golf balls are made in different ways and for different reasons. Some of the most notable differences in golf ball make include the following:

Construction:

• Two Piece Construction – A core layer and a cover.
• Three Piece Construction – A core, a secondary inner layer, and a cover.
• Four Piece Construction – A core and either two additional layers around the core or two covers.
• Five Piece Construction – A core, two additional layers, and two covers.

Covers:

• Surlyn – A little more durable and typically made for those seeking more distance, almost always seen in more value-type golf balls.
• Urethane – A cover that typically allows the ball to spin a little more.

Choose a golf ball by looking at your swing speed, the compression rating of the ball, and the tee and green performance that you are looking for.

Tee it High! How Tee Height Influences Drives

Let’s, please, move on from this idea that a low piercing ball flight is going to help you obtain more distance on the golf course.

It won’t.

Tee height definitely makes a difference on how a golf ball launches and, ultimately, the distance it goes.

There have been many studies on tee height and how it influences driving distance. One of those tests that sparked my interest was conducted by MyGolfSpy.

They conducted the test with two tee heights, one at 1.5” and the other at .5”, both measured from ground level.

The test showed the following in relation to distance…

Our data suggests a 1.5-inch playing tee creates 14.19 more carry distance on average than a .5-inch playing tee. That is a massive difference. Furthermore, the same data reveals that total distance of the 1.5-inch was 14.66 yards longer on average.

My Golf Spy Tee Height Test

I’ve done a similar test on the golf course myself just to play around with what tee height can do and found very similar results.

The basic conclusion…Tee it High and Let it Fly!

Place Feet Slightly Wider with a Little Foot Flare

Kicking things off with the pre-swing fundamentals is your stance and ball position.

The basic checkpoints for getting properly set up to the ball in a way that you can find success with the driver include:

• Width of Stance – You should have your feet set in width at half a step past shoulder width apart. This will help you get wide with your swing arc.
• Foot Flare – I advise you to flare both your lead and trail foot out just a bit, with a little bit more on the lead side. This will help you rotate a little better back and through throughout the swing.
• Ball Position – Your ball position should be at or just past your lead heal.
• Primary Spine Angle – Your primary spine angle is the amount of forward bend you have from your hips. You should be looking to be between 35-45 degrees.
• Secondary Spine Angle – This is the tilt of the spine slightly back and away from the target. This helps in creating optimal launch conditions with the driver. This is the one checkpoint that often gets overlooked.

Have a look at the following from Michael Breed about a good driver setup with good secondary spine tilt.

Grip it Correctly (Maybe a Little Strong)

How you hold the club is critical to hitting straight shots in golf. Your hands control the clubface, and having a square clubface at impact leads to straight shots.

One of the keep points of a good grip is making sure that the hands are working together. Having one hand in a more dominant or stronger position than the other will lead to problems.

A good rule of thumb (no pun intended) is to have the V’s that are created with your pointer finger and thumb pointing over your trail shoulder. That is for both hands. This creates what is coined as a neutral grip.

Having a slightly stronger or weaker grip may be OK, but you still should make sure your V’s on both hands are parallel to one another.

If you slice the ball, go ahead and strengthen the grip a little by incorporating a bit more turn to the right with your left hand.

Make sure that your hands are also positioned correctly on the club each time you swing. HackMotion takes measurements of your wrist angle in the grip position. This information can be used to check on the consistency of your grip with your driver.

Grip Pressure A Little Stronger Than You Think

The importance of your grip pressure can not be understated.

You must not grip too hard as it will create tension that will go up through your forearms, into your shoulders, and on through your chest. This will not allow you to be as freed up as you need to be to create a free flowing and fast swing.

In addition, I would discourage you from holding the club so lightly that i actually feel a bit loose in your hands. One of the biggest reasons behind inconsistent clubface angle is a grip that is too loose in the hands.

In addition to being aware of your grip pressure at the address, you also need to be aware of your pressure as you start down from the top. Golfers often squeeze the club on that initial move of the hands down from the top.

A great drill for finding the correct grip pressure can be found here:

Get Wide in the Backswing

The first thing to mention here in getting the most out of your driver is the need to get wide with your hands as you go back.

Good width with your hand path is a key component of creating distance and extension with the driver.

At the halfway back position in your backswing, you want your arms fully extended. As you continue up from there and introduce wrist hinge, you want to keep that width and the hands as far away from your chest as possible.

That is without swaying off the ball. Staying centered with your sternum over the ball is important.

To ensure that this extra width is still getting you into the correct position at the top of your golf swing, use the HackMotion audio feedback technology to check the consistency of the position.

Even with the extra width, we want a position at the top of the swing that has a flat (or close) lead wrist and allows for a decrease in extension through impact.

The X Factor for Adding More Distance

The golf swing is a rotational movement based around a fixed point which is the spine.

Many golfers are deficient in either their hip turn or shoulder turn, and sometimes, a golfer is deficient in both. To hit the ball far, you need to create as big as an X factor as possible.

What is X factor?

To answer that question, let’s first talk about your hip rotation and shoulder rotation in the backswing.

Your goal in a powerful swing is to be able to rotate your hips back roughly 45 degrees (or as close to that as you can) and then rotate your shoulders roughly 90 degrees (or as close to that as you can).

The difference between your hip rotation and your shoulder rotation is your X Factor.

The bigger your X Factor, the better your chance for hitting the ball far. What does this mean to the average golfer? Maximizing both hip and shoulder rotation in the backswing is a tremendous source of power. When you can combine this with the proper wrist positioning, you will win on the golf course.

Rhythm and Tempo are Critical – Even with Extra Speed

Rhythm is the rate of your backswing as compared to your downswing to impact.

There are many examples of PGA and LPGA Tour players that swing silky smooth and seemingly slower than most.

In contrast, there are players that swing very fast and almost seem very aggressive. In both cases, you could indeed have the same tempo or rate.

A commonly desired swing rhythm with your driver is at a ratio of 3:1.

This means that the downswing is three times as fast as the backswing. Play around with this and work on getting more rhythm in your driver swing.

I always like to throw in the concept that balance has to be established if you really want to ensure your rhythm and tempo are effective. If you are out of balance, your tempo and rhythm are going to need some adjustments.

Proper Sequencing from the Top and Down

Having a bad tempo can create sequencing problems. Sequencing is the order in which parts of the body follow each other throughout the swing.

Those that are too quick from the top in their transition down can cause issues with the sequence.

Proper sequencing from the top down starts with the hips and not the hands. Moving too fast with the hands can create many issues.

My advice, be patient with those hands at the top as you transition down!

Use the Ground and Your Feet

Your footwork is a very important factor in your golf swing. Just like your hands being your only connection to the club, your feet are your only connection to the ground.

First and foremost, your feet help stabilize your base. That is important as we need to be as stable as possible in order to create a powerful and balanced swing.

As you move into the backswing and to the top, and then down from the top through impact and to your finish, your feet play a big role.

Balance, power, and a fluid transition back and through as the body rotates around your center all happen because of good footwork. I love and often refer back to this classic lesson from Jack Nicklaus, which is still relevant today.

Hold the Finish

To conclude, I got back to one of my favorite tips of all time, which is to hold your finish.

If you have the idea of holding a nice balanced finish in your mind prior to the start of your swing, you are much more likely to make a good move through the ball.

The swing only takes 1.2 seconds on average to complete, so this is why thinking about holding the finish with your chest and core at or just past the target is key.

In Summary

Hitting long and solid drives starts with having an understanding of how speed is created in a swing. Then, understanding how our body and equipment play a role.

From there, you can start working on improving your fundamentals. From pre-swing and on through the moving parts of the swing. Use tools like HackMotion to make this process more enjoyable and more effective.