Best Way to Use the Driver Properly in Golf

The driver is the longest but lightest of the clubs and is designed to give maximum distance with tee shots on long holes. The deep head allows you to tee the ball up nice and high to launch it into the air.

Drivers vary in loft from 7 degrees to as much as 13 degrees. Men tend to hit the ball higher than most women and their stronger wrists tend to produce greater backspin on their tee shots. The ideal loft of the driver for most women golfers is 12 degrees, which will help a beginner produce plenty of loft and, with this, maximum distance.

A driver with 12-degree loft is quite forgiving. A club with very little loft puts on more sidespin and is more difficult to hit straight. You want a slightly upward contact with the driver. Position the ball ahead of centre in the stance. Tee it up as high as the depth of your clubhead allows.

At address the arms and club shaft form a definite Y shape. Feel the left side of the body slightly stretched and right side relaxed, giving you the feeling of producing an upward contact.

Find a flat place on the teeing ground to tee the ball. Remember you can go backwards up to two club lengths behind the tee box. It is the one place on the course where you can tread down behind the ball – get used to doing so.

Beginners should notice the correct way of teeing up a ball. Hold the ball in the palm of your right hand and the tee peg between the first and second fingers. Use the ball to push the tee into the ground. This way it balances easily and you learn to get a consistent height to your peg.

Make sure you sit the clubface squarely with the back of the club on the ground and the full loft showing on the clubface. Don’t fall into the common fault of pushing the hands forward and shutting the face downwards.

The swing should be full and rounded, not up and down. With the backswing and throughswing mirroring each other, sweep ball up and away. Focus on hitting the tee p out of the ground for good height.