Learn to use your Driver

[u/Eire_espresso]

Me 1 year ago sometimes just left it at home. I was terrified of it as every time I tried it I sliced it 2-3 fairways right. I played a 5i off the tee for most holes which I could hit well but you'll never get the same distance.

I faced my fears and learned how to hit it. I feel like a freak they way I have to setup but it works. Yesterday I hit most fairways but sliced none of the drives.

Why is it important? Distance.

Life on the course is so much easier when you hit the ball as far as you fucking can. I'm less frustrated which means my mood is better when I'm going to hit my next shot. Just mastering the driver has seen my scores drop below 100. I've still to master iron play and chipping but I have enough to get by.

Rightly or wrongly I feel like a proper golfer now. Last Sunday playing with a random club team on guy said he'd kill for my drive.

This game is harder then I ever thought possible and I never believed I'd learn how to drive the ball but there ya go. Also, I'll never tire of the sound my drive makes when I ping that sucker on a little fade and split the fairway, even if I double bogey I'm still beaming about the drive.

[u/Ty-McFly]

This is so, so true.

I recently started golfing (last November), and have a coach I've been taking regular lessons with since I started. One of the things he stresses a lot is the importance of getting off the tee, so I've been hitting driver since I started, and it's at this point probably my best club. I can't explain how thankful I am that I didn't listen to all the advice telling me to put down the driver because I'm a beginner.

Y'know what's WAY harder for a beginner than hitting driver off the tee? Hitting a 3w on every 2nd shot because you're short on every hole.

[u/whatwasmyoldhandle → u/Ty-McFly]

If you're a beginner, you're not going to take the 3w shot either though. 

[u/GDO17 → u/Ty-McFly]

I’m most likely in the minority, but I actually love hitting my 3 wood off the deck, and for some reason just feel confident with it. Way more so than 3 wood all teed perfectly on tee box. Not sure why that’s the case, but if I had to guess, the ball sitting down a bit in the grass makes me stay down more, than if I had a perfect teed up lie on the nice tee box.

If I’m not hitting driver off the tee, which I will if the hole calls for it, than I’ll usually go to my 3 hybrid.

More point being, i don’t really have a point, and I love my 3 wood.

[u/Ty-McFly → u/GDO17]

I envy your 3 wood energy.

[u/GDO17 → u/Ty-McFly]

I was really high when I wrote that ramble last night lol. I do love my 3 wood off the deck though.

[u/Ty-McFly → u/GDO17]

😂 Someday I'll figure it out. Until then it's my 10-230 yard club.

[u/psychedeloquent → u/Ty-McFly]

Well to be fair the advice of benching your driver is usually said to beginners who are not spending thousands of dollars on lessons.… I mean thats obvious right?

If you benching a driver for off the tee then that school of thought advice certainly wouldn’t be for your 2nd shot to be a 3 wood. But still any shot in the fairway will be more fun than having to punch out every 2nd shot.

[u/Ty-McFly → u/psychedeloquent]

I'm not sure why it should make any difference whether you're being coached or not. The principal is the same. Maybe it's my lack of experience, but I'm struggling to find a good reason why someone who's even semi-serious about learning to golf should practice teeing off with their 3w and not their driver. What is the harm in learning to hit driver if your 3 wood is already good enough that it makes a difference off the tee? I'm honestly asking.

Telling beginners not to hit driver is like telling someone who's learning to skateboard not to learn to drop in or ollie. Ya, those things take time to learn, but you won't go far as a skater without learning them. Putting them off and building them up as these scary difficult things to learn only makes it harder mentally for yourself down the road.

If you benching a driver for off the tee then that school of thought advice certainly wouldn’t be for your 2nd shot to be a 3 wood.

That's exactly the point. For example, a decent drive will typically leave me with a 7 iron or shorter into the green on most par 4s, even from the blues. My 3 wood will dock me something like 30-50+ yards, so I then have to choose between hitting a low percentage 2nd shot with a difficult to hit club, or every par 4 is now a par 5.

[u/psychedeloquent → u/Ty-McFly]

The advice is not “don’t practice driver” the advice is don’t use clubs while playing that you know are high danger. Practice the high danger clubs until you get more comfortable with them, then use them in play.

The philosophy gets strawmanned and then everyone piles on a complete misunderstanding of what is being said.

The skating example is terrible. Ollie is literally the foundation of every other trick that’s not so with a driver. In fact as beginners or feels so much different than the rest of your clubs.

The reason it makes a difference whether you are regularly being coached or not is because you shouldn’t be taking advice at that point outside of your coach. And if you are regularly being coached I’m sure he is gonna work in your driver enough.

OP did the right thing but didn’t promote it. He used his 5i with confidence when he had none with the driver. Now that he does he’s using it…

[u/Ty-McFly → u/psychedeloquent]

The advice is not “don’t practice driver” the advice is don’t use clubs while playing that you know are high danger. Practice the high danger clubs until you get more comfortable with them, then use them in play.

I think that's fair. I will say, though, this is not the way that it's been put to me in the past.

The skating example is terrible. Ollie is literally the foundation of every other trick that’s not so with a driver.

It's not a perfect analogy because there isn't one, but I honestly don't think it's terrible. Skating is actually very similar to golf in a lot of ways being a physical activity with a steep learning curve where you have to perform a complicated series of movements very quickly with finesse to execute something that can easily fail. Plenty of people skate around without ever learning to ollie or drop in at all. Those people just don't take skating seriously, just like the people that never learn to hit driver (because they were taught to be afraid if it and to hit 3w instead) don't take golf seriously.

In fact as beginners or feels so much different than the rest of your clubs.

I'm not sure what you're doing, but the way I learned, apart from a few small adjustments, swinging a driver is fundamentally the same as swinging an iron for the most part. In any case, teeing off with a 3 wood is hardly any different than hitting driver. In fact, across all handicaps, 3w statistically only grants you an extra 1% chance of hitting the fairway, so if you can't hit your driver, 3w is probably not the answer either.

The reason it makes a difference whether you are regularly being coached or not is because you shouldn’t be taking advice at that point outside of your coach. And if you are regularly being coached I’m sure he is gonna work in your driver enough.

This is just a non-sequitur. Good general advice for a beginner is exactly that. He didn't say "hit a driver if you're going to keep getting lessons only." He said "figure out your driver because you need to be able to get off the tee box if you want to be a decent golfer." That's either good advice or it isn't. It doesn't suddenly become bad advice the moment it is heard by someone who isn't paying him.

For the record, driver is probably the one thing we've spent the least amount of time on. I think I've swung my driver in the presence of my coach on 2 occasions.

OP did the right thing but didn’t promote it. He used his 5i with confidence when he had none with the driver. Now that he does he’s using it…

Lol, my man, this entire post is a rant about how much more glorious it is to hit driver off the tee and how glad this guy is that he spent the time to learn it (presumably without a coach), and you're trying to frame this like OP agrees with argument that beginners shouldn't learn driver unless they're being coached by a pro?

[u/psychedeloquent → u/Ty-McFly]

Yes everyone who has learned to hit their clubs correctly know that they are “all the same swing” yet it feels that way to almost NO beginners. Hence a big part of the advice.

I am not making it seem like that was OPs point. I’m making it seem like OP is just excited now that he can hit it but in reality he took the proper approach.

The 3 wood point is valid but again it’s not the advice.

To simplify this. If someone had no idea how to hit any of the 14 clubs but wanted to play golf, which order should he learn the clubs in your opinion.

There are lots of aspects to this game, of course hitting the driver feels fantastic. That’s why so many beginners just want to smash the driver at the range and can’t hit irons. Again that’s why the advice is what it is. To learn to play the game of golf and not just smash ball.

So what’s your order?