How you set up to hit a shot is the second most important fundamental in golf, after the grip. Because the driver plays a crucial role in your success as a golfer, it is critical to understand how to set up to hit a driver.
The driver is by far the longest club in the bag. Also, the driver has far less loft than our other clubs, and we usually hit the ball off of a tee when hitting the driver.
Therefore, the stance with the driver is going to be quite a bit different, particularly from your setup with the shorter irons.
Golf Stance With Driver – Ball Position
As I mention in that previous post about the proper setup, the longer the club, the more forward in the stance you should have the ball.
The reason for this is that with the shorter clubs, which have more loft, we want to catch the ball while the arc of our swing is still coming down. The club will ultimately bottom out past the ball.
This allows us to utilize the loft of the club, and the grooves on the clubface to create backspin. It is the backspin that gets the ball in the air.
With the longer clubs, we have less loft to work with, so we want to catch ball right at the bottom of our swing arc. This will allow us to get the ball in the air more easily.
However, with the driver, since we are typically hitting the ball off of a tee, we want to catch the ball as our swing arc begins to rise into the follow through of our golf swing.
This is because we do not have much loft to work with, and therefore, we can’t create backspin to get the ball in the air.
With that in mind, the ball position should be more forward in our stance. At the very least, it should be off the heel of our front foot (left foot for right handed players), and possibly off of the big toe of the front foot.
As I mentioned earlier, the driver is the longest club in the bag, and much longer than any of our other clubs. Therefore, we are going to be standing much taller as we address the ball.
Also, to help with the idea that we want to catch the ball at the beginning of our upswing, we want to set up to the ball with our front shoulder tilted a little higher than the back shoulder, to help create the proper angle of attack.
This shoulder tilt happens naturally because your trail hand (right hand for a right handed player) is held on the club below the lead hand.
However, with the driver, we want to tilt away from our target a little bit more than with our other clubs, since we want to recreate that tilt at impact to be sure we are striking the ball as the club is on its way up from the bottom of the swing.
Golf Driver Setup – Stance Width
With the driver, we are also attempting to generate a lot more swing speed than with our other clubs. As a result, we want more stability. Therefore, we want to set up with our feet a bit wider than shoulder width as you can see in my stance above.
Driver Stance Alignment
Your alignment with the driver is one that you’ll want to play around with a bit.
If you don’t get your hips very open at impact, you may want to have a bit of an open stance when you set up.
This gives you more room to release the club, which is crucial when you are trying to generate speed.
Ben Hogan, who was quite flexible with his hip turn, typically set up to the driver with his feet closed, ie, aligned to the right of his target.
His hips would be as much as 30 degrees open to his target line at impact. By setting up to the ball with his feet slightly closed, he avoided pulling the tee shot to the left due to the flexibility of his hips. See the photo below.
Also, it’s a good idea to setup with the front foot turned outward, rather than straight in front of you. If you do have flexibility issues with your hips, this will allow you greater range of motion.
In the image on the left is a common setup among many poor golfers, with feet pointed straight forward. On the right is the ball positioning of Ben Hogan for each of his clubs.
Golfers with a stance similar to the one on the left will have trouble getting much hip turn at all.
Final Thoughts
How you hit the driver can set up every round of golf you play. If you struggle off the tee, you’ll be in for a long day. Learning how to set up to hit a driver will give you a better chance at hitting more solid and longer tee shots.
By the way, if you enjoy practicing at home, below are a few products I recommend…
Garmin Approach R10 launch monitor
