The honest truth is that you will never be able to hit longer tee shots until you can make consistent, solid contact with your wedge.
The video below discusses the 9 to 3 swing, which is essentially a half golf swing.
It is important to master the basics of this move in order to develop a repeatable swing that hits solid golf shots.
You want to start out at half speed with a sand wedge. Your goal is simply to make solid contact each and every shot, while hitting the ball about 50 yards.
You also want to be able to control the direction and distance.
Once you are able to do that, you simply begin to increase the swing speed. With each increase in speed, you should still make solid contact, with the ball going in the intended direction and distance.
When you are able to make solid contact every time at full speed with this 9 to 3 swing, you can the move on to increasing the LENGTH of your swing.
The next step would essentially be 10 to 2. In that case, if you are a right handed player, you would swing the arms in the back swing to the 10 o’clock position, and then to the 2 o’clock position in the follow through.
You can then also work your way up through the bag in this manner as well.
Once you are able to make consistent and solid contact with the sand wedge with a pretty full swing (most pros won’t employ a full swing with a short iron very often), you can then move on to the pitching wedge, 9 iron, 8 iron, etc.
This is a process.
If you get ahead of yourself and simply try to rip drivers when you go to the driving range, you’ll just make it more difficult to get rid of the flaws in your swing.
I actually go through this process every time I have a layoff away from the game.
My first trip to the driving range after a long layoff usually involves just hitting a bucket with my sand wedge.
I work through the process as I described above.
Then, the next time I head to the range, I will work up through the bag.
However, I won’t work much on the driver until I am at least hitting my 5 iron well.
If I am not hitting the 5 iron well, the flaws will be exaggerated if I move up to the driver.
This is a great process to go through if you find yourself struggling with your swing. Just drop back to hitting solid wedge shots and work back up through the bag.
Of course, it helps to understand the flaws in your swing, and you may want to turn to a coach to help you. Be sure to check out my Coaching options to see how I can help you get on track.
