It’s every golfer’s nightmare – a narrow fairway lined with trees or flanked with bunkers and heavy rough. This is when you really need to know how to hit a driver straight. Being anxious about it is likely to result in strife down that sort of fairway. Being nervous tightens up the golfing muscles possibly affecting your action.

Never try to guide the ball off the tee, it very seldom works. Instead attempt to swing freely with rhythm ensuring you release through the ball – two essentials for accuracy striking the ball.

Every time visualize your shot before making it, whether you are using your driver on a par 5 or hitting your 9 iron on a short par 3. Visualize the whole shot, the flight path and where it lands. Visualizing the shot will assist in the selection of the club.

For each of your clubs you ought to know what distance you are capable of hitting with it. Only then can you correctly select which club is right for any given situation. It isn’t helpful to step up to the ball with the intention of smashing it as hard as you possibly can. This is a recipe for disaster and will usually result in a bad shot. If you could do with more distance concentrate on swinging the club faster not hitting the ball harder. Club head speed is essential to adding distance to all your shots.

Another common mistake is the tee itself. It’s crucial that you don’t tee your ball up too high or too low. If you tee the ball too low there is a good chance you will hit the ground or the ball on too vertical a bias. Really bad shots can result from the tee being too high as your club head will tend to go underneath the ball. The ideal height is to have the ball sitting at the same level as the sweet spot of the club you are using.

Check that your grip is not too strong or weak if your ball starts flying straight but then hooks or slices. A way of checking this is to look down at your grip and you should be able to see the first two knuckles of your left hand (for right handed golfers). If you can’t see any knuckles you are in a weak grip and this will regularly lead to a slice. If you see more than two knuckles, you are in a strong grip and this repeatedly leads to hooking the ball.

When you are playing on a windy day use your less lofted clubs to help keep the ball low. On very windy days keeping the ball low is generally the only real choice you have. It can be especially helpful if there are trees on either side of the fairway you are playing on and you can use the trees as a buffer.

Spend some time practicing with these hints and tips and before long you will know how to hit a driver straight. The only way to greatly lower your handicap is to practice habitually in all areas of your game.

Author Bio: Find hints and tips on how to hit a driver straight down the centre of the fairway. Also advice on improving all other aspects of your game.

Category: Sports
Keywords: how to hit a driver, how to hit a driver straight, how to hit driver straight, striking the ball,