The Driver Release FINALLY Explained – It's Easier Than You Think

Are you the golfer that hits your irons great but struggle with the driver? So if you are, this video might be right up your street. Essentially we're talking about the release with the driver and how it's different to what you do with an iron shot. Let me explain in detail now. If you're new to the channel, please subscribe, like, share, comment. It really helps and I really appreciate the support. So with a driver, it's a totally different release of the iron. So with the iron, I would want basically lots of shaft lean, lots of flexion with the wrist, lots of rotation with the arms and body through the swing. Now with a driver, we are going to want to throw that golf club earlier, get the golf club pointing back more, let the wrist unload earlier, as I would call it, to help get more loft and get the club releasing in a slightly different way. Effectively, iron release, driver release. So there's a lot more Now some of this happens naturally. Now it happens naturally because the ball's more forward in the stance and our belly button's further back relevant to that ball. Now when we push into the ground and push back off the ground, the force goes towards the belly button effectively and then that makes the head go back and then that makes basically the release point happen earlier in terms of the levers in the golf swing. So naturally, and all being well, this happens for most golfers. Some of us will have to manipulate this a little bit more to make it work. So if your shots particularly are kind of slicey, you struggle, you need a very lofty driver, you don't get a lot of speed or power with the driver, then the release we're going to do today is kind of for you. When we talk about creating ground force like I just did very briefly, don't think, well I don't create any force. We all create force but we all create different amounts and different times. So we all will be pushing back just maybe too late or not as much as the longer hitters. You will be doing some of it. So with the driver, the ball is opposite left heel as we've already talked about. The hands should be left groin or inside left thigh, so they're basically ever so slightly behind the ball at address. When we return the golf club, we are returning to that similar kind of position. There are some elite players will have a bit of shaft lean, they've got enough speed to cope with that. For most of us where we haven't got speed, we need the golf club to be back pretty much in line. The feeling I'd want you to have then is you put the speed in here and we feel like the butt of the club points back to the belly button. So what we do is a throw earlier in the swing. To feel it, if you're taking a light rod, particularly if you've got a light one like this, we're looking for you to create that noise earlier in the downswing, kind of around that golf ball back there. You can do it one-handed or two-handed. If the noise is very late, you're holding on to that handle too long, handle dragging it too much. I don't mind that feeling at all with an iron for most golfers. Most amateur golfers will be too far back here at contact with an iron, trying to get it in the air. So we're looking for that. We are looking for obviously a pelvis movement going forward, the head will be back. So the head ideally on the downswing will be somewhere around about your trail knee and then at contact it will be back behind the golf ball, probably somewhere just inside your trail knee then. But trail knee is not a bad point if the legs are moving forward. Trail knee head alignment is a pretty good feeling and in the finish try and feel like your head is still behind the golf ball or the T peg as it's left in the ground hopefully. So we're looking for that release. Great way of feeling this, and again I've pinched this drill from a pro online, but basically if you hold the club down the shaft as you swing down, I want that butt of the club to hit your trail forearm when the club gets just past parallel with the ground. That's the feeling I want you to have with the driver. So we set for the ball, ball lefty, slightly wider stance than normal, weight slightly on the back foot. I like the club head to be a few inches back from from the start, and I've talked about this in plenty of my videos why. It helps the alignment, it helps us get up on the golf ball. Then from here I'm trying to release that golf club so I feel like the club is overtaking the hands at the point of contact. Solid, solid hit there. Turned it over a bit too much, but solid, solid hit. So that would be my conceptual idea. We change the release, we have those practicings we can do with the alignment rod, we have this practicing we can do when we go and hit the golf ball. We're very much thinking about the head over the right knee and the golf club pointing back towards us. So let's go through that again, ball position, club head back, so the golf club's pointing back towards my head's back here. So that for me is a way that we try and get rid of any kind of unwanted slices. We try and deliver the golf club on the way up, we try and get that golf club closing the right way, tee peg's still there, I'm sweeping that ball off the tee. It's kind of the only time in golf we want to sweep the ball, the ball's teed up. Apart from a lob shot, and putt obviously we'll sweep it slightly, you know we don't want to be sweeping the ball apart from those things. Everything else we are hitting down, fairway woods, everything we're hitting down. So for me this is the way we should release the driver, this is the way we should stand to the driver, and this is the feelings we want in the downstream swing, where we're keeping the head back behind the wall as I call it, but allowing the legs to work and still get on the front foot. So if you're looking to upgrade your driver swing, and your iron swing is pretty good, have a go at the release for the driver, the specific release for the driver, with these subtle simple concepts that allow you to drive the ball better, hit more fairways and score lower today.