Make no mistake about it, the game has changed over the past few years. Golf courses are getting longer and it has become far more of a power game than ever before so it is crucial we are maximizing our distance if we are to achieve our potential. Some of the best drivers will help you along the way, as will having the correct shaft, but for a bit more assistance we’ve drafted in YouTuber and PGA Professional Matt Fryer to give you some additional thoughts on how to maximize your power…
Watch - Matt Fryer demonstrates how to add yardage to your drives
The Pyramid of Success
It might sound like a strange phrase, but Matt believes creating what he refers to as a ‘Pyramid of Success’ is the first key to generating more power.
“If we thought of a pyramid that started around my chin area and went down to both my feet, what I’m trying to see is that my pyramid would tilt ever so slightly away from the target, and also have a nice wide base to it."
"The reason for these two changes is that it will allow the club head to be coming a little bit wider and potentially more on the up through the hitting zone, and also it’s going to give me a good base at the bottom that allows me to build power. So simply if we are looking to take our normal drive and add say 10 to 15 yards, I would be looking to take my trail foot and move it back around an inch or two and get that pyramid tilting away from the target”.
Use the ground
Somewhat of a modern phenomenon, but Matt says that successfully mastering ground forces is a surefire way to increase your clubhead speed and add yardage to your drives.
“What we know nowadays is that we need to use the ground to generate a lot of power. So often I see people trying to generate more power, setting up reasonably well, but everything is done by trying to throw their hands and arms at the golf ball and it’s not the desired way we would want."
"We need to use our bigger muscles and the ground to generate power that moves up through the body and transmits back down to the golf ball. One of the best examples of this is when watching the long-drive competitors. What we see is a lot of motion from the legs before the shot is hit, whereas often in shorter hitters we see much more static positions that cause them to snatch with the hands and arms."
"What I want you to feel as you make your backswing is that you really push down into the ground through your right leg and really anchor it, we can then use the legs and bigger muscles of the lower half to push off and drive through the shot generating more power”.
Creating Efficiency of strike
One of the simplest ways of maximizing power, which is often forgotten about, is simply finding the center of the face to optimize ball speed. As Jack Nicklaus said, when he was looking to hit the ball further, he focused on hitting it better rather than harder, and Matt agrees;
“One of the first things I think about when trying to find more power for my students is efficiency of strike, because we can do all sorts of things well, but if we don’t find the middle of the face then we simply can’t be optimizing our power. Having things like the correct shaft profile is essential in finding the center of the face as it has such a huge effect on timing."
"But something else I like to visualize to help with the strike is almost creating an imaginary runway through the impact zone where I visualize the club head tracking straight from a couple of inches prior to the ball, to a couple of inches past it, almost like a flight path. If the plane - or the clubface in this case - slips off the runway to the right or left then I will not make centered contact so that really helps me to visualize the correct impact.”
