The Complete Guide to Maximizing Driver Distance

Everyone is currently focused on how far the pros are hitting the ball, and whether or not the golf ball should be rolled back. The truth of the matter is that 99.99% of golfers playing this game are not hitting it too far. In fact, they need plenty of help maximizing distance with their driver.
Over the past several years I’ve learned a lot about this topic. I’ve experimented myself and learned from top club fitters and teachers in the industry. There are a number of reasons why recreational golfers are lacking distance with their driver – swing speed, impact tendencies, equipment setup, and several other factors. In this article, I’m going to take you through all of these issues so you are more knowledgeable about what actually creates distance.
A few things to keep in mind:
- You don’t have to do everything on this list
- I am doing my best to speak generically; every golfer has their own unique circumstances so not all of this might apply to you
- Many of these concepts will affect one another
Generally speaking, your goal with the driver should be to increase your ball speed, launch it higher, and reduce the amount of spin on the ball. All of these conditions vary depending on the golfer, but these are three general goals most players should be pursuing if they want to maximize their distance with the driver.
Golfers Don’t Hit it That Far
I’ve collected data from a few sources on how far golfers are actually hitting it, but my favorite number to examine is from Game Golf. They have tracked millions of real-life shots on the course over the past several years. These are not puffed up numbers from the range; this is what actually is happening.
Here are the driving distance numbers by scoring average:
100 – 105: 172 Yards
90 – 95: 193 Yards
80 -85: 217 Yards
72 or Better: 251 yards
I’m not sure if these numbers shock you at all, but I think it paints a fairly clear picture. Amateur golfers are not bombing the ball. Additionally, there is no question that if you want to give yourself a better chance of shooting lower scores, increasing your driver distance is an important part of the equation. There are reasonable steps you can take without dramatically changing your swing to get there.
Play the Right Driver
One of the biggest eye openers for me is how much distance can be gained or lost by the combination of shaft and driver head a golfer chooses. Most golfers blindly purchase their drivers off the rack after hearing the marketing claims from the major manufacturers. I believe this is a huge mistake.
Without going into too much detail, my advice to anyone who wants to pick the low hanging fruit of added distance – get custom fit by someone who knows what they are doing.
The combination of the driver head and shaft is crucial.
For example, most golfers assume that getting a lower loft on their driver will increase distance. For many of you that might actually decrease your distance. Every club has unique characteristics, most notably where the center of gravity is. When you throw shaft weight, flex, and profile into the mix you have endless combinations.
I’ve seen it with my own eyes where I have tried a club that was not right for my swing and immediately lost 20-30 yards because my launch conditions were not optimal. This article will give more insight into why.
Long story short, your current driver might be preventing you from hitting it farther simply because it’s not the right club for you. This is one of the easiest things to fix if you work with a knowledgeable clubfitter.
Shorten Your Shaft
Did you know that most stock shafts on drivers now are almost 46″ long? Did you also know that many PGA Tour Players have driver shafts that are much shorter than that?
Over the past decade, there has been a shift to give longer shafts to consumers. Golfers want more distance and the manufacturers are happy to give it to them with longer shafts. However, there is a major flaw in this logic.
All things being equal, a longer driver shaft will allow you to swing the club faster, which could add more distance. The problem for recreational golfers and even the pros, is that it makes it more challenging to find the center of the clubface with a longer shaft.
So while you might be swinging it faster, your ball speed (and distance) could decrease because you are striking it all over the face of the club.
Personally, I have switched to a shorter driver shaft. I haven’t lost any distance and I’ve gained plenty of accuracy. Check out this article to find out more about this concept.
For many of you reading this I am confident that if you were able to shorten the shaft of your driver you will actually pick up distance because you’ll be striking it closer to the sweet spot of the club. You will also want to work with a club fitter on this.
Improve Your Impact Location
Your ability to strike the ball closer to the center of your driver will greatly affect how far you hit the ball.
By improving your strike efficiency, this is a way to add distance to your drives without adding any swing speed. The first thing you should do is find out where your impact tendencies are.
Get yourself a can of Dr. Scholls Odor X and spray the face of your driver. Take note of where you are striking the ball. Some golfers have a tendency to strike it lower on the face, or more towards the heel or toe.
Due to a concept called gear effect, this will not only affect the shape of your shots but also your launch angle and spin rates.
If you want help improving your impact location, I recommend checking out Adam Young’s Strike Plan. It’s a great course that provides plenty of drills golfers of any level can perform.
Hit Up On It
Many golfers are missing out on distance because they swing their drivers with a negative angle of attack. You can check out this article to learn more, but the concept is fairly simple.
Golfers that have slower swing speeds need every bit of help they can get to optimize their launch conditions for distance. If your driver head is traveling on a downward trajectory as it approaches the ball, you will launch the ball lower which will rob you of distance. This image helps illustrate what it looks like:
By learning how to hit up on the ball, or have a positive angle of attack, you will be able to launch the ball on the more optimal trajectory.
This data from Trackman easily shows you the differences:
These are swing speeds that most recreational golfers have, and you can see the dramatic distance changes. Players can add as much as 20 yards to their drives by going from hitting down on the ball to hitting up on it.
So how do you do it? For certain golfers, it could be as simple as teeing it up higher and moving the ball further up in your stance.
Here is a great drill to help from Andrew Rice:
Also, if you are interested in measuring your own progress you could get a swing analyzer like Swingbyte or SkyPro
to track your angle of attack.
Find The Right Tee Height
One of the easiest ways to help your angle of attack and impact location is to make sure you are teeing the ball at the right height.
Many golfers are not giving themselves a chance to increase their driving distance, simply because they tee the ball too high or too low for their swing. The next time you are on the range, experiment with various tee heights and track your impact location to see if there are any correlations taking place.
Your goal is to make impact in the center of the face, or slightly above it.
Swing Faster (not harder)
All things being equal, adding swing speed is arguably the best way to really hit your driver farther. However, it will require some work on your part.
When most golfers try to add swing speed they are doing it all wrong. They just try to swing harder, which usually ruins their swing mechanics and results in injury. If you want to add swing speed the right way, you need to have a real plan.
Overspeed training is one of the best ways to increase your clubhead speed. There is a product called SuperSpeed Golf that I highly recommend. I wrote this review a while back, and I still believe this is the best method for most players.
Additionally, getting stronger and more fit is another way to add swing speed the right way. Having a golf-specific workout can increase your strength, flexibility, and prevent injuries. We have a workout plan for our Insider Members from one of the top fitness instructors in the golf industry. You can learn more here.
Wrapping It Up
A lot goes into maximizing distance with your driver. As I mentioned earlier, you don’t have to do everything in this article to gain more distance because it’s likely you are already doing a few things properly.
However, taking one or two of these concepts can easily add significant distance. Hit it far and straight!
Love this article and practical advice for all. I would add one thing about gaining more speed which is working on your tempo. If you can get the 3/1 ratio in your tempo your speed will naturally get faster. I have been working on this at an indoor facility with a Foresight GC2 and I am always amazed on the swings where I feel like I am coming out of my shoes my swing speed is much slower than when I am in tempo and rhythm. Everyone will have their own tempo but that 3/1 ration is key. That means that the time it takes for you to get to the top of your backswing is 3x as long as it takes to get to impact. Lots of devices out there measure this and have training apps to help you get on tempo. Happy golfing this spring and let the BIG DOG EAT!!!
Excellent point Brad, I explored the 3:1 ratio in this article a while back https://practical-golf.com/swing-tempo/
Take a look at this site from,a former golf shaft designer. I think, in my opinion as a physics teacher and terrible golfer, that this is the gold standard for how to create more distance and all of the variables that have an effect pon distance.
https://www.tutelman.com/golf/clubs/Mike2.php#cg
let me know what you think
Thanks John, very helpful I hope! Can u recommend a good fitter in my area, long Island, new york. Also a good driver ,what length shaft?
Definitely go to Pete’s Golf, they are the best! petesgolf.com
By all means, get fitted with a TrackMan. I have a SkyTrak and it is excellent, but it won’t give you angle of attack and dynamic loft, so it’s easy to think you have too much loft when you actually might be hitting down on the ball and catching it high on the face. After validating with the trackman, the SkyTrak numbers become clearer as to what’s actually happening. If you have access to a trackman that can be brought to an outdoor range, all the better, but indoor will work better than everything but outdoor trackman. I did this and worked through a combination of heads and shafts and head adjustments and I now am 25 to 30 yards longer (220 to 250) without any swing adjustments. I would add that it is worth doing this at a place where you can do it multiple times over a couple weeks. Doing one long fitting at a place like 2nd Swing is better than nothing but you’ll be spending a lot of money based on your swing that day. I did that a year ago and wound up returning the driver because i couldn’t replicate results on the course. And if you can demo the top couple choices on the course for a week or two, all the better. I actually played on the first day of our member guest and the other the second day and that sealed the deal. They were both so close on trackman when you put a good swing on them, but one clearly worked better with whatever my in-play swing tendencies are under pressure. Add in working on an upward angle of attack, and that can be 50 yards longer or more when I get it right. I actually still have a hard time believing it even as I type it. I’m a 12 and can get around the course and have a driver speed of 100-102, so our focus was minimizing spin. The key was the shaft. If nothing else, plug in a low spin shaft and you’ll be amazed. Now I’m struggling with what to hit on our long par three and our doglegs but these are good problems! The whole process took a month for me, but it’s worth it when I have a gap wedge in my hand on par fours. Now, I’m on to replacing my ancient wedges.
This has to do with using “soft” 50 – 60 compression golf balls. I am a “senior” Senior of 88 years, shrunk down to 5′ 1″. I must rely on course management and 90 is the new ‘Par’. Using the soft ball, I hit a 3 wood 150 to 160…straight…when I manage to stop at the top. With the same ball, my 460 cc driver has trouble matching that.
I still have a smaller (non trampoline) metal driver head of about 250cc, which I used about 30 years ago. I’m thinking of re-shafting that with a senior shaft. The idea being that the large trampoline does not compress the ball as much as the smaller head. Yes? / No?
Jon, hello.
Just discovered you. Very good!
-Re: driver shaft length:
pro/con of just gripping down a bit?
-Have senior flex graphite shafts. Not sure they can be cut. Possible to cut & reduce length?
Thanx, Jon
Rich
Age 70 , from Pa.
What about playing from the correct tee-box? I moved up and I’m now able to reach most greens in regulation. A good equation is how far you are able to hit your 5 iron and multiply the yardage by 35. My 5 iron goes 160 yards at most – multiplied by 35 equals 5600. I should play the tee-box’s with around 5600 total yards.
Frank
Wow! Interesting!! You keep learning… 🙂
Thanks…
What we all need are self-diagnosing clubs. In my mind I would like to have clubs that would forewarn me that I was about to hit a hook or slice out of bounds in time to let me correct my down swing: Now that’s a club. To build such a club we would have to use “Wife Technology.”
“Wife Technology” is a new technology field that I am developing to save my golf game. I finally realized that if my wife could tell me what I was going to do wrong before I even thought of doing whatever, then I should be able to apply the same principle to a golf club.
I don’t normally read blogs, but I came across your blog and read every word! My husband and I started golfing later in life, well I started much later than he did. I started at age 42 and got the golfing bug really bad. During the first couple of years, I hit my driver really well. I was getting around 180 yards but now, I hit longer irons farther than I do my driver. It is quite the love hate relationship. It has gotten so bad, I don’t even put my driver in the bag.
After reading your article, I want to start working on my driver again. I know I have a slow swing speed so will try and use all of your tips. My husband uses the Orange Whip before every T-Shot and it works well for him. I haven’t tried it yet. Might look into the Super Speed as we actually sell it on our website.
I don’t think I have the right driver for me, and we live in the mountains in Southwest VA so have no idea where I should go to get fitted for a new driver. I am 5’9″ and I will have to check, but believe I have the longer shaft you spoke of. Any suggestions?
Thanks again for your great article and all the great tips. I really want to use all the clubs in my bag.
Jon, a very informative article with some practical tips. I find it interesting that in this article you suggest going to a shorter shaft driver, but you have now recently gone to a longer shaft. A good lesson to be open minded with equipment and techniques.
There is a chart in Tom Wishons Book „ The Search for the perfect Golf Club“ saying that you can achieve 243 carry / 273 max with a clubhead speed of only 90mph and -5 AoA if you are using 13 degree of Loft.
Should we all use Driver with much more Loft?