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Golf Top Tips with Jack Lumpkin: Drive Off the Tee
The best advice I can give you off the tee, is take a club with sufficient loft that you can hit down the fairway.
Too many people think that they have to drive with a driver. The driver may or may not be the best club for you. I want to demonstrate what happens if you don’t have a lot of club head speed the ball will just not get in the air.
I am going to hit this shot with about the speed that a lot of high handicappers have, and watch the flight of this ball. The ball goes on a line drive. Surely it will roll, but at the same time, it might have not even carried the rough. If I can make that same swing with the three wood, which has more loft. This ball will actually go farther — with a 3-wood than that same amount of speed would have with a driver. That ball is up in the air, and probably 30 yards farther down the fairway. So a person that doesn’t have a lot of club-head speed would be better off driving with a 3-wood.
A good rule of thumb, if you can score in the mid 80’s down — you’d probably ought to be using the driver. If you’re driving poorly, get a little more loft. If you shoot from 85 to 88 on up, to about a 100. I would tell you to drive with a 3-wood. And if you’re a new golfer or can’t break a 100, you might hit it farther with a 5-wood.
Now if you have sufficient club-head speed. Use your driver. Use your driver. If you can find the fairway, this is the club you want. But again, have enough loft. This is a 9.5 lofted driver, and I get the trajectory I would like to have. We have found from Tour Players to very low handicappers that they are better off quite often with a little more loft on their driver, actually trying to drive their ball. Rather than with too little loft, trying to lift their ball.
So use enough loft, find the club you can start the hole and get it in the fairway, and have fun!
