A-Z of Power
ABC | DEF | GHI | JKL | MNO | PQR | STU | VWXYZ
A is for Adjustability
You could add 20+ yards to your drives by tweaking your weights.
Driver adjustability now takes more forms than ever before. We’ve got Gravity Cores, Flip-Zones and Flight Pods all designed to fine tune launch, spin and shot shape, not to mention the loft, clubface and lie angle tweaks you can make via the hosel.
Eight of 18 driver models in this year’s big test have some sort of sole weight adjustability, while all but one (TaylorMade AeroBurner) features an adjustable hosel. Changing the sole weights, both the position and weight of them, affects launch, spin and draw/fade bias. But does it all really work for average golfers with inconsistent swings?
During our driver test, we played around with the sliding weights on the new TaylorMade R15 driver. We asked resident pro James Ridyard to recreate a typical slicer’s swing – 95mph clubhead speed, 10° out-to-in path and an open clubface – first with the driver set in neutral, and then set with a draw bias. The results reveal that you can gain 21 yards of carry, without changing your swing, simply by adjusting your driver.
The TG verdict
“Putting the weights in the heel makes this area heavier than the toe, allowing the toe to accelerate faster past the heel and close the clubface more through impact,” Ridyard explains.
“I found it closed the clubface more quickly. It won’t necessarily make you draw the ball if you normally hit a slice, but it will certainly reduce the curve, and give you more distance.
“By not having the face as open to the path, you reduce the spin and launch angle, which helps project the ball further forwards. It works.”
With an adjustment that takes seconds, your driver may be able to help you hit it further and straighter – so it’s definitely worth finding the right configuration for you.
B is for Bubba
Learn from the Tour’s biggest hitter
Bubba Watson has been the biggest hitter on the PGA Tour twice in the last three years, including last year when he topped the rankings with an astonishing 314.3-yard average. His 360-yard drives helped tame Augusta on his way to a second Green Jacket last year, and make him a hot favourite to repeat the feat this year. We spoke to him about his power moves and he gave us these power pointers:
-
Hover the club: Grounding the club can cause you to tense your body slightly and snatch the club away with your hands. For me, hovering it keeps your tension level constant and helps you start the club back with good rhythm.
-
Flare your lead foot: When Tiger wants to really pound a drive, he fans his left foot out at about a 45-degree angle. That almost forces him to clear his hips and lower body faster through the swing, his belly button facing left of the target at the finish. It allows him to generate tremendous power. I’ve copied that move from Tiger, and it works. We also asked PGA National swing and coaching tutor Adrian Bishop to analyse the secrets behind “Bubba golf”.
-
Use your natural gifts A lot of Bubba’s power
-
is down to assets that regular golfers can’t gain because they are unique to him. He has really long arms and is ridiculously flexible. That outlandish flexibility builds an awful lot of power.
-
Get into the ground Now onto something you can copy. The ground is a massive power source and Bubba uses it very well. At the transition of his swing from backswing to downswing he digs into the ground brilliantly with his feet. This gives him solid base to power off from. This in and out of the ground move isn’t easy to master, but it provides a massive power boost.
-
Imagination This isn’t a pure power tip, but one of the biggest things ordinary golfers can learn from Bubba is how overrated aim is. I regularly see club golfers wing it into the woods and then scratch their head as to how
-
it happened, because their alignment stick tells them that their feet were pointing down the centre of the fairway. Believe me, Bubba will never have worked on his alignment, because for him golf isn’t about where his feet and hips are pointing. That is the shot he visualised, so that is the shot he is going to hit.
-
Be creative The primary thing golfers should learn from Bubba is the value of creativity. Bubba developed flair and imagination from a young age and now he is reaping the benefits through the number of different shots he can play.
-
Lack of resistance When he takes the club away, he doesn’t attempt to resist the motion with his legs or hips and instead focuses on making as big and wide a turn as he possibly can. This lack of stability isn’t great for control, but Bubba isn’t bothered. He just wants to build as much power as he can by allowing everything to turn fully, so he can get as big a shoulder turn as possible.
C is for Carl Cooper
Hit the longest drive in PGA Tour history
You might have thought the longest drive in PGA Tour history belonged to Bubba Watson, John Daly or Tiger Woods. But no, that prize belongs to little known journeyman named Carl Cooper.
Cooper played on the PGA Tour for four years in the early 1990s with little success. But he did manage to ink his name into history by hitting a 787-yard monster on the 444-yard 3rd hole at the 1992 Texas Open.
“I tried to cut the ball and I cut it too much,” he told us. “It landed on a downhill cart path and kept bouncing and bouncing.”
After running down the cart path for several hundred yards, the ball rolled onto a maintenance path and kept going and going and going. By the time it came to rest it was more than 300 yards past the green but, miraculously, still in bounds.
“I’d never have found the ball if it wasn’t a tournament,” he admits. “But because it was, a marshal found it and I had to play it. I had to hit 4-iron and 8-iron just to get back to the green.” In the end, he walked off with a double-bogey six – and some very tired legs.