Tips On How To Adjust Your Driver Set Up For Better Distance
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Apr 1, 2025
Joel Tadman talks through six gear hacks that have the potential to generate more distance for you off the tee!
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Now we all want to hit the golf ball a little bit further. The stats tell us that that is the
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quickest way to lower scores but what if I told you there were six easy ways you could get more
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distance out of your driver without changing your swing or without taking expensive lessons. Well
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that's what we're going to cover in this video on the driving range here at the beautiful Gogmagog
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Golf Club is going to talk you through six gear hacks that are going to give you more distance
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So without further ado let's get started. Now the first gear hack for more distance and arguably the
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easiest to implement, I think, is just raising the tee height of your golf ball. So typically
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amateur golfers tend to tee the ball quite low with the driver, and that encourages an attack
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angle that is too steep into the golf ball. It's going to generate a lot of spin, and it also causes
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the path to often come out to end. So going too far to the left is going to cause a slice and rob
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you of distance by implementing a glancing blow on the golf ball. So with the tee height, raise it up
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a little bit. Try and have at least half the ball above the crown of the driver. That's going to
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encourage more of an upward hit on the golf ball, and that increases launch and it also
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reduces spin. That's a recipe for more distance with your driver. One thing to think about
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if you do change your delivery into the golf ball and you have more of an upward attack
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angle, you might want to think about reducing the loft of your driver. You've got long drivers, they have two to three degrees of loft on their driver because they hit up on
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the ball so much. So you might need to tweak the loft to get the best results if you do
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raise your tee height, but if you have half that ball above the crown of the driver, it
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should lead to longer drives. Now, the second gear hack, we've kind of already mentioned it in the first one, it's all down
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to adjusting the loft of your driver. Most drivers these days are adjustable for loft via the hosel, and while I would recommend
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doing this in consultation with a PJ Pro, there are some gains that you can make by adjusting
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the loft of the driver not only to suit a change in your swing but also the conditions that you typically play If you changing golf courses a lot it might be worth making tweaks to the loft of your driver to increase that distance potential For example if the conditions of the course that you playing are quite wet and there not much
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run out, you might want to think about adding a little bit loft to give you a little bit more
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height and a little bit more spin, which can increase your carry distance through the air
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And obviously, yes, you're not going to get as much roll out, but the conditions are going to negate that. So that's one way you can get more distance. On the flip side of that, if your course
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is quite firm or quite windy you want to keep the bull flight down lowering the loft will give you
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lower launch lower spin a lower bull flight and that should help you get more run on your drives
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and therefore more distance and if it's keeping it down below the wind it should also help
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accuracy as well so play around with the loft again get on the driving range think about the
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conditions that you're playing in make that tweak to that bull flight and it should give you more
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distance now while most modern premium drivers are adjustable for loft a lot of them also have
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adjustability in terms of weight settings within their head, whether it's at the back or
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interchangeable weights on the front. There's different ways you can move weight around
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to give you more distance potential. Yes, most drivers that you get fitted for, you often just
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leave the weight settings where they were, but there are ways you can change it to give you more
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distance potential. So for example, you know, on adjustable drivers, you might better move more
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weight into the forward position of the head. That's going to give you a lower center of gravity
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going to lower the spin, it's going to give you more ball speed and distance. Yes
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you might also see a reduction in your accuracy because of that less forgiving setting, but it's
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definitely a way you can achieve more ball speed and distance. Another way you should be able to
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get more distance via sliding weights that move laterally is by getting the weight more aligned
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with your common strike location. So if you know that you're hitting the ball a lot in the toe
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portion of the face of your driver, having more weight in the toe is going to get more mass behind
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where you striking the ball and that going to give you more ball speed and hopefully more distance So really think about whether your strike pattern is moving around especially if it moving around based on where it was when you got fitted It might mean that you need to make a change to give you a little bit more
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stability and distance from your driver. So think about the movable weight options within
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the head could give you more distance overall. Now one pretty simple gear hack that's going to give you more club head speed and therefore
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more distance potential is to lengthen the shaft. We've seen the governing bodies out
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on tour reduce the maximum shaft length from 48 down to 46 inches. And that's because they
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know a longer shaft will give people more club head speed and therefore more distance
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and they're trying to counteract that. You think about, you know, the longer the shaft
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the further the club head is away from your hand, the more distance is travelling, therefore
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it's got more time to generate more speed. So definitely something to consider with the
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stock shaft lengths going up a little bit, often with generation and generation of product
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launches. So think about what the length of your shaft is. Definitely a longer shaft will
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give you more speed potential. The only caveat to it is you may well have a reduction in
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the control and the delivery of the clubface. For example, this driver shaft that I've got
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is actually a little bit shorter than the one I had before because I wanted to have a little bit more control of the direction the golf ball was going. So it's definitely
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a trade-off. So while a longer shaft might see you lose a little bit of control of where
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your golf ball is going, it's definitely going to help you increase your clubhead speed and
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and therefore give you potential for more distance. Another gear hack that might help you get a little bit more distance without changing
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your swing is to opt for lighter components within your club, and especially the grip
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We see often grips can come in at standard around 50 to 60 grams, and there are lightweight
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options out there that might help you reduce the overall weight of the club and help you
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swing it faster. Generally speaking, the lighter something is, the easier it is to move There are some caveats to that obviously will affect the swing weight and there is an an area of kind of diminishing returns when you taking weight out they might get to a point where actually it more difficult to swing faster but definitely experiment with potentially trying
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a lighter grip maybe taking a little bit of weight out of the shaft that might help you swing the
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club a little bit more faster and therefore translate into a bit more distance. And the final
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gear hack to give you more distance it comes down to these golf balls and specifically changing
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into a more distance-orientated golf ball, one that's typically a two or a three-piece
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often has an ionoma or a surlin cover, and certainly has a higher compression than most
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golf balls out there. That's going to give you more ball speed, more distance, often lower spin
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as well. Yes, it does have a firmer feel, so you're going to be sacrificing control in and
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around the greens, but if distance, again, is your number one priority, switching golf balls is a
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really easy way to achieve that. And don't forget, the rules of golf allow you to change
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make a model of golf ball on every hole that you're playing. So every tee shot you can switch into
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a more distance orientated golf ball on a par 4 or a par 5. It's going to give you more potential of
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getting on the green in two or on a par 5 reaching the green in two and give you a better chance of
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a birdie. So take advantage of that rule in golf, switch the golf balls if you want to on an
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appropriate hole, but generally speaking a more a distance golf ball, a firmer golf ball is going
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to give you a bit more distance and as an added benefit they tend to be a little bit cheaper as well. So there you have it, six quick and easy gear hacks that could potentially give you more
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distance. I hope you enjoyed this video, do comment down below, are there any that I've missed
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Is there any that you're really excited to try? I'd love to hear from you, but hopefully
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you've taken away one or two really good pointers that you're going to implement in your own games
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that can give you more distance off the tee. But that's all from me, from the range here
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at Gogmogog Golf Club in Cambridgeshire, I'll see you next time
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