Restart Your Number One Wood! This Time No Short Drives
One-wood frustration: Who doesn’t want the joy of a long drive with a one-wood? However, repeatedly observing professional golfers’ swings, spending countless hours practicing on the range, buying new balls and equipment… often leads to frustration. Why does one-wood distance plateau? Why do shots sometimes feel great and others feel terrible?
Actually, many times we do poorly because we ignore some subtle details. Today, let’s explore the three biggest pitfalls of one-wood!
Pitfall 1: Hit High, Not Far
Hitting high without distance – it’s a frustratingly brief moment of excitement. How can we better address the ‘height, not distance’ issue? Here are two simple and reliable drills to help you increase one-wood distance more effectively:
1. After setting up your ball tee, slightly raise the clubhead, or position the ball a bit ahead of the clubhead;
2. Your stance should be wider than your shoulders, placing the small ball on the extended line of the inside of your left foot’s heel, with most of your body weight on your right leg, which increases the likelihood of hitting the sweet spot and helps improve swing speed for longer distances.
(Image source: Patrick Cantlay Ins)
Pitfall 2: ‘Grass Flying’ Shot
A ‘grass flying’ shot means the ball lands low, naturally losing distance and not maximizing the advantages of the one-wood.
Most golfers experience this when their club shaft, arms, and upper body tilt left during the downswing, raising the right shoulder and hips, and tilting the spine towards the target, which easily leads to a downward trajectory and difficulty achieving ideal distance. Here’s a drill to correct this:
Use the ball tee at the marker position, placing a bottle of mineral water about one foot away from the tee. Set your stance, with the ball positioned to the left of your stance, if you hit the bottle with the swing, it means your angle is upwards, and if the ball doesn’t hit the bottle, it means the angle is downwards.
(Image source: Top Speed Golf)
Pitfall 3: Swinging Hard, Not Far
Why do you swing hard and still not get distance? It's frustrating when you feel like you’re putting in a lot of effort, but the shots don’t go far. The main reason is that most golfers tend to ‘hit with their hands’ – relying solely on the force of their arms without fully utilizing their body.
To break this ‘effort without reward’ swing, we need to eliminate the habit of ‘hitting with our hands.’ Here’s a simple and efficient correction drill:
1. Prepare three balls in a line, with a distance between them equal to the length of a clubhead, and make sure they are vertical to your stance.
(Image source: We play golf)
2. Establish your normal stance, and slightly narrow your stance to avoid contact with the other two balls, use an iron to strike the middle ball. Practice 20 times to ensure the stability of your swing.
(Image source: We play golf)
3. Gently bend your left leg, step back with your right leg and keep it straight. Maintain the same swing rhythm, and continue to hit the middle ball 20 times. After changing the direction, bend your left leg and step back with your right leg, repeat the same steps 20 times.
(Image source: We play golf)
