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Padraig Harrington says he is 276 yards away, the carry to safety is 240 and there is a breeze. Apparently winking is DOD.
Driver off the deck, right? It’s time to take the headgear off the wood 1, isn’t it?
Maybe on a practice day, three-time major winner says. He has a concern.
Harrington is talking about a video recently posted on the PGA Tour Champions social media feeds – which you can watch in full here — and he is in his element. He’s just as happy playing as he is teaching, and the subject is one of golf’s boldest shots. The driver is primarily intended for tee shots, but, if done properlyplaying it away from the tee box can give a player more pop.
If done righthowever, and Harrington said there is a tendency to make at least this mistake:
“If anything,” he said in the video, “you don’t want to help a driver up because you’re going to get behind him and hit him thick and basically hit him wrong.”
That said, the DOD is a shame, though, and he laid it out in the video, with these tips:
— “If anything,” said he, “I’ll try to draw my driver a little;
— “Cut it a little;
– “But I won’t keep my face – I’ll keep my face pretty square so it doesn’t get too chipped.”
At this point in the video. Harrington played the shot. “So pull back a little,” he reminded himself before the shot. “Okay, so a slight pull across.”
He hit. He said it was fine, although he said it “fell apart a bit.”
“Again, that’s the problem when you’re hitting the driver off the deck – you’re always anxious to get it up in the air and if you do any stopping, it’s harder to get a good shot,” he added. the video. “Obviously, if you can, stay in front and cover; that’s what you’re trying to do. It ended up being a very nice shot – just in the left hollow.
“I put out 270, in a cold wind, but I’m not doing that on tour.”
Let’s continue the conversation DOD. In 2022, Jessica Marksbury of GOLF.com wrote a story titled “4 Keys to Hitting a Driver Off the Deck” and you can read that story by clicking hereor scrolling down.
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Let’s face it – we can all use some extra distance, not just off the tee, but once we hit the fairway.
But many of us put the longest club in our bag — the driver — aside when faced with a long approach or a par-5 second shot.
As it turns out, hitting the driver off the deck is easier than you think, and GOLFTEC instructor Brad Thorberg—with an assist from PGA Tour player Jim Knous—has the keys you need to be successful.
How to hit the driver from the deck
1. Place like a 3-wood.
2. Consider using a down or flat angle of attack – this is different from the usual lift you use when hitting driver off the tee.
3. Move the ball slightly back in your stance so that it lines up with the inside of the heel on your lead foot.
4. Close the club – about an inch – and move a half step closer to the ball. This will make the shaft straighter and move the toe down, making it more level.
You can expect to have a lower ball flight using an off-deck driver than with the ball on the tee, Knous says, and for a right-handed player, the ball may want to work a little to the right, so make sure you plan for it.
Finally, the off-deck driver works best when you have a lot of space in front of you to drive the ball to the green. Try it and enjoy the results.