Graham Averill is turning 50 this year and he’s crazy. Instead of buying a motorcycle or getting a tattoo, he’s decided to try to get really, really good at golf. He is a 13 handicap trying to get to zero in a year. Welcome to his midlife crisis.
The big stick. The big dog. Thor’s hammer. … The driver has many nicknames, but I’ve always called him “Trouble.” When I played golf as a teenager, I didn’t even carry one in my bag because I didn’t want to be tempted to take it out. It was an automatic penalty, so I dropped a 3-iron into the fairway and went with it. All the homeowners who lined the fairways of my childhood courses breathed a sigh of relief.
I’ve grown to understand some key aspects of life as I’ve moved into adulthood. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that roulette is for fools, and my wife is right even when she’s wrong. But the driver remains an enigma. Of course, there will be brief windows of greatness with the big club where I’ll mash a nice long draw that finds a fairway two or three holes in a single round! But mostly I overcook that herb on a hook that disappears deep into the poison ivy-filled woods. Fearing that snap shot, my swing became cautious and tense, which resulted in more hooks. It was a vicious circle.
I have this debate with other players all the time: Would you rather hit every fairway for the rest of your life or never three-putt again?
I know scoring happens the closer you get to the hole, but I’ll take clean fairways all day. It’s demoralizing to start every par-4 or par-5 with an automatic penalty. And balls are expensive. I’m tired of losing them.
So my coach Sam Hahn and I have been working diligently to address the biggest responsibility in my bag. We’ve made some massive improvements in the last few weeks, mostly trying to turn my draw into a fade.
“Nothing kills a score like a premature strike,” says Hahn. “Yes, draws tend to travel further than fades, but missing a draw is really unforgivable. A fade that goes back a piece usually won’t get you that much trouble. There’s a reason why most tournament players play a fade off the box.”
I have a fragile ego, so I was reluctant to sacrifice any limits out of the box, but minimizing damage from a mistake was too tempting to pass up, so I set to work developing a fade.
Most of the fixes that Sam has put me through have focused on my setup. Hundreds and hundreds of hooks off the tee have conditioned me into that shot, so I tend to stay very close to my target. Sam wants me to open my stance and pick a starting line on the left side of the fairway, also moving the ball forward in my stance so that contact is made just after the low point of my swing. This motion essentially creates an outward swing path at the point of contact. Combine ball position with a clubface that is more open at address and placement MUST help promote fading. But because I’m an overachiever, I skipped the fade altogether and we developed a wicked piece.
After messing around with the various setup elements, I was able to find the ideal ball position and club face position that produces a tee shot that does the craziest thing – fly straight. Of course, it took more than just tweaking my setup. I hit buckets and buckets of balls in slow motion, basically chipping the ball on the range and playing with different parts of the motion and seeing the response from the ball. It was no sex work, but I learned a lot about my driver’s movement. The most difficult aspect of this whole job has been trusting that the ball will fly straight on the course and choosing a starting line based on that ball flight. I’ve been drawing and hooking the ball for so long that I feel really exposed when aiming straight down the middle of the fairway with a stance that isn’t locked.
But I’m learning to trust myself and it’s paying off on the course. I’m hitting an extremely high freeway rate for someone with my handicap and I have the data to prove it. I’ve been tracking every round with a variety of gear (more on that in a future article) and watching my driver go from a liability to an asset. Before I changed my setup, I was losing an average of 2.5 strokes per round of nine holes with my driver compared to a putter golfer. This has dropped to 1.3 strokes per round in the last week and yesterday I played nine holes where I hit every fairway and lost 0.0 strokes to a golfer with a scratch off the tee.
I know the work is not finished. Golf is fickle and success is fleeting. And while I’m hitting the ball straight, I’m not hitting it as far compared to my other clubs. According to the data I’m tracking, I’m averaging 272-278 yards with my driver. Based on how far I hit my irons, Sam thinks I have the potential for more distance, so he wants me to make some further adjustments to my setup that might unlock some extra space. We will see. I am happy to tinker and experiment. That’s what this project is about. But for now, I will enjoy the new love I have for my driver and she has for me.
Dig deeper into one golfer’s struggle to improve at golf in middle age and read last week’s Scratch By 50 for Graham’s highlights approach to practice.
