Golf is supposed to be a relaxing and enjoyable warm-weather activity, something to look forward to during those long winters and weekdays spent cooped up in cubicles. And it can be, if you can execute the basics. If you can’t, golf can be endlessly frustrating. Balls get lost, profanities get uttered and clubs get tossed. If that sounds familiar, professional help is needed.

Scott Mayer, the teaching pro at Nonesuch River Golf Club in Scarborough, gave Current Publishing sports reporter and golfing dilettante Tom Minervino a series of lessons this summer on how to improve as a beginning golfer. Mayer’s tips on various aspects of golf, along with Minervino’s take on the lessons, will run over the next several weeks. This week, Mayer gives tips on tee shots.

Scott Mayer’s Tips on Tee Shots:

1. When it comes to hitting the tee shot, nothing is more important than rhythm, balance, contact, keeping your eye on the ball and keeping your nose behind the ball at impact. Good rhythm leads to good balance and good balance leads to good contact. Keeping your eye on the ball and your nose behind the ball at impact will do all kinds of good things for your drives.

2. When you step up to hit a driver, your main goal is to advance the ball as far as you can within the confines of the golf course. I have hit many drives 300 yards down the middle of the fairway and made triple bogeys. I have also hit plenty of drives 300 yards and into the rough and made eagles and birdies. I’m not saying it’s recommended to hit the ball in the rough, but I am saying the further you can advance the ball down the fairway or towards the green where you have a clear shot, the better off you will be. It is much easier to approach the green with a short iron than it is with a longer iron.

3. Most individuals I give driving lessons to have several consistent set-up errors. First off, the majority of individuals are too close to the golf ball. I like to set up in a position where my arms are fully extended when I address the ball. This will put you in a position where the butt end of your grip will be about two-and-a-half hands distance from the front of your pants. To achieve this position, stand up to the ball and push your hands out towards the ball until your hands stop and seem to run into a wall. If you go too far, your wrists will start to rise up where you will feel pressure in them – then you will know you are too far. Make sure you reach out with your arms from your normal posture. You don’t want to end up bending over too much in an attempt to reach out to the ball. This position will allow you to be fully extended at impact, which is what you want with a tee shot.

4. The next thing I find is individuals often have their ball position too far back in the stance. You must place the ball in the front of the stance to allow the driver time to square up to the ball and to strike the ball on the upward part of the swing. I achieve this by starting with my feet together with the ball in the middle of my stance. Next I will take a one-ball step forward with my front foot, and a big step to the rear with my back foot so that my feet are shoulder width apart. This will ensure that I always have the ball in the front of my stance where it belongs.

5. The last set-up issue that I see all the time is that individuals set up with their shoulders open, because their ball position is forward in the stance. To avoid opening your shoulders, and to accommodate the forward ball position, you should allow your spine to tilt slightly to the right (if you’re right handed), where your right shoulder will tip slightly lower than your left. This will allow you to get your hands more forward by tilting the shoulders and coming more underneath, rather than just opening the shoulders.

6. In terms of the swing, most people I teach pop their drivers up, or slice them. To avoid popping your driver up, you should stand farther away, place the ball more forward in the stance, and swing it back low and slow. You don’t want a steep angle of attack with the driver. You want to sweep it, or almost slap it, off the tee. Taking the club back low and slow will create a longer, flatter arc through the ball creating better contact and more distance.

7. To avoid the slice, you should employ the swish drill discussed last week. The swish drill is the best drill I have ever used to improve the drive of the average golfer. To do this, start with a baseball-type swing where you will stand tall and swing your driver around your body like a baseball bat.

Start with the club straight out in front of you, parallel to the ground, and wind up to a backswing and swish the club in front of you to a full golf-swing finish. Keep your club parallel to the ground throughout the entire swing. The trick is to listen for the swish. The sound of the swish is where your club is squaring up. The middle of the swish sound, or the loudest part of the swish, is where your club is square. If you slice the ball, you will hear this after the club has passed the center of your body, or after where the ball would be. You want to get your club to swish before your body or before the ball.

Next I will drop my spine angle down until I am swinging just over the top of the ball by approximately 5 inches. Again, you want to hear the sound of the swish before the ball, not after. Then I will drop down to my regular set-up position and attempt to swish the club before the ball.

A club that swishes before the ball is a hook. A swish at the ball is a straight shot. A swish after the ball is a slice. You can learn to gauge this by thinking of the ball as being at six o’clock. If you try to swish the club as early as three or four o’clock, it may turn out to be a hook. If you try to swish the club at five o’clock, it may be a draw, and six o’clock may be a straight shot. Anything after six o’clock will be a fade or a slice. Another thing to keep in mind is that your ball only goes as far as your club head moves fast, given you have solid contact. The club is only moving as fast as the swish that it makes is loud. The louder the swish, the further it goes.

8. So always remember to swing with rhythm, balance, and contact. Place your ball in the front of your stance, and stand further away then usual. Take your club back low and slow and make sure you keep your eye on the ball and your nose behind the ball at impact. To create the proper shape of the shot you desire, focus on swishing the club at the right time.

Tom’s take:

I arrived for my lesson on tee shots a few minutes early. Since Mayer was working with another student, he handed me a King Cobra driver and a half a bucket of balls and sent me to an open tee at the practice range to warm up.

Now, I’ve been to driving ranges before and hit some drivers, but they’ve generally been of the hand-me-down variety. I don’t think I’d ever held – let alone swung – a driver of the caliber of the one Mayer entrusted me with. The head on it was huge. It would really take some skill to miss the ball with this club.

So I put the ball on the tee, got my grip set, addressed the ball, reared back and swung. When I looked up to watch my drive, I couldn’t find it, mainly because the ball was still sitting on the tee. Even with such a colossal club in my hand, I managed to whiff on my first attempt. As I assessed what I’d just done, I realized I committed the cardinal sin of looking up before I made contact with the ball.

I hit a few more practice shots. Some were shanked. Some were sliced. None went straight. Soon, Mayer was over to give me some direction.

He tweaked my stance a bit, making sure I was keeping the ball forward (I had been lining up with it in the center). Next, he directed me to swing low and slow, creating a long, wide arc, rather than the steep, choppy one I had been using. With these elements in place, I swung again. The contact felt pretty good, but again I sliced it.

In our lesson on long irons, I had the same issue – my wrists were turning too late, so the club head wasn’t hitting the ball square and the ball was sailing off to the right. He again had me do the swish drill until I was getting the swish right out in front. When standing upright, it was much easier for me to see what I was doing wrong with my wrists. I took a few more drives. Most still sliced, but I was finally able to hook one, so I know I can control where my wrists turn and which direction the ball goes. Now actually hitting the ball solid and straight is a different story. But I guess that’s what the practice range is for.

Up Next Week: Course management, the final lesson

Scott Mayer is the teaching pro at Nonesuch River Golf Club in Scarborough. He was named Maine PGA Golf Teacher of the Year in 2004. He runs Mayer’s School of Golf, which offers individual and group lessons to all ages and abilities. For more information, visit www.mayersschoolofgolf.com.

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