The first step to having success on any given hole is finding the fairway with your drive. Sure, it’s possible to make birdie from the rough, but when you’re in the short stuff, it becomes a whole heck of a lot easier.
When I was younger, finding fairways felt easy. I was confident standing on the tee box and unsheathing driver. No matter how narrow the fairway — or how much trouble popped up — I knew I could hit the ball right at my target.
As I’ve gotten older (and longer off the tee), that confidence has waned. Whether it’s the result of more clubhead speed or lapses in my technique, the result is all the same: I’m playing more and more from off the fairway.
So, at last winter’s GOLF Top 100 Teacher Summit, I sought out the help of the 2025 PGA of America Teacher and Coach of the Year, Jason Baile. Jason is the director of instruction at Jupiter Hills Club and coaches Tour pros such as Lucas Glover and Ryan Gerard, each of whom rank inside the top 25 on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy. Under his guidance, I knew I’d learn a thing or two about how to hit more fairways.
Check out the video below from our driving accuracy bootcamp to learn more on how to hit your driver straight.
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How to hit your driver straight
When I arrived for my lesson with Jason, he started by asking a simple question: What’s my “problem” miss? At the time, that was a high, spinny ball that ballooned off to the right. It’s not a shot that would get away from me, but when it came out, it sapped a ton of distance and left me miles from the hole.
After watching me for a few shots, Jason concluded that a lot of my issues were a result of a poor setup.
“I see a hodgepodge of mismatch stuff,” he said. “Part of your setup looks like you’re gonna fade it. Part of your backswing looks like you’re gonna draw it. And then another part looks like you’re gonna fade it.”
As with many issues recreational golfers face, a lot of fixes can come from simple setup adjustments.
Fixing my setup
One thing I’ve always struggled with when hitting driver is having an attack angle that is too far down. With a negative attack angle, you will put more spin on the ball, which can be great for control, but it also means you’ll have much less power.
Thanks to Jason, I came to find out that one of the biggest reasons for my negative attack angle is a poor setup. Everything was too “level,” and it forced me to make compensations later in the swing to make up for it.
The first thing he asked me to do was slightly “bump” my lead hip toward the target at address. This movement slightly raised my lead hip and lowered my trail hip.
“I’d rather see you get the proper tilts at address with your lower body than your upper body,” Jason said.
The next thing he fixed was the orientation on my arms at address. Before, I had a tendency to get my trail arm too high, which covered up my lead arm when looking at my swing from down the line. To fix it, he had me think about pointing my trail elbow more at my trail hip when I gripped the club.
“Now our arms have some tilt,” Jason said.
By tweaking these two simple setup mistakes, I instantly increased my angle of attack and got into a better position to make swings that didn’t have so many compensations built in.
Fixing a right miss
After getting used to my new setup, Jason taught me an easy way to fix a right miss. First, he teed up a second ball about a club-length behind my ball and a bit inside of my target line. Then, he told me that when I swung, I needed to feel like I was getting the clubface square to that ball as soon as possible.
“I call it ‘Turn 4 at Talladega,’” Jason said. “If the face is open to Turn 4, you’re going to have to twist the steering wheel quite a bit. If I can get the hood ornament of the car — which is the sweet spot — square to the arc early, then I don’t have to twist the shaft at the bottom.”
Once you start to visualize the secondary ball on that swing arc, try to feel that you are squaring the clubface to it as soon as possible. If you can do that, you won’t have to make any compensations through the impact zone. You will simply have to turn your body and the clubface will be square to your target.
“Any ball that starts too far right, square it early,” Jason said.
Fixing the left miss
After drilling the feel of squaring the clubface early to guard against the right miss, I started to overdo things a bit and began losing the ball left. Luckily, Jason had another easy feel to fix those misses, too.
As the clubhead swings through the impact area, it’s important to feel like the sweet spot is facing up and to the left of your target. By doing that, you will ensure that you are not manipulating the clubface and closing it down, which results in a hook.
“Any time that it goes into the ball and twists, the sweet spot is pointing down and left,” Jason said. “As it comes through, the sweet spot should face up and left because it didn’t have any twist to it.”
If you ever start to feel yourself losing the ball to the left, keep this feel in mind. When you can point the clubface up and to the left, you’ll never lose the ball left and hit those nasty snap hooks.
