Golf's most correct driver shares 3 keys for hitting extra fairways

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NEWPORT, R.I. — Joe Durant is among the straightest drivers professional golf has ever seen.

Most years on the PGA Tour, Durant’s driving accuracy was over 75 %, together with his high-water mark coming in a 2015 the place he hit 82(!) % of his fairways. Regardless of being one of many shorter hitters on Tour, Durant was inside the highest 10 in SG: off-the-tee for 5 straight years (2004-08), and he saved himself inside the highest 70 till he graduated to the Champions Tour in 2014

Ten years later, it appears not a lot has modified for the four-time Tour winner. As Durant prepares for the forty fourth U.S. Senior Open, he’s parked in the course of the vary at Newport Nation Membership. Two alignment sticks are on the bottom in entrance of him as he sends ball after ball hovering into the space.

Durant is a spread picker’s dream. Proper because the balls depart the face of his driver, there’s little doubt the place they’re headed. Every ball lands inside a 15-foot circle, or so it appears. It’s as if a machine is swinging the membership for him. He may hit a fairway the width of a sidewalk.

After he finishes his apply, Durant insists he’s been struggling together with his swing of late, though it’s powerful to inform after the consistency he displayed. However, the 60-year-old is pleased to share his secrets for hitting fairways.

1. Examine your strains

For Durant, stable ball putting begins earlier than he ever takes the membership again. Meaning nailing his setup.

“For those who can just remember to’re stacked, which implies you don’t have crisscross strains, you possibly can hit it stable,” Durant says. “Once I wrestle, like I’ve been struggling for the final month or so, my strains have been form of crossed. My shoulders are going too far a method, my decrease physique goes too far the opposite manner.”

One other technique to visualize that is imagining you may have alignment sticks pointing towards the goal via your shoulders, hips and ft. As a way to get your self in place to hit a stable shot, you need all of those strains pointing in the identical route stacked on prime of each other.

“You’re attempting to get all the pieces parallel,” Durant says.

2. Use alignment aids

As Durant hits photographs on the vary, he retains two alignment sticks on the bottom in entrance of him. One is inside his ball, whereas the opposite is parallel to it simply exterior the ball. Every serves a selected objective.

“I’m attempting to guarantee that my footline is parallel to the within pole,” Durant says. “After which the outer pole that I exploit is, it’s form of like a information for the membership. If I can take the membership alongside the identical path on the takeaway, take it alongside the trail, I’m in good condition.”

Durant says he tends of sucking the clubhead inside on the takeaway, so the skin alignment stick provides him a visible to take the clubhead again alongside through the first a part of his swing. If he can do this, he is aware of he’s taking the clubhead again on the right path.

3. Tee it low

Producing as a lot distance as doable is a well-liked technique amongst execs lately, and that often entails teeing it excessive and swinging up on the ball. However if you need to promote accuracy, it’s in your finest curiosity to tee it low.

“My launch is a bit bit decrease than common, however I attempt to take spin off of it in different methods so it chases on the market,” Durant says. “Simply attempt to squeeze it on the market. Once I’m underneath strain I’m gonna tee it decrease and attempt to squeeze it on the market with a fade, and I have a tendency to manage it a bit higher, too. The whole lot for me is constructed round management, as a result of I’m by no means going to overpower something.”

Durant might not be the longest hitter, however he is aware of his strengths — and he does all the pieces he can to maximise them to one of the best of his means.

Zephyr Melton

Golf.com Editor

Zephyr Melton is an assistant editor for GOLF.com the place he spends his days running a blog, producing and modifying. Previous to becoming a member of the crew at GOLF, he attended the College of Texas adopted by stops with the Texas Golf Affiliation, Workforce USA, the Inexperienced Bay Packers and the PGA Tour. He assists on all issues instruction and covers beginner and ladies’s golf. He might be reached at [email protected].