David Leadbetter on Your Driver's "Eyes"

This Golf Digest article from David Leadbetter talks about something I've mentioned on this blog before, but his take is a bit different. He wants you to pretend your driver has eyes.



Here's part of what he says:

If a round of golf for you is constant guesswork of where the ball might end up, you can improve your accuracy if you fix the cause and control the clubface better through impact. It starts by making a better takeaway. No more whipping the club inside. Instead, pretend the clubface has vision, and its job is to swing back while keeping its eyes on the ball. In the photos above, my club starts squarely behind the ball and does not rotate open in the takeaway. Copy this move. I want you to keep it staring at the ball as long as you can when you take it back. [my emphasis]

Now doing this may cause you to make some awkward moves during your swing -- you may twist your forearms into an extreme closed position if you get over-zealous -- so do this as a drill before you take it to the course.

Still, the concept is sound. If you want to be more accurate with your drives -- with all your shots, actually -- you need to be aware of where your clubface is "looking" at impact. A better takeaway always helps, and you know I'm a big proponent of the one-piece takeaway. But however you do it, you need to become aware of where the club is facing when you actually contact the ball.

If you know the clubface is "looking" at your target at impact, you can make the ball go where you want it to go regardless of what your swing looks like. So that should be a major focus of your practice.