{"id":93542,"date":"2026-05-21T03:23:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T03:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/hit-longer-drives-without-even-swinging-harder-by-doing-this\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T03:23:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T03:23:44","slug":"hit-longer-drives-without-even-swinging-harder-by-doing-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/hit-longer-drives-without-even-swinging-harder-by-doing-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Hit longer drives (without even swinging harder) by doing this"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"GOLF.com\" src=\"https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/golf_articles_613\/ef9959150a7817af82c63c4b724d1ee6\" data-uuid=\"24959e9f-d6c3-3763-b0dc-f2777bf28ae4\"><figcaption>&quot;Bump&quot; your hips toward the target to increase your attack angle.<small class=\"credit\">GOLF.com<\/small><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p class=\"first\"><em>Welcome to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/golf.com\/play-smart\/\">Play&nbsp;Smart<\/a>, a regular&nbsp;GOLF.com&nbsp;game-improvement column that will help you&nbsp;play&nbsp;smarter, better golf.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Hitting longer drives off the tee doesn\u2019t <em>always<\/em> require you to swing harder. Sure, it helps to put more force into the ball, but there\u2019s another way to belt it past your playing partners without swinging out of your shoes \u2014 and it all starts with optimizing your launch conditions.<\/p>\n<p>One of the best ways to hit the ball longer is by increasing your attack angle. If you can hit more \u201cup\u201d on the ball, you can launch it higher and with less spin, which is crucial for hitting longer drives.<\/p>\n<p>So, how can you increase your attack angle angle? One easy way is by adjusting the way you set up to the ball.<\/p>\n<p>Fundamentals like setup are often overlooked by recreational golfers, but they can have a huge impact on how you strike the ball. A poor setup can lead to all sorts of issues in the swing, which leads to compensations that can have negative long-term consequences. But if you set up to the ball correctly, you will put yourself into the best possible position to strike it consistently.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to increase you attack angle (and set yourself up for a solid strike on every drive), it\u2019s important you learn how to set up to the ball correctly with a driver. I recently learned how to do this from <a href=\"https:\/\/golf.com\/instruction\/golf-magazine-top-100-teachers-america-26-27\/\">GOLF Top 100 Teacher<\/a> Jason Baile, and it has helped me hit the driver longer than ever before.<\/p>\n<figure>\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" allowfullscreen frameborder=\"0\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0Emj5EL7XTg?start=780&amp;feature=oembed\" title=\"How to Hit Your Driver STRAIGHT (Tour Coach Fixes Slice &amp; Hook)\" width=\"640\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-increase-attack-angle-with-a-setup-tweak\">Increase attack angle with a setup tweak<\/h3>\n<p>One problem I have when setting up to the driver is that my shoulders and hips are too level at setup. This isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing when hitting irons and wedges, but for clubs that demand a more positive angle of attack (like the driver), it causes some issues. Namely, it creates conditions for a negative attack angle.<\/p>\n<p>A negative attack angle isn\u2019t necessarily a death knell when hitting the driver, but when you are a slower swing speed player, it can sap you of distance. When you hit down on the ball, it increases spin. This is great for control, but robs you of distance. So if you want to hit the ball longer, you\u2019re better off hitting up on it.<\/p>\n<p>If you watch LPGA pros, you\u2019ll notice that they don\u2019t swing especially hard at the ball, but they still get plenty of distance on their drives. This is a direct result of optimizing their attack angles and hitting up on the ball, allowing them to maximize their distance without swinging harder.<\/p>\n<p>In my lesson with Jason Baile, we made it a goal to get my attack angle up to not only help me get more distance, but also put me in a better position for a consistent strike. This all started with adjusting my setup.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing he asked me to do was slightly \u201cbump\u201d my lead hip toward the target at address. This movement slightly raised my lead hip and lowered my trail hip.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d rather see you get the proper tilts at address with your lower body than your upper body,\u201d Jason said.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019t have so many compensations built in. <\/p>\n<p>If you are someone who needs more distance with the driver, check out the attack angle numbers of your driver on a launch monitor. Chance are, you need a little more positive angle of attack to launch the ball higher. For that, all you need to do is make a few small setup tweaks.<\/p>\n<p><iframe data-yahoo-uuid=\"inlinelinkedvideo_555bfd26-e320-3d36-bfc7-a7fcd50cbd12\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/golf.com\/instruction\/driving\/hit-longer-drives-setup-adjustment-play-smart\/\">Hit longer drives (without even swinging harder) by doing this<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/golf.com\">Golf<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/articles\/hit-longer-drives-without-even-021920094.html\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&quot;Bump&quot; your hips toward the target to increase your attack angle.GOLF.com Welcome to&nbsp;Play&nbsp;Smart, a regular&nbsp;GOLF.com&nbsp;game-improvement column that will help you&nbsp;play&nbsp;smarter, better golf. Hitting longer drives off the tee doesn\u2019t always require you to swing harder. Sure, it helps to put more force into the ball, but there\u2019s another way to belt it past your playing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5345,353,12317,703,4536,21801,1835],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fallsurfing.net\/firstnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}