Why it's important to adjust your driver to match your swing

Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you become a smarter, better golfer.

I may be a swing nerd, but I’m far from a gear nerd. Sure, I know some of the basics about modern gear, but once you start getting into the weeds a bit, I get lost quickly.

Unfortunately, this has a negative effect on my golf IQ. Without the knowledge of how my gear works, I feel I’m leaving strokes on the table. And in a game where saving strokes in the margins is so important, that’s something I’ve been seeking to change.

For help with that, I’ve been leaning on the gear nerds here at GOLF.com. And at last year’s GOLF Top 100 Teacher Summit, Fully Equipped’s Jake Morrow ran me through a quick driver adjustment tutorial to teach me the basics.

Check it out below.

What I learned about driver adjustment

1. More upright, more left

After watching me hit a couple shots, Jake asked me what my miss is, to which I told him it’s the big, right miss. So, the first thing we did is adjust the driver to be a little more upright.

“You’re pushing everything,” Jake said. “So I’m going to take this from wherever it’s at right now and make it a little more upright. And what that’s going to do is bring the toe up a little bit and start the ball a little more left.”

If you find yourself losing the ball a bit right (like me), it might be wise to adjusting your driver to be a little more upright.

2. Add loft to close the face (and vice versa)

Another cool thing Jake taught me is that when you adjust your driver’s loft, you are also adjusting the orientation of the face.

“If you add loft, you’re gonna close the face a little bit,” Jake said. “If you take loft off, you’re gonna open the face a little bit. That’s just how it is. It’s impossible to negate that.”

When you are trying to hit the ball higher or lower, it’s important to keep this in mind. If you don’t, you may find yourself losing the ball right or left for a reason you didn’t even know.

3. Proper adjustments add speed

One of the coolest things about having a driver that’s fit for your specifications is that it allows you to swing freely. When you don’t have to worry as much about where the ball is going, you can swing freer — and harder.

“Don’t change what you’re doing,” Jake said. “Let the equipment work to do what it needs to do.”

That’s not to say that going out and buying a new driver will fix every problem you have off the tee. But if you get fit into clubs that work for your swing, it becomes much easier to trust your swing and shoot lower scores.

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