Being able to drive the golf ball far away is obviously a huge advantage which can result in 1 or 2 fewer strokes per hole. However, some people struggle to drive more than 200 yards in golf.
Therefore, if you are one of those people, you may wonder: why can I only hit my golf driver 200 yards? How can I drive my golf ball further than 200 yards? How do I increase my carry distance with my driver?
In this article, we will tell you exactly why you cannot hit your golf driver more than 200 yards, and which steps you can take to easily blast through 200 yards.
Why Can I Only Hit My Golf Driver 200 Yards?
If you cannot drive a golf ball past 200 yards, you may lack practice, correct technique, well-fitted golf clubs, experience, muscular strength, correct golf club holding technique, swing speed, and you may also be hitting balls slowed down against the direction of the wind.
Incorrect Swing Technique
The golf swing is a complex set of movements, and if you do not have the correct golf swing fundamentals, you are unlikely to drive the golf ball more than 200 yards. You must practice the correct golf swing technique if you want to have success as a golfer.
Therefore, due to the complexity of the golf swing, there are many bad habits you may be performing day in and day out that will hamper your ability to drive more than 200 yards.
Not Hitting The Ball With The Sweet Spot
You need to hit the golf ball with the sweet spot of your golf club. Basically, you want the golf ball to hit the center of the face of your club head. This is the spot where the most energy is transferred to the ball. It is also the spot you need to hit to get a consistently straight shot.
If you hit the ball with the extremities of your club face, you risk grazing it instead of clubbing it, resulting in less energy transfer, and a bad shot direction.
Lack Of Practice
Next, even though you may have driven a golf ball past 200 yards once, it does not mean you can consistently do it. If you hit one drive past 200 yards out of every 10 drives, but the 9 others are below 170, then you are lacking practice.
Simply put, you have the potential to drive the ball past 200 yards every single time. Every. Single. Time. However, your shot technique is not consistent because you have not practiced enough. You only perform the correct technique 1 out of 10 times.
Not Scooping The Ball Up 45 Degrees
Thirdly, you may be hitting down on the golf ball with your driver instead of scooping the ball up. Take your driver right now and examine it. What you will notice is that it does not have a lot of loft. This means that if you hit the ball with a vertical club face, the ball will not rise much.
However, to maximize carry distance, you want the ball to travel at around a 45 degree launch distance. Therefore, you need to scoop the ball up a bit with the driver to make the ball travel at 45 degrees, rather than lower or along the ground, where it will hit the ground quicker and slow down.
Lack Of Experience Or Strength
Another reason is that you simply have not played enough golf yet. The USGA’s statistics stipulate that the average male golfer can drive the golf ball 215-220 yards on average.
Considering the average golfer has 1.5-5 years of experience, do not beat yourself down if you are a male golfer with 1 year of experience and cannot drive over 200 yards.
On the other hand, if you are a female golfer, your drives will likely naturally be shorter in general, as most women have less physical strength than most men. Breaking 200 yards in carry distance is a lot rarer for women, and you should be proud if you do. The driving distances for women lie more in the 120-200 yard range.
To illustrate the difference in driving distances between men and women, the PGA Tour record for driving distance is 515 yards, while the LPGA Tour record is only 348 yards. Pro male golfers routinely break 300 yards, pro female golfers almost never do.
Incorrect Golf Club Holding Technique
Another reason you might not be breaking 200 yards in carry distance is if you are gripping the golf clip too tight, or too loosely. Read our guide How To Hold A Golf Club Correctly to increase your driving distance.
Slow Swing Speed
In addition, your driving distance is highly correlated to the swing speed of your golf club. Therefore, the faster you can swing, the further your golf ball will travel, assuming you retain good technique.
Badly-Fitted Golf Clubs
Golf uses a lot of equipment. If you are not using equipment suited for you, you are only hurting yourself. If you are using a golf club with the wrong shaft length or incorrect shaft flex rating, consider going to the some golf club fitting to adjust your clubs to your size.
Driving Balls Against Headwind
Finally, golf driving records are not done on a clear day with sunny weather. Why? Wind is a huge factor in how far you can drive a golf ball. As the golf ball travels in the air, it is either being accelerated, or slowed down by the wind.
If you are playing in sunny weather, you are never getting any carry distance boost from the wind, but you are not slowing down your ball either. However, if it is windy out and the wind is in the direction of your ball travel, your driving distance will increase significantly.
How To Improve Your Golf Drive Past 200 Yards of Carry Distance?
To improve your golf driving distance past 200 yards, you need well-fitted golf clubs, correct technique, practice, muscular strength, experience, correct club holding technique, a fast swing speed, hitting the sweet spots. In addition, hit balls in the direction of wind travel for a boost in driving distance.
Driving a golf ball far away is a complex technique, which means there are many ways to mess it up. Fortunately, this means that there are also many fixes to apply to improve your golf driving. By applying the tips down below, you will break 200 yards in driving distance in no time!
Use Well-Fitted Golf Clubs
First of all, it is primordial that you use golf clubs that fit you well for your height and strength. This is especially true if you are tall or short, as golf clubs are typically manufactured to fit average-sized people.
If you are using a club that is too long or short for you, it will throw off your lie, balance and technique. In such a case, make sure you get the correct golf club shaft length for you, or sign up to get some golf club fitting. These elements should make a strong impact on your driving distance if you are not average sized.
To learn the correct golf club shaft length for your height and arm length, you can read our guide: Best Golf Club Shaft Length For Your Height.
In addition to shaft length, it is important that you get the correct golf club shaft flex. Different golf club have different flex ratings, which determine how much they bend when swung around. This flex plays an important part in how well you can transfer energy to the golf ball.
To the get the correct golf club shaft flex for you, you can read our guide: Best Golf Club Shaft Flex For You.
Perform Correct Golf Swing Technique
Without the correct golf swinging technique, you can kiss your chances goodbye of consistently breaking 200 yards on your drives. Trying to drive 200+ yards without correct technique is like trying to drive a car with your toes. It is needlessly difficult.
Chances are you are not totally sure how good your golf swing technique is. Do not try to swing too fast if your technique is bad. Instead, take time to swing a bit more slowly to practice the correct technique, even if you will lose a bit of power. In the long run, you will improve your technique and power.
To monitor how good your technique, you can film yourself taking golf shots from different camera angles and pick out the fixes you can implement.
To learn the correct golf swing fundamentals, you can read our guide: How To Hit a Golf Ball? – Golf Swing Fundamentals.
Practice Regularly and Gain Experience
What is better than driving a golf ball 200+ yards 1 out of 10 times? Doing that every single time.
Without regular practice and accumulated experience, you cannot internalize the correct golf swing technique. To burn the correct technique into your muscle memory, you need to repeat it thousands of times, maybe millions of time if you want to become a professional player.
Every shot you take in practice becomes a data point for you to study. If you do x and drive the ball only 80 yards, then you know not to repeat x. If you do y and drive the ball a whopping 250 yards, then you know to repeat that same shot technique.
Over time and through practice, you will be able to intuitively grasp exactly what you are doing right or wrong, even if you would struggle to explain it to someone else. This is the power of practice.
However, one caveat to practice is that you need to execute the correct technique during practice. Repeating bad technique over and over in “practice” sessions only leads to strengthening bad habits. If you think your technique is bad, it may be time to invest in golf lessons.
Build Your Muscular Strength
It is evident that with more muscular strength, you have the potential to hit a golf ball a lot harder and further, helping you break 200 yards in distance with every shot.
To improve your muscular strength, you need to exercise, both in the gym, in conditioning camps, and through golf specific exercises like ringing drivers at the driving range.
It is also important to improve your flexibility so that your movements are more fluid, you reduce risks of injury, and you can move your joints around a larger range.
Focusing on the athleticism of your body will help you increase the ceiling of what is possible to achieve for you.
Hold Your Golf Club Correctly
To get the most out of your golf club, you need to be holding it correctly.
If you hold your golf club with the wrong technique, or too tightly or too loosely, you are potentially taking tens of yards away from your driving distance.
Get the correct golf grip as soon as you can when you are learning to play golf, or you will regret it later. To learn the best golf club holding technique, you can read our article: How To Hold A Golf Club Correctly?.
Increase Your Golf Club Swing Speed
One of the physical basics of driving a golf ball far away is how quick and hard the object hitting the ball travels. We are talking about your golf club swing speed here.
In fact, the faster you can hit a golf ball with your golf club, the further it will travel, assuming you retain correct technique. To increase how far you drive a golf ball, focus on the rotation of your body and speed that up incrementally over time to get a faster swing speed while retaining optimal technique.
Over time, you will have both great swing technique, and a lightning fast swing speed. Focus on correct swing technique first, then increase the swing speed slowly over time.
Hit The Ball With The Sweet Spot Of Your Club
Not all parts of a golf club are equally good at hitting the golf ball to get a good shot off.
In fact, you should always aim to hit the golf ball with the sweet spot of your golf club. The sweet spot is typically located dead in the center of the club head’s face, both horizontally and vertically.
The more you stray from the sweet spot as your contact point with the golf ball, the less powerful and accurate your shot will be.
To know if you are hitting the sweet spot, you can add a substance, like chalk, on your club face, then hit the ball. You will see the print of your golf ball in the substance, and know where you are currently hitting the ball on the club face.
Hit the golf ball with your sweet spot, and you will produce a sweet shot.
Hit Balls In The Direction Of Wind Travel
The wind is a weather condition that has a huge impact on how far your golf ball travels in the air. The wind can both slow down or speed up your shot, depending on its direction of travel and that of your ball.
If you are purely attempting to get the longest drive you can, then hit the golf ball in the direction of travel of the wind. The wind will accelerate the golf ball some amount, giving you longer drives, helping you break 200+ yards more easily.
Scoop The Ball Up With Your Driver At a 45 Degree Angle
A golf driver has a relatively low loft for a golf club, which means it does not naturally help the golf ball rise much. To get the furthest golf drive, you need to scoop the golf ball up with the club face of your driver.
By scooping the golf ball up at contact, tilting your body back slightly, you should aim to get the ball to travel up in the air at around a 45 degree angle relative to the ground. This is because a golf ball will travel the most optimal path for maximum distance if it is shot at a 45 degree angle.
If you shoot a golf ball at more than 45 degrees, then it will travel more upwards instead of forward, which results in less distance. If you hit the golf ball at less than 45 degrees, you will hit the golf ball forward, but it will hit the ground more quickly, thus slowing it down.
Hitting a golf ball at a 45-degree angle is the most optimal ball path because it strikes the best balance between travelling forward and being launched high enough to not hit the ground too early.
Related Articles
Best Golf Club Shaft Flex For You
Best Golf Club Shaft Length For Your Height
How To Hold A Golf Club Correctly – Best Technique
How To Hit A Golf Ball – Golf Swing Fundamentals
Conclusion
There you go! After reading this article, you have discovered why you cannot drive a golf ball more than 200 yards. You were also taught different ways to improve your carry distance when driving the golf ball.
With these tips, you will blast your drive through 200 yards and more in no time! With enough practice, you can break 200 yards in the first couple years of you playing golf.
What is your current driving carry distance? What is your driving carry distance goal? Let us know in the comments down below!
