Lost drive? Here’s how you get it back

Hope I die before I get old…

— From The Who’s “My Generation”

Pete Townsend had it wrong.

What he should have hoped is that he died before he got really, really short off the tee.

Trust me. I’ve made it to old.

And it’s not nearly as frustrating as being the first guy to hit his second shot on every golf hole you play, regardless of who else is in your foursome.

It’s a problem I developed a couple of years ago and then watched grow steadily worse with each passing golf season.

I hate to whine, but I used to be long. Really.

There was a time when I could fly most fairway bunkers, no matter how fiendishly placed they might be. I could reach a good share of the reasonable par-5s in two. I routinely blew drives past playing partners. And I didn’t need a driver with a spring-loaded titanium face and extended shaft made out of space-age materials to do it.

But today, even with all of the new technology that is threatening to make every golf course under 7,000 yards long obsolete, I find I can no longer hit my driver much more than 230 yards – which takes the fun out any approach shot to a 450-yard par-4.

I know I’m older and a little less flexible than I used to be. And I know that my high, left-to-right ball flight costs me a few yards, especially in the spring when the fairways are wet and my drives actually back up after hitting the ground.

But to lose an average of 30 yards a drive in two years just doesn’t seem quite right.

And I’ve tried everything. I’ve changed drivers on a monthly basis. I dropped from a 10.5-degree loft to a 7. I sucked it up and switched golf balls, going from my “economic” Dunlops to the $44-a-dozen Titleist Pro-V Is.

I even started doing a few stretching exercises in hopes of getting back some of the flexibility I’ve lost.

But nothing has worked.

So after taking part in my annual golf weekend with my three college friends last month – and discovering that the only guy in our foursome I can still outdrive is Gary, the overworked travel agent, who only plays twice a year – I decided to seek professional advice.

I called up Mark Gardner, the head professional at The Creek at Qualchan Golf Course, explained my problem and set up a lesson. I chose Gardner, because I once saw him hit an 8-iron approach to the par-5 18th hole at Indian Canyon and make eagle.

When I met Mark at the range earlier this week, the first thing we did was discuss my dwindling distance off the tee.

Gardner reassured me I wasn’t the only golfer with such concerns. He said he has plenty of people coming up to him looking for the same kind of advice.

Gardner said the first thing he looks at in the swing of a golfer looking for some extra distance is the relationship of the club shaft to the left arm.

“I want to see if they’re setting the club properly at the top of the swing,” Gardner said. “Then I check on how they’re transferring their weight on the swing to make sure they’re loading up on the left side and squaring the clubface at impact.

“Added distance has a lot more to do with tempo and timing that with simply swinging harder.”

Gardner said the most common problem he sees is golfers trying to swing too hard and accelerating from the top of the backswing. When that happens, he explained, the wrists break down early, the hips open up prematurely and it becomes nearly impossible to square the face of the club at the bottom of the swing.

The result is usually an “over the top” swing that produces either an ugly pull hook or a wild slice.

Gardner suggests, instead, that you start the downswing by moving your knees toward the intended target and letting the arms follow naturally.

The wrists, he said, should remained cocked – maintaining the 45-degree angle with your forearm – until the hands reach what he calls the “hitting zone.”

“You wait and release your hands when they are about belt high and passing in front of your right hip,” he said. “That kind of action generates more clubhead speed and more power through the ball.”

Gardner started my lesson by having me hit a few 5-iron shots, checked out a couple of my divots that were pointed well left of my target line and commented on my outside-in swing.

“That could have a lot to do with your high right problems,” he said.

But when we switched to the troublesome driver, I proceeded to stripe my first three shots straighter and longer than any I’ve hit in the past 24 months.

I thought, “Great, this is like waking up on the morning of the doctor’s appointment you’ve made and having the pain go away.”

But on my fourth swing with the driver, I made my normal move and hit a high, aggressive fade that landed softly, and without any roll, right next to the 220 sign.

My main problem, Gardner said, after watching two more drives sail high right, was that I was opening my hips too early and bringing the club down from the outside in. Everything else in my swing, he said, seemed fairly normal.

He suggested that I concentrate on keeping my hips closed a little longer and waiting to release my right shoulder. Then he pushed a tee flat to ground about two inches behind and inside of the ball I had teed up for my next shot and told me to address the tee he had planted as if my ball were sitting on it.

When I swung at the ball I had teed up, it produced a surprisingly low rising shot that actually moved slightly from right to left.

“It’s a drill I use myself,” Gardner said. “It does a couple of things. No. 1, it slows the rotation of the hands and squares up the clubface better because the ball is sitting forward and outside of the tee you’re addressing.

“And it also forces you to set the lower body and drive the ball toward first base, creating more of an inside-out swing.”

My muddled mind couldn’t digest everything Gardner said, but the changes he had suggested weren’t all that uncomfortable. And the drives I was hitting were carrying a good 20 yards past the 220 sign – with some roll, yet.

Gardner admitted there wasn’t much he could do to offset the onset of aging and the loss of flexibility that accompanies it.

“Flexibility has a lot to do with distance,” he said. “It helps when you can get a bigger shoulder turn and longer swing arc. But the only way you can do that is by making sure your hips and hamstrings are fairly flexible.

“If they’re not, you won’t be able to get back into the proper position at the top of your backswing. And what you’ll usually see with somebody who has tight arms or a tight back is a swing that is much shorter and much quicker.”

My flexibility, Gardner said, was still pretty good. And he seemed to think those last few drives I carried some 240 yards could become commonplace if I keep from unloading my hips too early.

We’ll see.

I’m enough of a realist to know I’ll never be as long as I was when I was 30. But right now, I’m on a confidence high and eager to test my new swing on the course.

As I drove out of the parking lot following my lesson, I found myself humming “Happy Jack,” another of my Pete Townsend favorites, instead of “My Generation.”

And hoping I never die.