골프선생들이 가르치는 방법은 다양하다. 점수를 줄이기 위해서는 숏게임에 주력해야 한다. 선생들의 관점에서 볼때, 2/3이상의 숏게임은 말할 필요도 없이 100 야드 이내에서 이루어진다. 드라이브샷도 중요하다. 그러나 그것은 단지 숏게임을 준비하기위해 치기 좋은 위치에 갖다놓는 수단밖에는 안된다. 그들의 말에 의하면, 드라이브의 길이가 자꾸 길어지는 경향은 정확도가 떨어지는것과 연결 시켜본다면, 결과적으로 원하는것과는 반대로 되고 만다. 요즘의 드라이버의 샤후트는 46인치인데, 이것은 모든 골퍼들에게 약 2인치가 더 길다고 봐야 한다. 여분의 길이는 클럽헤드의 속도를 높일수 있어 비거리를 더 낼수 있으나, 콘트롤 조절이 어렵게 되고 만다. 골퍼들에게 재미있는 내용으로 보입니다. GOLF JOURNAL By JOHN PAUL NEWPORT The Drive to Drive Putting? Bah. Why Everyone Digs the Long Ball May 10, 2008; Page W7 The advice from instructors is universal: To lower your scores, work on your short game. Two-thirds of all shots, they point out, inarguably, are from 100 yards and in. That's the scoring zone. Driving is important, yes, but only as a means of placing the ball safely into play and setting up your approach shots. Straining to boom extra-long drives is counterproductive, they say, if it's coupled with a falloff in accuracy. Those long 46-inch-plus shafts that come standard in modern drivers are two inches too long for most players; the extra length may generate more clubhead speed, and thus distance, but with an unacceptable loss of control. All of this is true. True, true, true. 1. Grip it. 2. Rip it. 3. Repeat. On the other hand, the heck with it. There's nothing in golf -- and very little in life generally -- as deeply thrilling as knocking the bejeebers out of a golf ball and watching it soar away, gravity-free, as things normally soar only in dreams. To look at drives merely as a means of putting your ball in the fairway is like looking at food merely as a means of getting nutrition. Maybe that works for you if you're a strict ascetic, or a Tour player trying to earn a living. But most golfers live for the long ball. Who wouldn't happily exchange an arching 300-yard beauty off the tee, even if it leads to a double bogey, for a 210-yard squibbler leading to a par? Not many, I suspect, except perhaps reluctantly on the final hole of a big-money match. We love big drives for at least a couple of reasons. The first is the sheer intoxicating pleasure of catching one pure. Even for someone whose long drive is only 200 yards, if that's 50 yards longer than normal, it's a kick. The power seems to come from nowhere. When all the levers of the swing fire in rare perfect sequence, the ball explodes off the clubface and seems to hang in the air forever. For most of us that sensation, when we first experienced it, marks the moment golf got us in its stranglehold. And there's no question this feeling excites women as much as men. Jim McMahon, an instructor at the range I often go to north of New York City, said that more than one of his female students, when she first connected with a clean, perfect drive, used terms to describe it that, shall we say, made him blush. We also love monster drives because, however courteously administered, they are violent, aggressive acts, and there's always satisfaction in that. To smash a drive with all your might is to dish some serious hurt. Watching John Daly wind up and crush ball after ball over the practice-range fence may not be the catharsis that some people find in watching a wrecking ball take down a building, but it's close. It's primal and awesome. And it makes us even happier when we're the one delivering the blow successfully and not John Daly. For men in particular, and some women, there's also the silverback-ape appeal of hitting a tee ball farther than anybody else. Women tend to bond, I'm told, around sharing experiences and finding common ground, whereas for men the subtext of any encounter is usually determining relative status. On the golf course, high status accrues to the long hitter. The low handicapper also enjoys status, but frequently his skills are the function of a country-club upbringing, or wonkish practice regimes, which impose a discount. The long hitter's aura is animal and immutable, more like that of the former college athlete. A guy may now be a CEO or a brain surgeon, but if he played linebacker at Notre Dame, that's still going to be the first thing most guys think about him. Associated Press John Daly Golfers hell-bent on learning to hit the ball deep spend lots of time at the driving range, usually ignoring the golden rule of golf practice (that nonsense above about focusing on the short game). It can get pretty ugly: beefy guys lunging at the ball, all muscle and no timing; kids with helicopter backswings and out-their-socks finishes; the majority who, despite flailing and grunting for all they are worth, squander power by swinging mainly with their arms and finishing on their back foot instead of on the front. But everyone connects every once in a while, soaking up the Pavlovian reinforcement they need to carry on. It's a noble, comic battle. I've had a chance over the years to talk to several long-hitting Tour pros about their skills. None of them claim any special technique. Most said simply that they were always able to hit the ball longer than their peers. "It's just a gift," said 2005 U.S. Open champion Michael Campbell. That said, they all agree that the one non-negotiable key to distance is hitting the ball square in the center of the clubface, and that to accomplish that consistently they try to feel as if they are swinging at less than full speed. Mr. Campbell uses 80% of full tilt as his goal, and others are in the same range. When the time comes for an extra-long poke on a given hole, their swing thought is often to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n, especially during the transition between backswing and forward swing. This is the kind of analysis that most of us don't want to hear. It's too sensible and thus hopeless. Arnold Palmer's standard advice to young golfers is more appealing: "Hit it hard," he says. This strikes me as just right, so that's what I'm going with.