YOUR GAME PLAY SMARTER

Watch this on your iPad or tablet. JIM MURPHY Visit golf.com/allaccess. Sugar Creek C.C., Sugar Land, Texas (Top 100 since 2003) GET MORE YARDS FROM YOUR HYBRID Tee it low to hit or most players, a hybrid can be How to “Drive” a Hybrid your hybrids a great alternative to the driver. When hitting a hybrid off the tee, FBut you’re as erratic with your use the same setup and swing you’d use almost as far hybrids as you are with your big stick, from the fairway. Tee the ball hitting far too many pop-ups. quite low, so that the tee is almost as your driver invisible—you want a perfect lie Different Club, Different Swing with barely any elevation. Then, Most players tee the ball too high and take a more balanced setup, with assume a driver-like setup when they’re your shoulders fairly level and your using a hybrid. They keep their weight weight equally distributed between over their back foot and their right your feet. Don’t hit up on the ball! shoulder below their left, which forces Instead, try to sweep the ball them to hit the ball with an uppercut. off the tee as you would if it was Hybrids, however, are designed to sitting on the fairway. With some strike the ball with a sweeping or practice, your confidence will even a slightly descending blow. skyrocket—just like your ball flight.

No! Yes!

Teeing the ball too high With a hybrid, tee the ball makes you hit up on it—good low and strike it with a for driver, bad for a hybrid. more level, sweeping swing.

Hit up on the ball with a driver, but power straight through it with a hybrid. ANGUS (4) MURRAY

37 GOLF MAGAZINE / golf.com December 2013