PRESIDENTIAL TIPS

Brooks Koepka’s major dominance is built on his blockbuster hitting from the tee

Brooks Koepka, Adam Scott, Louis Oosthuizen, Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas and Jason Day share some of their secrets.

The old adage that you drive for show but putt for dough has lost significant credence since Dr. Mark Broadie’s overhaul of the PGA Tour’s performance statistics revealed power driving to be the No.1 contributing factor to low scoring. In simple terms, Broadie’s research showed that at Tour level, contrary to what you might think, it is preferable to be 275-plus metres down the hole in the rough than 245 metres down the middle of the fairway. Need convincing? Examine American Brooks Koepka’s

I TRY TO FEEL THAT I MAKE A THREEQUARTER LENGTH SWING.

stats up to the WGC-FedEx St. Jude Invitational this year. The four-time major winner ranked 13th in driving distance at 282 metres yet 93rd in driving accuracy, hitting only 62 percent of fairways with his tee shots. Surely, those wayward drives would cost Koepka big time? Not so. He ranked 8th in greens in regulation (71 percent) and 3rd in overall scoring average (69.27). All of which means that he was leading the PGA Tour in FedExCup points and o‘cial prizemoney, as well as being the No.1 ranked player in the world, at the time.

But while Koepka looks like he has the ball on a string with his driver these days, he hasn’t always found this area of the game easy. “He’s much more consistent now,” says Koepka’s coach Claude Harmon III. “He’s a way better driver of the ball now than when I met him six years ago. He always had a lot of power, of course, but he used to hit a big draw and couldn’t control it as well. Now he hits more cuts o— the tee. And he has also become a really good putter. He’s become better pretty much across the board. He has a complete game.”

For Koepka himself, the secret is not to overthink it. “I’m not mechanical,” he says. “If I’m thinking too much about the swing, it’s not good. I hit it far, yeah, but my key swing thought is not to overswing. That’s what gets me and most amateur golfers in trouble. They think that by trying to swing harder they’ll hit it farther. They won’t. I just try to feel like I’m making a three-quarter turn back and letting it go from there and make sure to turn all the way through.”

While you might not be able to generate 128 mph clubhead speed and hit it 290 metres o— the tee like Brooks, you can learn from his technique. Harmon highlights three areas from his driving that you can introduce to your own game.

ADDRESS “The key to any good tee shot starts with the setup,” says Harmon. “Koepka’s ball position sometimes creeps back in his stance and it throws off his path. By having the ball lined up on the heel of his left foot he can rotate all the way through the shot.”

BACKSWING “The lower body is the engine behind all that Koepka power,” Harmon says. “He also keeps the club in front of his body on the backswing and downswing. The clubface gets a little shut, but that’s because he doesn’t pull the club inside on the way back. It’s all out in front of him, all the time.”

IMPACT “The last thing Koepka tries to feel as he compresses the ball through impact is the release. He does this by feeling that the handle of the club stays low at impact,” says Harmon. “If the handle gets too high, it will be harder for him to release the club and hit that trusty power cut.”