For amateur golfers, consistently finding fairways can make a huge difference in their game.
Shot Scope data shows that the average player lands about 48% of fairways. On a standard course with 14 par-4 or par-5 holes, that works out to roughly seven fairways hit per round.
When players miss the fairway, their score tends to rise by about 0.37 strokes per hole. It may not sound like much, but over the course of a round, those misses start to add up on your handicap.
Jason Day has some advice for how to keep those extra shots off your card. The former world number one has a tip for amateurs looking to find more fairways off the tee and even suggests a simple drill you can try out at the range.
Jason Day explains how to hit more fairways off the tee
Early driver lessons usually sound something like this: plant your feet wide, tilt your shoulders back, and go after it. And with a driver in hand, most people naturally end up swinging harder than they need to.
But Day believes that approach is not ideal for finding fairways. Speaking on The Lads, he explained: “We are going to narrow the stance. I am not going to be standing there with a big, wide stance, having a nice, stable base because that promotes a big, full swing.
“What we want to do is bring some speed off that club speed so we want a slower swing to not only hit it lower but also create a little less spin so that once it hits the ground, it starts rolling.
“We want a narrower base because then you can’t have a big full swing where you are swinging off balance. From there, we are also going to push the weight forward instead of being back here [with shoulder tilt].
“I envision a wall going down my left shoulder, left body and left leg and it’s like I am trying to nudge into that wall so I can start trying to feel a bit more pressure in my quad and feel more left-sided.”
He continued: “Once I get in, I want to make sure that I grip down on the club just a little bit more and from there we are going to get left have a bit more of a narrow stance grip down and as we take the club back.
“Because we are swinging in shorter. We want to make sure that [the chest] all turns together and you feel like the center line of the body gets more forward of the ball so that way you are covering the shot just slightly more over top of it and that is going to promote really that low shot as well.”
This advice is not for adding distance off the tee. Day is talking about keeping shots in play – and he has an easy drill for practising this approach.
Jason Day’s fairway finder drill for practice
Day recommends a straightforward drill that can be done at the driving range to help golfers get the ball in play more often.
“A really quick way of learning this because you are taking a lot of speed off the shot and you are not going to be hitting a full shot,” he said.
“What I want you to do is go to the range, go through all those technical aspects that I was just talking about and I want you to get in there, with a narrow stance, be on your left side and when we turn we want to make sure we stay on the left side as coming through we are going to cover the ball a little bit more.
“But what we are going to do is only try and hit it 100 yards, and we are going to try and hit it low. We are going to hit full swing for 100 yards, so it’s going to be very soft swings.”
This technique is not about how far you can hit it, but rather controlling your speed and ensuring consistent accuracy. You can gradually add more power as you become comfortable with the method.
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