How to Drive Straighter off the tee in 30 seconds

We can all agree that putting is one of the most significant aspects of the game that we need to conquer to lower our handicap, right?  So when you are looking at the green of a PGA event, what do you notice as you watch pretty much every player preparing to attempt the putt?  A pattern, a habit, a style that each player has that is their very own.  As you watch any player on tour you see they have their own way of approaching a putt and making sure that there is nothing blocking their mind from making the putt.  But what about the other parts of the game?  Why is it that we don’t have these strategies in the other parts of our game?  

For many shots on the course, you can’t change the placement of the ball.  Play the ball where it lies, right?  Just like Shooter McGavin had to “play it off of Frankenstein’s fat foot”.  There are a few shots however, that you do not have to play it where it lies.  Putting…and on the tee box.  The tee box is another place that we can use to assist our game and take advantage of our ball placement.  So why don’t we use this to our advantage just like we do when we mark a putt.  There is so much that goes through our minds during every shot, one of the hardest things to do in golf is to concentrate.  As you step up to the tee there are so many things that we try to do that makes this “easy” game so difficult.  It’s not the physical aspect of the game that is so difficult, everyone has hit that “perfect” shot at one point in time.  The hard part is doing it again.  It’s hard because of all the things going on between our ears at the moment we are trying to hit the next shot.  Limiting distractions is one of the easiest ways that we can lessen the amount of things going on in our head during our next shot.  How do the best players in the world limit these distractions and increase their chances of hitting the “perfect shot”?  

For the past few years, watching PGA players on tour,  I have noticed something about their approach to tee shots.  If you look, many of them line up their drives much the same way that many people line up their putts.  With the line on the side of the ball pointing in the direction they want their drive to go.  If you step up to the ball and line up against that line you have less to think about as you’re standing over the ball preparing to rip it down the middle.  Your line to the landing zone is already taken care of, all you have to do is follow through.  Simple, right?  It is.  So why is it that most people have never taken advantage of this simple thing that may just help us to hit more fairways?  For me, I look ridiculous.  I have started to do this and it has helped, but going out on the course by myself no one questions what I’m doing.  When I’m out with my fiends, they of course look at me like I’m crazy, until my ball is in the fairway and theirs is snuggled up next to a tree.  I think for many of us, we do things because others do them and we don’t notice many people line up their drives like everyone lines up their putt, am I right?  

Another reason that I believe this helps with straighten my drives is the tee box itself.  Have you ever noticed that much like a well placed sand trap in the fairway, the angle of the tee box can throw us off from where we “should” aim our shot.  Take a look at this tee box from Youche Country Club in Crown Point, IN(youchecc.com).