3 Senior Driver Tips That Get IMMEDIATE Results

By Todd Kolb
July 20, 2023

These 3 Astoundingly Easy Senior Driver Tips are Proof Positive That It’s Never Too Late to Rule the Tee.

One thing I get asked for all the time is driver tips… especially senior driver tips. 

I don’t care who you are or how long you’ve been on this planet. Everybody wants more clubhead speed. But it’s experienced golfers in particular who struggle to see any progress with most of the driver advice that’s out there.

There are just some things we can’t avoid as we get older. We lose flexibility, balance and strength. Our swing speed starts declining as early as our thirties or forties. 

What I want experienced golfers to understand is that these things don’t mean your dream of hitting longer drives is hopeless. Quite the opposite actually.

In fact, I just recently worked with Claire, a senior student who’s also fairly new to the game. After learning just three simple driver tips, she increased her distance and started having way more fun on the tee.

If you, like Claire, are looking for senior driver tips that actually work, you’ve come to the right place. You’re about to learn the same three strategies I taught her. And when I say they’re simple, I mean you’ll be able to execute them immediately as soon as you finish this article.

First, I’d like to clarify what a typical senior golf swing looks like.

Diagnosing the Problem With Claire’s Driver Swing

It was easy to see why Claire was struggling to get decent distance with her driver.

She had a super-wide stance without a lot of rotation in the backswing. This left her trying to find more speed with a short swing, and that’s not realistic—especially not for seniors.

Now, even if I’d never seen her swing, I would have guessed that these were the issues preventing her from getting the distance she wanted. These are common problems for most experienced golfers. If you look at your own golf swing, you’re likely to see the same thing.

Let’s talk about why that is and how to fix it.

3 Easy Senior Driver Tips

If you’re a senior golfer looking for more distance with your driver, the first step is to embrace what your body can do… and stop fighting what it can’t do.

Traditional golf instruction comes from a heavy focus on what young professional golfers do. When those of us who are no longer 27 and super flexible try to copy them, we tweak our backs and start slicing like crazy.

And instead of making conscious, strategic adjustments, we leave it up to our bodies to adapt on instinct. The result is zero consistency and some pretty rotten distance.

It’s not just a problem with technique, either. Even drivers are designed to serve the skill set of professional golfers. That’s why I highly recommend checking out the Maxvert driver—a club designed specifically for experienced golfers and slower swing speeds.

But for now, we’re talking about super-simple senior driver tips you can start using today. So let’s get to it.

Tip 1: The Senior Golf Stance

I noticed that Claire’s stance was pretty wide. If you have any photos of yourself golfing in your younger years, you might find that your stance has gotten wider, too.

This is a stability thing. As the years add up, we lose balance. A wider stance makes us feel more stable in the golf swing. 

Now, this isn’t a bad thing. In fact, I often encourage my experienced students to widen their stance a bit for more stability. You don’t necessarily want an extreme width—just enough to make you feel solid.

What’s most important when you’re trying to get more distance with your driver is that you flare your toes. Let them point outward rather than keeping them square.

Not only does this create even more stability, it makes it much easier to pivot and helps you get more rotation in your hips. 

That brings me to this next tip.

Tip 2: The Senior Hip turn

At some point in your golfing life, you may have been told to restrict your hips in the backswing. If you’re still doing this as an experienced golfer, I can just about guarantee you it’s shortening your swing.

See, to get a nice, long backswing, you have to be able to rotate into it. You need a flexible body to get enough rotation while restricting your hips. I don’t know a lot of senior golfers who have that range of motion in their upper body.

What I recommend instead is to turn your hips in the backswing. That’s going to help you turn your shoulders more which allows you to create a longer backswing.

Now, if you’ve been trying to keep your hips still for a long time, it might take a little effort to break the habit. Here’s a great drill I love to do with my students:

Step Back Drill

  1. Set up for a practice shot without a ball.
  2. Practice your backswing, stepping the trail foot behind the lead foot as you swing back.
  3. Do that three times.
  4. Hit a real shot with the ball.

Easy, right? It’s about to get even easier.

Tip 3: The Senior Finish

I bet when you started looking for advice on how to hit a driver, you weren’t expecting something as simple as this.

Make sure your knees touch at the finish.

That’s the whole tip. Just focus on making that happen, and you’ll almost certainly see an improvement in your drives.

Why does this work?

Well, I actually teach this tip to all kinds of golfers for a few different reasons. But I love it for experienced golfers specifically because they have a tendency to finish with that super-wide stance and all their weight on the back foot.

If you’ve been following our articles and videos, you know that transferring weight back into the lead foot is key. That weight shift ensures you pack as much energy as possible into the ball and it puts the low point of your swing in the right place.

When you make it your goal to get those knees touching in your finish position, you make that pivot naturally. You don’t even have to think about it. And just like that, you get better contact and more distance.

Your Senior Driver Tips Checklist

A golfer can always find more clubhead speed no matter how old they are or what their fitness level is. It’s all about finding the techniques that work with your body.

We covered a lot of information in this article because I wanted you to understand why these tips work. But all it really boils down to is this:

  1. Flare your toes.
  2. Turn your hips in the backswing.
  3. Get your knees touching at the finish.

Hey, I promised you I’d keep it simple, didn’t I? 

If you can remember that checklist the next time you hit the links, I guarantee you’ll start having more fun with your driver.

Take It a Step Further

Could you use clarification on anything I covered? Do you have any other questions about conquering this game as a senior golfer? 

Jump into the comments and let us know! I read comments regularly and love learning about what’s going on in your game.

If you’re ready to bring senior-friendly advice into more areas of your golf game, check out this article on hitting irons

You can also find more instruction and products created specifically for the experienced golfer at vlsgolf.com. Come check it out!

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