Driving tips 22 Oct 2026 8 min read

Driver Takeaway: Sync Your Arms, Body and Club

If your driver takeaway feels disconnected, start by checking what is sending the ball off line. Spencer’s most damaging miss was a hard hook, yet Andy Proudman could see a delivery working slightly from the inside. A closed-looking clubface needed attention before Andy changed the first move.

Spencer also moved his arms away from his body early, then added a large turn to recover the club. The practice sequence below addresses that pattern while keeping the grip change in place. It includes an important feedback check: hands closer to your body can still leave the club outside.

Check the clubface before blaming your driver path

Spencer felt that his hands were taking over to rescue the shot. Andy’s review gave him a different starting point. He liked the way Spencer delivered the club slightly from the inside for a draw, but noticed that the clubface looked very closed at the top of the backswing.

That distinction matters when choosing your change. If the face is already too closed for the shot you want, trying to swing farther right or simply making the backswing shorter may leave the left miss in place.

Check the face and grip before adding another swing compensation. In Spencer’s case, Andy first explored the relationship between the hands and clubface. This was his interpretation of this swing, rather than a rule that every hook has the same cause.

Build a grip you can repeat

Andy moved Spencer towards a slightly weaker grip, shifting his hands a little to the left around the handle. Here, weaker describes the orientation of the hands; it does not mean holding the club more loosely.

The change was relative to Spencer’s strong starting position. Andy was still comfortable with roughly three knuckles showing in Spencer’s lead-hand grip, while four was too much for him. That was an individual reference, rather than a knuckle count every golfer needs to copy.

Spencer needed a way to find the new position repeatedly. Before walking into the shot, he built the grip where he could see the relationship between his hands and the face, then carried that grip into address. The unfamiliar sensation was expected; Andy was looking for a different hand position, not immediate comfort.

Use the same principle in practice: check the face-and-hand relationship before stepping in, then see whether you can keep it when you address the ball. If you need broader help with hand placement and grip options, use our guide to building a golf grip.

A shot leaking right was acceptable while Andy explored this adjustment. It helped him move away from Spencer’s damaging left miss, but it was not a promise that a grip change would permanently remove one side of the course.

Why shortening the backswing alone can cause trouble

Spencer’s backswing was long, with a large late turn and the arms travelling well behind him. Shortening it sounded like an obvious place to start. Andy wanted to deal with what happened earlier first.

The arms initially moved away from the body and sent the club outside. Spencer then used the extra turn to recover the club into a more workable position. Removing that recovery while leaving the first move unchanged could give him the short-and-out pattern Andy warned about: a shorter swing that still leaves the club steep.

For this pattern, work on the direction and timing of the takeaway before trying to stop the backswing earlier. The later review still showed Spencer swinging too long. Shortening was the next phase of the work, rather than a finished result of this lesson.

Rehearse the takeaway with your arms and body together

Andy’s rehearsal brought the arms and body into the first move together. He contrasted it with Spencer moving the arms away first and adding a much larger turn later.

Start without hitting a ball:

1. Set up with a clear target direction and the grip you have checked.
2. Begin the turn while allowing the arms and club to move with your body. Keep natural space for the arms; avoid squeezing them rigidly against your chest.
3. Move slowly to the point where the shaft is around parallel to the ground, then pause.
4. Check the shaft’s direction against your intended target line. In this rehearsal, Andy wanted the shaft parallel to that line as well as parallel to the ground.
5. Return to the start and repeat, then make a flowing rehearsal without the pause.

The checkpoint concerns the shaft, not the clubface. Your feet can provide another reference if they are aligned parallel to the intended target direction; the feet line and target line are separate, parallel references. Use a suitable, consistent video view or a coach’s help to judge the position rather than guessing from an awkward angle.

Spencer felt as though the new move was dramatically inside. The rehearsal and feedback showed that his sensation was exaggerated compared with what the club was actually doing. A strong inside feeling is useful only when it corrects your own outside pattern. Keep checking it so that you do not turn it into an inside roll.

For another explanation of the arms-and-body move away from the ball, see our guide to a connected takeaway. That guide uses irons; here, the shared lesson is the first move, rather than its turf-contact instruction.

Compare the rehearsal with the shot

Once the rehearsal looked better, Andy asked Spencer to check it, then hit a shot. Spencer also needed the reminder to keep the changed grip: working on the takeaway did not make that earlier adjustment automatic.

Use a simple loop: build the grip, rehearse and check, hit the shot, then review what changed. When you add the ball, compare the movement with the rehearsal as well as looking at the shot.

Spencer could feel that he was taking the club inside while the feedback still called it outside. The old tendency could return when he tried to hit the ball. A good-feeling swing was therefore a reason to check, rather than proof that the first move had changed.

The lesson’s app feedback moved between different “outside” readings. It did not show a smooth progression to a perfect number. Use the relevant checkpoint to connect the feeling with the actual movement, and keep the shot’s start direction, curve and strike in the review too.

If you want help comparing your swing feel with feedback, try Swing Coach.

To support your practice setup, browse our Training Aid products or explore Full Swing’s equipment information. Let the coaching task guide any equipment choice.

Check the club as well as your hands

Spencer found a feeling of turning while letting the hands trail behind. Andy accepted that feeling for the moment, while warning that continuing to exaggerate it could take the movement too far. It was a temporary correction to check, rather than a permanent instruction to leave the hands behind.

A later review showed why that warning mattered. The feedback again reported “outside by five”, even though Spencer felt he had made a better move.

Andy could see that the hands had moved closer to the body. The club was still outside and in front of them. Improving the hand position alone had not produced the whole relationship they wanted.

Check the club as well as the space between your hands and body. Return to the paused rehearsal and look at the shaft against the target reference. If the hands have come in but the club remains outside, keep working on the arms, body and club moving together instead of exaggerating the same hands-behind feeling further.

This is a useful point to get a coach’s view if you cannot tell what has changed. Avoid adding a new wrist action just to make one part of the picture look different.

Keep the feel useful and plan the next step

The later review showed a better early move and a face that looked less closed. Andy also made the remaining work clear: Spencer’s backswing was still too long, and the face was still somewhat closed.

You can improve one part of the pattern while another needs attention. Keep the practice focused on what you can repeat and check now: the grip routine, arms and body starting together, and the club staying in a better relationship with the hands.

For individual help deciding which change suits your swing, explore our Me and My Golf golf schools. You can also find course information for The Grand Golf Club.