Butch's basics: three keys to hitting your tee shots farther

Golf Digest, Sept, 2002 by Butch Harmon

Want to gain distance off the tee? Learn how to hit a draw. Here are three keys for creating a right-to-left ball flight:

1. Many players have heard that you swing "from the inside" to hit a draw, so they take the club way back inside on the takeaway, as I'm demonstrating in the photo at right. That's wrong. Don't take the club away to the inside. The clubhead ends up behind your hands, and you end up hitting pushes or snap hooks. Instead, the club should be parallel to your hands about halfway into the backswing.

2. Coming into impact, feel as if you're keeping your rear shoulder back, instead of rotating around. This is the move that will really help you swing down from the inside.

3. Swing slower and easier. This is what Tiger Woods and other good players do when they want to turn the ball from right to left. A slower swing gives you time to release your hands and arms--the real key to a power draw.

Butch Harmon, voted No. 1 among America's 50 Greatest Teachers in Golf Digest, oversees the Butch Harmon School of Golf at Rio Secco Golf Club in Henderson, Nev.