Luke Donald and the driver

Luke Donald could not find the fairway off the tee to save his life over the weekend it seemed. As I recall he's always sprayed the driver, but his iron and short game kept him in it. I know you can get away with that if you hit the long ball, but he doesn't. Reminds me of someone like Jose Maria Olazabal, great iron player, but a poor driver of the ball.

not a good ad for the new mizuno driver. always = the holder of the grip

It's the story of his whole career basically. Aaron Baddeley too.

The difference with olazabal was that he wasnt a good iron player he was an elite all time great iron player. Donald has an exceptional wedge/ short game that covered up his bad driving. His injuries havent helped.he seems like a good guy who got a ton out of his game

His issues haven't changed - pretty well covered in tournament thread.

He hit 9/14 fairways on Sunday. Hardly not finding a fairway to "save his life". But a couple misses were pretty costly.

Missed too many greens for the week, too many fairways overall, proximity to the hole not great and putter cooled off - lots of stuff going on, but better finish than he's had so he's probably optimistic.

I wonder why a player such a these two would be so great in one aspect, but struggle with the other. How did they not translate the great ball striking from the irons to the woods? Did Olazabal just have too steep an angle that worked well for irons you need to hit down on, but no so great for the upswing on the woods.

Hit down to go up.

Plaza Ali was very steep. Worked superbly well with the irons and wedges, not so much with the driver. It would be interesting to see how much spin he put on his driver. I bet most guys on here would balk at it.

I remember shortly after he was number 1 in world he was trying to get Foley to be his swing coach, he was still a top player at the time. He wanted more of a flat swing and less release to help with his long game since he was already a short player. Foley had a bunch of players at the time and told him to see chuck cook, that's when he went to cook who tried to get him flatter and less release. He fell off the map shortly after this experiment and he hasn't been back.

I think back in the days of persimmon and balata you had to keep the spin off the driver. That would explain why a better iron player would struggle with the driver.

Short and crooked won't pay the bills. Watched him close up a few times and his irons were hit as if they were on a string. Peppering the pins. Put a wood in his hands and oh dear.

Its nothing unique. Stenson literally had the yips with the driver.Mutliple balls OB per round at one point. He was always an elite ball striker. Still today he hits 3-4 drivers per round if that. it is simply mechanically easier for one aspect then another. Look at tiger, his driving was average but his iron play was generational like jack/hogan generational so he managed his way around the course and murdered par 5s but was very conservative off the tee in his lines and clubs. when he felt in a groove then sure he would rip drivers every hole but his 2 iron/ 3 wood was all he needed. Steepness/rotation is always the issue

Based on some recent high quality DTL slow motion videos, it seems that Donald has a sort of "jump/stall/flip" handsy move with the driver that involves a ton of right hand, basically the opposite of the more connected rotational swing that seems to be favored by more accurate players. Here are a few examples of what that looks like, and what it *should* look like:

Rory McIlroy - Right hand and forearm still behind/underneath the left, connected.

Justin Thomas - Slightly straighter angle, but basically the same deal, right hand and forearm have not overtaken the left. Hands out in front of the chest. Also stays down and maintains a lot of spine tilt.

Luke Donald - Right hand and forearm have twisted and completely flipped over the top of the left hand and forearm, lost posture. He's basically just stood up and flicked his hands at the ball. Hands and forearms are way disconnected from the body.

Donald's strokes gained off the tee stat has never been good, he is almost always losing strokes there, and I can imagine it is related to this action. It would be way less reliable and subject to lot more timing.

Did you see my post above where I explain he went to Chuck Cook to change this for a more accurate long game and the result is where he is now.

I'm no Butch Harmon but Luke's driver swing looks awful, look where the butt of the club is pointing just after impact, cant be many top pro's who do that, well none that are any good with the driver anyway

Yes he has a ton of grip roll and can hit it anywhere. Saw him in person at his peak and even then he was spraying the odd tee shot 60 or 70 yds offline

Uh yeah you all know where he should be going to get gucci! Luke Donald please go to George Gankas and do a Mizuno x Gankas special. Even Padraig Harrington and Adam Scott tried him out LOL. Danny Lee also hits it a mile now too. Sung Kang also goes to him and won in 2019. Smallish guy at 5'8. At this point why not try something different?

So far this season Donald has been more accurate off the tee than McIlroy. The issue is that he's around 45 yards behind him on average. Much easier to hit a PW from the rough than a 7 iron.

I'll go a step further with another player analogy, one Eldrick "Tiger" Woods -gasp-. Tiger was not and currently is not a super accurate driver of the golf ball. He had a dead on, and long, long iron game that afforded him the ability to keep driver in the bag and get the ball out there at a respectable distance but still be in the fairway.

I'd be interested to see a comparison on how big they miss. Without the data and going just on watching on TV I'd bet that Donald's misses are much wider.

56% vs 58% is nothing, but as you say, I’d happily miss 2% more fairways if I was 45 yards further down the fairway.

This guy, right here, was never super accurate from the tee.

This guy, right here, was super accurate from the tee.

Deadly in a scramble.

ha ha ha ha very good

A good point. Wider misses plus being short = no bueno.

The Luke Donalds of the world are basically done on the PGA Tour, it is just a power game now. Many a good player have been driven off the tour do to length. J Lenard was another one. Nick Faldo also. Luke Donald is just another victim.

He's good enough to still have game but pound for pound he will never compete with the Rory's and Justin Thomases of the world.

The Luke Donald era was a weak era of golf. Dude could play but just didn't give you much excitement

Donald is too handsy with his driver which means he relies on timing to player well. That won't hold down well under pressure.

Olazabal has a better iron game and short game than Donald IMO.

Luke Donald's swing has never been consistent. Probably one of the worst drivers of the ball of all time. The method of teaching he has experienced gives no optimism of hope in the future. The Instagram videos Luke posts show no resemblance of a method that could help his game.

I've repeated this story I-don't-know-how-many times.  It's too good.

So when the controversy was raging over the non-conforming Callaway ERC driver, a reporter casually asked Ollie if he thought they should ban hot drivers. "I think they should ban all drivers" was his reply.