Zach Johnson’s Keys to Hitting Driver Straight Every Time

Zach Johnson shares his keys to being one of the most accurate drivers on the PGA Tour and explains why he is much happier being 50 yards behind his playing competitors in the fairway when they are in the rough.

I got a stat for you. You might not even know this one. Okay. Champion golfer of the year 2015. Who won that tournament? Yours truly. I knew that one. I got that one right. Did you know you hit 25 straight fairways during that stretch at St. Andrews, which was the longest in the field? No, I had no idea. Well, that leads to this question. Yes. The utmost pressure in a major championship, you have to find the fairway. Obviously, it’s worked for you at St. Andrews. What’s the key to hitting straight tea balls under the utmost pressure? Yeah. You know, for me, it comes back to those crunch situations. What can I control? What What is it that I I can’t control where that ball technically ends up? Right. But I but I can’t what I can control is how I walk into it, where where I’m looking, the rhythm of my golf swing, and my routine. So, I’m standing back here. I’ve got my target. I see a bush out there in the distance. That’s my target. That’s where I want the ball to end up. I see a shot that’s going to start a little right of that and fall down left. So, as I walk into it, looking at my target, I’m going to take my nice little half swing here to kind of get me going. I set my club down to where I feel like I need to be lined up. And then my feet just kind of separate from there. I take one more look at where I want it to go and then give it away. At that point, I know what I did has worked in the past. I know what I did is exactly what I practiced. I know what I did. It’s pretty effective, pretty clean. I can accept the result. The half swing is interesting. Is that more for rehearsal? Is that as a reminder? Or is that a tension reliever? It really probably all the above. It’s It’s a way for me to not get stagnant. It’s a way for me to not, you know, just have too much of a pause. Some guys just like to go right into it. Um if if I were to do anything other than that, I’d probably do like a Davis love. he takes a big full swing right beside the ball parallel to the ball. It’s kind of like that. But it’s just it’s just it’s just a nice little reminder to just to stay athletic, keep things moving, never really slowing down much and just getting into it. Something like that. Let me ask you this. Not the longest driver on tour, but one of the straightest. How difficult has it been for you as your career has evolved to stick to your game plan, try to find fairways and take advantage of your iron play? Yeah, I mean, I’ve always been really modest in my in my driving distance, and that’s and that’s okay. What I have learned, stats don’t lie. Driving accuracy is still really, really important. It might be even more important for me because of where I hit it. Now, I do know a couple fun facts. I hit the ball in the fairway, I got 180 yards. My competitor hits it in the rough, he’s got about 125 yards. over time, even though I’m in the fairway and he’s he’s 55 60 yards ahead of me, I’m still going to wear him out over time. It’s just stats. It just happens. Greens in regulation, proximity, all the above. At some point, that 180 yard shot in the fairway versus that 125 yard shot in the rough, it’s going to win. Zack, if your driver does start acting funny on the golf course, obviously you don’t have a teacher around, right? How do you self assess? How do you self-correct? Yeah, I mean, obviously I got the luxury of having my caddy Damon. He’s seen me hit golf balls and it’s, you know, drivers over 15 some odd years now we’ve been together. So, I can always ask him questions. But a couple of the things that I go back to are really just the basics. I go back to ball position. I go back to alignment. I go back to rhythm. And I go back to that transition with a big turn. That would be my first key is I kind of get into it again. Take my two looks, get situated, take a big back swing, a lot more solid on the way down. It’s been great, pal. Thank you so much.