As you all know, wedges are my passion and wedge play has been a source of both frustration and enlightenment for nearly all my 60-plus years playing this crazy game. I’ve been through periods where I “owned it” with regard to my short-range performance, but I’ve also experienced the pits of despair so low that a buddy of mine coined the term “wedge-ilepsy” to describe what I had devolved into.

But today, I thought I would take on the other end of the set and talk about drivers and driving the ball, as that has long been the “sexy” part of the game. Girls dig the long ball, I’ve heard it said, but the survey revealed that many of you are more concerned with hitting more fairways off the tee. Does that mean that you feel you have maxed out your driving distance? Or something else?

Anyway, all statistics I’ve ever seen and dove into reveal that this game is definitely much easier if you are hitting approach shots from the fairway. The detailed stats available on PGA Tour players reveals as much, too. And the survey also revealed that the majority of you rank “hitting more greens” as one of your main goals to improve your golf.

So, if hitting more greens is a goal, then hitting more fairways is, without a doubt, the pathway to that goal. So, how does any golfer change their approach to driving the ball so that it ends up in the fairway more often? Here are some ideas and tips I can share that I believe will help any player do just that.

“Aim small, miss small.” That was a great line from the movie, “The Patriot,” starring Mel Gibson, and it applies just as much to hitting more fairways as it did then and there to taking out British soldiers. Do you pick out specific alignment targets for your drives? Or do you just aim “at the fairway”? If the latter, I suggest you try picking out a very specific target line for each tee shot, and be very meticulous in your set up and alignment to that target. I am also a fan of picking out a spot on the tee 3-6 feet in front of the ball to help you achieve that “dead aim” at your target.

Play your percentages. If you want to hit more fairways, then, by all means, align your tee shots to allow your natural shot pattern to put your ball in the fairway. The place to change your shot pattern is on the practice tee, not the golf course. Once you get to the first tee, it is just good practice to follow the sage advice of “dance with who brung you.”

Grip down and watch what happens. You know, drivers used to be 43” long, with only the most accurate drivers of the ball opting for anything longer. That was because the old persimmon heads were so unforgiving, it was darn hard to make consistently solid contact with the longer shafts. But, as heads got bigger and more forgiving, shafts also got longer, with the “standard” in today’s world being 45” or even longer. But the facts of even modern high-tech drivers is that you still experience a decline in smash factor with misses of only 1/2” or less. Even with these monsters of 460 cc’s, a dead perfect hit delivers optimum transfer of energy. I’ll bet if you play 2-3 rounds consciously gripping down at least an inch (but try even more), you will find yourself hitting more approach shots from the fairway, and not really that much further back than you would expect. Try it . . . you might like spending more time in the fairway.

Take it easy. My final tip is to just allow yourself to slow down a bit when you are hitting the tee ball. The great Julius Boros penned an instruction book way back when called “Swing Easy, Hit Hard.” The golf swing is a very complex set of movements and the best swings happen when all those movements come together in perfect sequence and harmony. What often happens when you throttle back just a bit is that you end up making a much more rhythmic swing, with much-improved sequencing and it actually allows you to generate more clubhead speed at impact, and doing it more efficiently. Again, try thinking of swinging at something well under 100 percent and watch what happens.

So, there are four driving tips that I hope you will try and report back to us with your experience. I love wedges and wedge play, but I still view the driver as “the first scoring club.” This game is just so much easier from the short grass.