When push comes to shove

It's an old saying, but appropriate to my current driver form. I'm hitting the ball reasonably, but pushing most of my drives to the right, far enough to find the trees on most occasions.

This has necessitated some research in two main areas: release, hip movement and ball position.

The first, release, is a tricky area, because once you start messing with your wrists, eg. rolling them over or whatever, dangerous hooks and pull shots come into the picture. It's not to say there shouldn't be some release, but I'm inclined to think this should be fairly natural. For example, some people are more wristy and tend to play a draw; some players tend to hold on, stiff wristed, and play a fade. The bottom line is, however, it can be risky to go with something that's not natural.

I am fundamentally a holder oner, that is, I'm not very wristy and find that if I try to release aggressively I'm prone to snap hooks - very nasty results may be observed. I'm also trying to work on lag and on keeping my lead wrist flat at impact. This is tending to make my release a little late if I don't time things well, and this is probably contributing to the push shots or blocks.

Another factor contributing to pushes is too much hip sway on the downswing. I need to turn a little more or at least make sure I'm not lunging forward into impact. I have been working on sequencing, pushing off with the back foot to start the downswing, but perhaps I need to stay a bit more stable and turn more - once the club is in the delivery slot of course.

I'm fairly sure I also need to look at ball position. That is, I need to work out where my club (and I'm talking driver at present) is down the line rather than too much inside-out, as is my current tendency. I can actually feel that my club face is too open quite often when hitting driver.  I might well be playing the ball too far back with driver, even though I see a lot of players who look to me to be playing the ball too far forward in their stance when using driver. I don't think too far forward is a problem if the swing path is good (inside-out-in), but for many players that's not the case - the over the top move that used to plague me is very common.

All in all I think I have a plan - hopefully a simple one - so that push will not come to shove.