Titleist's Joe Plecker uses a three-swing drill to set your driver speed

Titleist posted a short driver lesson Tuesday from staff member Joe Plecker, and the main idea is to find your speed for the day before you try to add any. It's under four minutes and built around one warm-up drill and one cue for swinging harder.

Plecker starts with a warning: don't hit driver cold. The club weighs about 12 ounces, he says, but with the longest shaft and the mass moving fastest, it acts like the heaviest club in your bag. Get moving first.

The three-swing drill

1. Swing to a full finish and hold it.
2. Swing back to the top and through, and hold again.
3. Do it once more, faster.

The test is doing all three in a row without falling back or losing your structure. Whatever pace that third swing has becomes your stock driver swing for the day. That's the one you take to the first tee.

The max-effort swing

Plecker calls the all-out swing your "scramble drive," the free swing you get when your partner is already in the fairway. To go faster, he says, you have to change what happens on the ground:

• Widen your stance.
• Get pressure into your lead foot.
• Push up and away from the ball through that front foot.

That push is why long drive hitters' front foot often comes off the ground, he says. His reasoning is that you can't make the club go faster while you're moving with it. You have to pull the other way. He runs the same three-swing sequence again, with the last one as the hard push.

Try it in the bay

A simulator is a good place to test this because you see club speed on every swing. Do the three-swing drill and write down the club speed on swing three. That's your baseline. Then hit a few max swings with the wider stance and the lead-foot push, and compare both the speed and where the ball goes. Plecker admits it might not be the swing you use on the first tee, but now you'll know how much extra speed you have.