Phil Mickelson’s tip passed down from Padraig Harrington which will help amateurs easily hit longer drives

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Phil Mickelson is one of the few professional golfers who has managed to maintain his speed and distance off the tee as he has got older.

Mickelson averaged 305.3 yards off the tee on LIV Golf in 2025 and that is hugely impressive given the fact that he is 55 years old.

Padraig Harrington is another player who has managed to actually hit his driver longer as he passed the 50 mark.

There is no secret to their success. Their gains in speed came about through a lot of hard work when it comes to speed training.

Mickelson has been a fierce advocate of hitting long drives, as opposed to honing accuracy instead.

And now you, like Mickelson, can add more yards to your drives just by copying one of the six-time major champion’s training methods.

Phil Mickelson’s tip will help you hit longer drives

Mickelson’s extraordinary length off the tee does not come without any effort.

He has to work seriously hard to keep up with the younger guys at the top of the game these days.

When speaking during an instructional video for LIV Golf, Mickelson shared a tip to help amateur golfers gain more distance off the tee – one that was passed down to him by Harrington.

He said: “Another thing I’ve learned from guys like Padraig Harrington, and older guys who really hit it hard, is twice a week, after I play, I hit 25 drives as hard as I can.

“I’m not worried about where it goes, but just getting my nervous system to fire faster.

“There are some power moves that TPI, who are at the forefront of speed training, talk about, but I’ll focus on one of them.

“The one I really like is the front leg push because it’s important for creating speed. Like, if I’m pushing off my front leg, if I take the club back, when I push up, my hands are going to come down, because it creates more of a whip.

“So as we push, we want our lead foot to turn and our toe to come up. We have learned from players who have not done that who swing violently, they have a bunch of knee surgeries because it’s just not the way physiologically your knee is designed to move.“

Phil Mickelson’s average driving distance improvements since 1993

Sure, the advance in technology over the past 20 years has played a huge role in Mickelson being more than 20 yards longer now than he was in 1998.

However, he wouldn’t be able to hit the ball as long as he does off the tee now without putting real effort into speed training.

It will be interesting to see whether Mickelson is able to maintain those kinds of numbers on LIV Golf in 2026.

However, the mere fact that he averaged over 300 yards in 2025 at his age is truly remarkable.