Re-Examining Advice: Hitting Up with the Driver

[Zeph]

What difference does it make when you increase the angle of attack with the driver?

There must've been done testing on this. With a 10º driver, what distance do you get when the only variation is the angle of attack? Let's say you test from 0º to 10º angle at the moment of impact. The shaft adds some degrees, backspin is created, so you'll never hit the ball into the ground. Has it been tested with different swing speeds to see how the angle of attack affects the total distance?

Do you really need such high swing speed to hit low with the driver? I don't swing particulary fast, but I've never experienced a high drive going farther than a low one. Also, would not lower ball flight make the backsping affect the distance less?

[iacas]

The net angle is the sum of the driver angle plus the attack angle.

That's not entirely true for two reasons. One was already given - shaft kick. The other is that you can have a shaft leaning forward while the golfer is hitting up on the ball. Or, more commonly, you can have a shaft leaning way back while the clubhead is just reaching the bottom of its arc or is still coming down - high handicappers who flip at the ball do this - their hands are behind the clubhead but they're coming in so steep from being over-the-top that they get a positive addition to dynamic loft while having a negative attack angle.

Basically, the thing I'm trying to point out is that you can't just add or subtract attack angle. If your shaft is purely vertical and you have a 10 degree driver, the clubhead could be moving downward 45° and the ball will still get airborne, not go -35°. Now obviously you'd need a swing machine to do this for you (I'd hope!), but I think it illustrates my problem with the simple addition method.

I suspect that instructions to "hit up" are intended to counteract an inherent tendency to hit too far down, but wind up being counterproductive because of the crazy behavior it can induce.

I said what I suspected it was before - people with closed clubfaces hitting low slices and a swing guy who believes the old ball flight laws trying a quick fix on the student which leads to even more problems down the road.

Do you really need such high swing speed to hit low with the driver? I don't swing particulary fast, but I've never experienced a high drive going farther than a low one. Also, would not lower ball flight make the backsping affect the distance less?

No. Plus the other thing CalBoomer didn't account for was people adding or subtracting loft with the clubface being open or closed. That's a factor as well. And I will say this: typically guys who draw the ball will likely be hitting the ball on a slight downward angle of attack while guys who fade with the driver will typically do the opposite. Which makes sense if you get the swing circle - draws are hit while the club is still moving in to out, which means the club is also still going down. Fades are hit when the club is coming back towards the golfer out-to-in and thus, particularly with the driver, with the clubhead just starting to come up (except in some extreme over-the-top moves - I'm talking about decent players here).

[steve8820]

So Dumb Golf Instructor sees a guy hitting these low slices and says "swing up at it." The student tries by flipping at it or whatever and the ball goes higher. Then they move on and try to fix something else while likely having caused more problems by "fixing" the first thing.

Did you ever think that maybe the golf instructor was saying to swing up as more of a swing thought for the student who was coming in very steep at impact? Can't really say for sure because we do not have said golf instructor here to comment for us. Truthfully, I would leave the golf tips and instruction up to PGA professionals like your quoted Dumb Golf Instructor. It is very amusing to read your attempt to debunk golf magazines and golf professionals with your "analysis" of grainy Youtube videos. I am sure next year you will flip/flop on this just as you did with SnT. Coming in 2011........."You need to hit up with your driver" by Erik Barzeski.

[iacas]

Did you ever think that maybe the golf instructor was saying to swing up as more of a swing thought for the student who was coming in very steep at impact?

That's either beside or completely misses the point. We don't have the instructor here - and I said that because I've seen this type of instruction countless times. It seems to stem from the old ball flight laws wherein they see a guy hitting the ball low and assume it's because he's hitting down when really swing path (in any dimension) has very little effect on the ball's initial direction (in those same dimensions).

Besides, I'd wager good money that very few people who are "steep" actually hit down with the driver if their ball position is normal (I saw one guy once with his ball nearer to his back foot than his front... ). It's nearly impossible if your left shoulder is behind or even with the ball to come into the ball very steeply.

Truthfully, I would leave the golf tips and instruction up to PGA professionals like your quoted Dumb Golf Instructor.

Nah. Dumb Golf Instructor still thinks things that have since been proven untrue. Dumb Golf Instructor has been giving the same advice for 30 years based on what's written in an outdated PGA manual. Why believe him? I'll believe the guys who earn their living PLAYING golf rather than relying on something they read 30 years ago and haven't bothered to think about since.

A good portion of the golf industry is 30+ years behind the curve. I'm not suggesting that I have the answers, but I do want to explore what we can learn from modern technology. Trackman taught us that the immutable "facts" of ball flight were hogwash. High-speed video of "hit up on your driver" is debunked by PGA Tour pros not doing it. The list goes on... And it's understandable. If you're taught something and build a nice career and it kinda seems to work, why change? Change requires effort. The PGA, unlike other professions, doesn't require that you keep learning. Heck, their old ball flight laws are still on their tests - PGA applicants have to lie in order to get a better score.

I am sure next year you will flip/flop on this just as you did with SnT.

Want to bet on it? And I didn't flip on S&T; - I said I wasn't going to adopt it then but I'd look into a few years later if it was still hanging around. It's still around, I looked into it, and the things I had arrived at in my own swing were actually very similar to Stack and Tilt. I haven't spent any time working on "stacking" or "tilting" (I, like many, initially thought the "tilting" was towards the target when really it's side tilting) - I've spent my time working on my hand and club path and being more aggressive with a hip push.

And I looked back at the old posts I made on S&T;, and they basically say what I said here: I'd look into it later and I didn't really have that much information. Your attempts at a dig have failed. And let's stick to the topic at hand.

[Phil McGleno]

FWIW I try to get my students to come into the ball level. If I had to choose I'd have a guy hitting down on the ball - even with the driver - because it's so rare. To hit down you'd have to be ahead of the ball and almost nobody with the exception of some good players gets ahead of the ball at impact. Everyone else falls back and leaves their weight right. Tell those guys to hit up and they'll double how much of a sucky impact position they get to.

Level, give or take a little.

[Shanks A Million]

FWIW I try to get my students to come into the ball level. If I had to choose I'd have a guy hitting down on the ball - even with the driver - because it's so rare. To hit down you'd have to be ahead of the ball and almost nobody with the exception of some good players gets ahead of the ball at impact. Everyone else falls back and leaves their weight right. Tell those guys to hit up and they'll double how much of a sucky impact position they get to.

When you guys say it's rare for someone to hit down on the ball, I take it you're talking about high handicappers, right? Cause I check my impact position on camera and I hit WAY down on the ball, my shaft doesn't come straight till about 6 inches after the ball. I also notice that down on the range, the divots you see are much different than mine. Mine are quite cleanly cut, face more or less straight, and are of uniform depth (per club of course).

I'm just imagining that I'm a much better ballstriker than most amatuers, but I think that's true of a lot of us. I mean, I stand over a 2 iron blade and expect to hit it pure and center, and even catching it a hair thin or fat pisses me off. I also notice that most of the people at the range hit the ground before the ball, and kind of bounce into the back of it. I don't understand how anyone can play that way! I used to do it too though, it's hard to imagine now. Actually, you'd like my swing, I have a Butch Harmon style setup.

[Zeph]

I assume they are talking about the average high handicapper, yes. I've heard many times, when I hit my driver sky high, that I was coming in too steep, like a wedge. What do I do? I try to hit more up on the ball. Since the cause of my sky high drives are too much loft on the driver at impact, I'm just making things worse. The spin created by a steep angle of attack won't make the ball spin like crazy upwards. The ball will take off in the general direction of the clubface at impact. That's a fact. The spin will make it climb a bit and lose distance, but it's not as significantly to the distance as the clubhead loft at impact.

How steep can you really hit with a driver? You don't want to take a divot, you perhaps want to touch some grass after the ball. But there are limitations as to how steep you can get, without taking a divot. I'll be trying with the ball tee'd up so low that the face of the club covers the entire ball. And swinging without trying to hit it on the way up. Might try teeing it up so low that there is no chance of being able to hit it decently at anything but a negative angle, or level.

[stripeshow6]

pga tour players can attack the ball at whatever angle they want because they have the strength and power to carry it pretty far plus their driver lofts and shafts are custom fit so that even with their downward angle of attack they still get the spin rates and ball speeds they need to hit the ball a long way.  For amateurs, if they hit down on the ball with the driver they are going to get a crazy amount of backspin, which would result in a slice and a significant loss of distance.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by stripeshow6

pga tour players can attack the ball at whatever angle they want because they have the strength and power to carry it pretty far plus their driver lofts and shafts are custom fit so that even with their downward angle of attack they still get the spin rates and ball speeds they need to hit the ball a long way.  For amateurs, if they hit down on the ball with the driver they are going to get a crazy amount of backspin, which would result in a slice and a significant loss of distance.

Backspin doesn't result in a slice, but otherwise, I agree with the majority of what you've written, yes.

You - and everyone else reading this - should read this post instead: http://thesandtrap.com/t/44307/hitting-up-or-down-with-the-driver-in-an-inline-pattern .