Driver trajectory help...

[rdwoody]

I've been pretty content with my driving game for a while now and, in a way, I still am. I'm just looking for some opinions on little things I may be able to change.

I have a Nike VR driver with a stiff Aldila Voodoo shaft. I haven't had my swing monitored in a while, but I believe my swing speed is just north of 100 mph.

Right now, I'm getting a good 265-270 yards out of my drives. My problem is, they seem to be ballooning like crazy! The ball comes off the club face and climbs very high very quickly. I feel like I could squeeze a couple extra yards out of it if I can get more of a rising, penetrating flight. Even if I can't get any more distance, I would still like to keep the ball a bit lower on my drives.

Currently I line the ball up with the inside of my front foot. I feel like moving the ball back in my stance will help me out by not hitting the ball on a slightly upward swing, but I don't know how far I should move it back to get an "ideal" point of contact. I'm open to any tweaking, just let me know what you think. If it doesn't work I can always go back to hitting it high.

[golfro]

your ball is ballooning because you're hitting the ball on a downward angle, not the other way around. with that said, its interesting that you're getting ballooning out of the Voodoo shaft witha 100 mph swing. I've found it to be a much more low-mid trjaectory shaft with a mid kickpoint. I hit a Callaway FT-Tour with the Voodoo shaft recently and found it to be a nice mid trajectory with minimal ballooning.

[rdwoody]

That's what I thought about the shaft. I am getting a consistent 265-270 and sometimes I do something wrong and touch the 300 mark, so maybe hitting it as high as I am isn't a problem. It just seems like it is climbing too fast. It looks almost like a wedge shot to me. It comes right off the club face and shoots into the air.

[golfro]

thats not ballooning then. if the ball takes off first and foremost, thats just a higher trajectory. not sure that degree your driver head is...

ballooning is more or less when your ball takes a normal trajectory and mid flight starts climbing up and up. Imagine a graph of an expenential growth... i knwo this graph below has nothing to do with golf and i dont even know what its about, but a balooning ball looks like this:
Ball starts up and climbs up and up and drops almost straight down...with loss of distance. At which, you're hitting 265-270, i'm not sure you're ballooning your ball much.

[rdwoody]

Ah... thanks for the Russian graph

It just seems to me to be a bit high. Since I can't see the flight of my ball from the side, I don't know for sure if it is just a higher trajectory or not. My driver is 9.5°, by the way.

Maybe I'm just a fool. But, it just seems like I should be hitting the ball a little lower than I am.

[golfro]

if you're getting 265-270 yards, i'd say you're doing a lot of things ok lol.

[rdwoody]

If nothing else, I feel better about what I'm already doing then. I've read that ball flights are getting higher and higher with equipment advances (at least on the tour). I'm nowhere near a tour player, but I guess that makes sense. With each driver upgrade, my flight has gotten progressively higher. I thought maybe I was just using the new-fangled stuff wrong. The drives I was hitting with my old Henry Griffitts driver (which is about the size of my current 3 wood) back in high school just looked better to me. But, thinking back, I wasn't hitting them any farther and the good ones were far less consistent than they are now.

I kind of feel dumb for starting this thread now

[saevel25]

mostly likely your probably hitting the ball with a slight upward angle, adding loft. Also the club itself might have a lower COG, which causes it to get a high launch, and if you have the wrong tip stiffness, even if its an X-stiff shaft, it will go higher as well. So theres alot to do about it.

[drglew]

Before getting refitted, you may want to try a different golf ball first. If you're truly playing a Nike power distance soft, I wonder if you'd get better trajectory with a lower launching and lower driver-spin ball, ie a "tour" ball like a prov1x and the like.

[rdwoody]

That is another thing I've been playing with. I've been experimenting with different balls lately to see how things affect my drives. I've noticed that using different balls doesn't affect my iron play much if at all, but it really affects my drives. I'm currently working on a dozen PD Softs and I'm honestly not really a fan so far. I've tried the V1 and got decent results, not $45 per dozen good, but decent, but I've yet to try the V1x.