Driving it straighter off of a lower tee

[Skype apirlp71]

So today I went to golfsmith because I was interested in getting my driver shortened for better control (I'm 5'8"). After swinging the club a few times for the golf pro we both noticed I was hitting the ball of the top outer edge of the driver consistently. He had me lower the tee and address the ball near the hosel and I hit it right on the screws. We decided against shortening the shaft at this point.

After, I went to the driving range to try out my Cleveland Classic 270 (12 loft) and my Taylormade Burner (9.5 loft) and found interesting results. I did hit the club well with my Cleveland in terms of contact but was also lofting it pretty high when I teed it up too high. I also tend to lose a lot of distance because the ball just seems to peter out because of the trajectory being too high.  When I took my nice easy swing and teed it up low (ball just above sweet spot on clubface) I hit it about 200 yards or so with carry. For me, this is pretty good.

Now when I went back to my Burner 9.5 and teed it low, the ball came off the tee like a freaking rocket, straight. I was almost disappointed because while I hit it hard, I didn't put it up in the air very high. This made me think that if I teed it up just a bit higher I could really get a hold of it.

I don't know if it's psychological or what but when I tee the ball up higher I usually slice it (either a little or a ton) and seem to come up on the ball and give it too much loft. Maybe teeing the ball up lower forces me to take a wider swing which hits the sweet spot but I don't know.

Has anyone else experienced this before? Or maybe have any ideas as to what's going on? Either way, I need to slow down my swing for better consistency but still seem to hit my driver better with a lower tee.

I have actually never heard that teeing it low gives you better control. Generally you would only tee the ball low to hit under the wind. Studies have been done to show that teeing the ball higher results in greater distance and doesn't cause a loss in accuracy.

The newer drivers have higher sweet spots and hitting it higher in the face results in better launch angles and spin. The best way to get control on any golf shot is to hit the sweet spot and hit it consistently. Depending on the style of your swing, teeing it low may be a good thing and help you to find the sweet spot. For another player, finding the sweet spot may mean teeing it high.

The only way to know is for you to experiment and go with the tee height that is helping you hit the center of the face and gain optimum launch angles. Without seeing a player's swing it is hard to make a suggestion, but for most I would say learn how to hit it from a high tee.

[arturo28mx]

I have read several instructors who say that hitting the ball with the lower part of the face increases backspin (because of the gear effect) and thus the ball goes straighter. They therefore suggest to tee the ball lower for control and tee higher for distance.

My own experience seems to corroborate this.

I personally prefer control over distance and use regular length tees with the driver.

For those who have not heard of the "gear effect" I recommend you look it up. It is a very important concept.