Driver Launch Angle/Loft

[ZappyAd]

On 05/03/2017 at 10:31 PM, freshmanUTA said:

and I've started to work on simple overspeed training and have gotten my clubhead speed in the mid 130's

Interesting thread in general - fwiw and based solely on my limited long drive experience of reading your first post and having seen one interview with Joe Miller I think you need lower loft (like 5-7'), less backspin (1-2k) and a very long tee!  It seems like it's a very technical area so having regular access to a launch monitor so you can see and fine tune your numbers is probably very important.

Can you give any more detail on the overspeed training you've been using?  I'm quite interested to see if I can pick up another 5mph on my driver swing speed so if you have any advice based on your experience that would be cool.

[ZappyAd]

I remembered seeing this guy in one of the golf magazines - don't know if you have already seen his videos but he does a lot of work with long drive pros and he may be able to provide you with some background info (he is also on Twitter):

https://www.leecoxgolf.co.uk

[phillyk]

12 hours ago, freshmanUTA said:

The cost is huge, I'm in college so I don't have an unlimited pocket but I'd be willing to save up and invest in a good driver so long as it has a good warranty. Its 40$ to enter and if I qualify for regionals it's 175$ and then if I make it past that, it's free but travel isn't paid for. But if I even make it past the qualifiers I'm guaranteed a prize of $1,000 which would be enough to break even on the club, and it would make for one hell of a story to tell.

I haven't looked too hard into these drivers, but I'm guessing that they are spendy.  But, as you know the warranty is what will count here because of the probability of breaking something.  You can buy these drivers second hand for a lot less, but those do not come with a warranty.

Either way you go, when you do get a driver, go find a range or simulator bar or something that you can use for an hour to find your way towards ideal launch conditions (backspin, side spin, launch angle, apex height, smash factor, etc.).  If you know a local pro that is a big hitter, ask him to help you create those conditions too.  

[freshmanUTA]

9 hours ago, 1badbadger said:

Teeing the ball lower seems like the obvious adjustment, but I would caution against it.  Teeing the ball lower will change your angle of attack so you're hitting down on the ball, which will lower your launch, but it will also increase your backspin like the white line on this chart.  We definitely don't want that.  

What is pretty unusual is your high launch/high spin combination.  A positive angle of attack (hitting up on the ball) usually creates a high launch/low spin condition, so it's a little unusual.  The first thing I would suggest (and they will probably do this at your fitting) is to determine where on the face you are impacting the ball.  This can be done very easily with some impact tape or a little talc.  Lightly dust the driver face with talc, or the back of the ball and it will leave a mark which wipes off. There are three reasons for this...to help figure out why your launch is so high, why your spin is so high, and why there is 2,000 rpms between your low and high spin rates.  That's a pretty big difference.  Plus, it may shed some light on your launch angle. A player with a 4-5* positive angle of attack is very good, so with a 10* driver this would produce a 14-15* launch angle. I'm not sure what loft your current driver is, but assuming it's around 9.5-10.5*, you'd have to have a positive attack angle of 10-12* to be launching it at around 20*.  I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone do that.  

If you are, then the next question is why is your spin so high. Hitting up on the ball that much should produce very low spin, and if you're hitting shots in the 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 range, that's more than twice as high as I'd like to see. It's not uncommon for really high swing speed players to have too much spin, but they typically have much lower launch, so this is out of the ordinary.  I'm starting to think you might be catching it very close to the top of the face like this:

Based on the info you provided, your launch and spin can be as low as 12.5* and 3100 rpms, and as high as 23* and 5100 rpms.  This tells me you are hitting different parts of the face, and I honestly think that some of those shots were hit at the extreme top of the face or slightly off the crown.  I don't see any other way to get 20-23* launch and over 5000 rpms of spin. The impact tape will reveal the answer, and this is where I would recommend starting...find out where you're hitting it and if you're hitting it in the same place every time.  This will help determine which direction to go next.

Hope this helps. 

 

Thank you. This is a ton of good information and I really appreciate it. The thing I noticed was that my centered strikes launched a little lower but definitely went farther. The problem is, when swinging with longer driver shafts I can get high 130 swing speed, but never really can find the middle, which is more important than swing speed(to an extent). High face is definitely likely, so I think a lower tee height could help, but before I try that I might want to see if there's a way I can get my strikes more centered on the face.

5 hours ago, ZappyAd said:

Can you give any more detail on the overspeed training you've been using?  I'm quite interested to see if I can pick up another 5mph on my driver swing speed so if you have any advice based on your experience that would be cool.

I basically just use what I did when I trained to get my shot power up in hockey. I cut a wooden hockey stick down to the same size of my current driver, and taped two hockey pucks to the end, and swing hard as if it were a golf club. There are easier ways to do this, find an old golf club and take the grip off and fill the shaft with sand, tape something heavy to the end, etc. Just be careful because swinging something too heavy when you're not ready could hurt you, bad. I'd recommend starting with an older driver, probably one of the old steel shafted ones so that there's a good amount of weight to swing, and when you switch back to your driver it'll feel like nothing. I also recommend a lot of stretches in your back, core and arms, as well as a couple lunge stretches for your hip flexors. When I don't stretch I'll be lucky to break 120 swing speed because my body is too tight to create speed.

[iacas]

On 3/6/2017 at 4:58 PM, 1badbadger said:

There are shafts designed for long drive too.  Keep in mind a 50" driver has a very heavy swing weight because it's so long, so lighter shafts will help.

A 50" driver would be illegal, too.  48".

They confirm to the Rules of Golf.

[Cantankerish]

Yeah.  This is old.  But it is the only thread I could find with a remotely similar topic. 

I am not a long driver like the OP.  I used to have the loft at 9.5, but I was hitting it too high.  I dropped it to 7.5, but eventually the same thing happened. Now I have it set at 5.5.  When I miss, it goes sky high, so I figure I am hitting on the top half of the face typically. I have the tee pretty low though.  When I raise the tee I sky everything.  To make it stranger, I swing UP on the ball, barely clearing the grass every time.

I have scoured the net, but I think I do not understand enough jargon or something.  So, question:

What bad things am I doing by lowering the loft so much?  Is there an element of my swing causing this that I should aim to correct?

[Vinsk]

1 hour ago, Cantankerish said:

What bad things am I doing by lowering the loft so much?  Is there an element of my swing causing this that I should aim to correct?

Without seeing your swing this is pretty difficult to know. Do you have a video?

[Cantankerish]

Yes actually.

 

[DeadMan]

Judging from your video, I'm guessing your contact is inconsistent, and your high miss is probably a result of hitting the top quarter of your driver. Do you have a lot of marks on the crown of your driver? The other thing is that it looks like you're hitting a pretty big pull. You could be opening the face sometimes and causing a ballooning shot.

I've found lower lofted drivers to be less forgiving than higher lofted drivers, so I doubt lowering your driver to 5.5 degrees is good for you. I would work on your actual swing rather than continuing to lower the loft on your driver.

[Cantankerish]

On 5/3/2019 at 5:09 PM, DeadMan said:

Judging from your video, I'm guessing your contact is inconsistent, and your high miss is probably a result of hitting the top quarter of your driver. Do you have a lot of marks on the crown of your driver? The other thing is that it looks like you're hitting a pretty big pull. You could be opening the face sometimes and causing a ballooning shot.

I've found lower lofted drivers to be less forgiving than higher lofted drivers, so I doubt lowering your driver to 5.5 degrees is good for you. I would work on your actual swing rather than continuing to lower the loft on your driver.

This is pretty insightful.  Thank you.  I actually hit the driver fairly consistently for my handicap.  And yet I do exactly as you are suggesting at times - I leave the face open a bit resulting in an unrecoverable slice. I also do have those marks on the crown from the misses.  My concern is the effect of the very low loft.  "Less forgiving" is chiefly what I did not know.  I hope that comes with a lower spin or something. I hate to think there is no upside.