Five Good Questions About Drivers Golf. Your driver is probably going to be the most technologically advanced and expensive club in your bag. New models arriving in pro shops feature moveable weight systems, exotic materials and designs that look nothing like what Old Tom Morris would have swung. So before you plunk down your hard earned greenbacks, youd better arm yourself with some information. Here are five things youll want to know before you make your next driver purchase. How do I maximize distanceOkay, okay. You want to hit the ball farther. Or to be more accurate, you want to humble your buddies and quietly walk down the fairway with a smirk on your face, then nod as if to say, You fellas are away. Heres the deal Back in the day, it was thought that the best drives started low, then shot high in the air. We now know that those kinds of shots have too much backspin. In order to get the ball really deep down the fairway, we now know that you need to maximize carry distance. You want get the ball started on a high launch angle, and once it is in the air, you want it to hang up there due to just the right amount of backspin. Too much backspin and the shot will balloon up, then fall straight down. Too little spin and you cant keep the ball in the air long enough. To make that happen, to create those perfect launch conditions, you need to have the ideal combination of clubhead, shaft and ball for your swing. Rory Mc. Ilroy, of Northern Ireland, tees off on the fourth hole during the first round of the Honda Classic golf tournament, Thursday, Feb. Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. AP PhotoLynne. Rory Mc. Ilroy, of Northern Ireland, tees off on the fourth hole during the first round of the Honda Classic golf tournament, Thursday, Feb. Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. UhrOeP-5p8/UZKq0VB-WYI/AAAAAAAAANA/rfLTUJGkkQE/s1600/spinloft.jpg' alt='Best Driver Loft For Seniors' title='Best Driver Loft For Seniors' />
Home Get More Distance. Get. is to find the best compromise of. Good Questions Drivers. How do I maximize distance Okay. AP PhotoLynne. 2. So how much loft do I need Do your drives feel rock solid when you hit them, but fall like a stone and drop short Thats a sure sign that you are not generating enough backspin with your driver. Its also likely that you are one of those players who hits your 3 wood better off the tee than your driver. Dont worry, youre not alone. Selecting the Correct Driver Loft. Comes Out Against Distance Control. Driver Loft vs. Distance Sign in. I wonder what the influence of driver loft is to the carry distance. Took about 100 balls to find out the best loft. How to Determine Which Loft You Should. What Loft Of Driver Should I. Most Wanted Driver Distance Awards. More than a few players get more carry distance and better control with their 3 wood off the tee. Sure, the shorter shaft of your 3 wood will give you more control, but its the loft, which is about 1. If your driver has 9. Generally speaking, the slower your swing, the more loft you need on your driver. The faster your swing, the less loft your driver needs to create the ideal amount of backspin. FYI. The more backspin you impart on the ball, the straighter your shot will probably fly. For this reason, you never hear about someone slicing a 9 iron or wedge. Its pretty safe to say that any player with a swing speed slower than 7. Best Driver Loft For Beginners' title='Best Driver Loft For Beginners' />But unfortunately, you cant make a nice, clean assumption about how much loft you need if you swing much faster than that because there are so many variables in the golf swing. One 9. 0 mph players may be 1. So what about those pros you hear about who have a driver with something like 8 of loft Well, those guys probably swing their driver around 1. If they played a 1. Taylor. Made M1 Driver. Degree Loft Driver' title='16 Degree Loft Driver' />
What is Flexpoint and is it important Flexpoint simply refers to the area of the shaft where it bends kickpoint, which you might also hear, means the same thing. Generally speaking, a lower flexpoint will produce a higher ball flight, which can be good for slower swinging players. The shaft literally flexes closer to the head of your driver and kicks it through the impact area so the ball goes higher into the air. A high flexpoint, again, generally speaking, wont kick the ball up as much and produces a lower ball flight. This would be ideal for someone who swings his driver very fast, and therefore creates a lot of natural backspin. But dont get the impression that were talking about spots that are spread far apart. Theyre not. The standard length of a driver shaft is 4. So, are you putting one and one and one together to get three If you havent, heres the kicker no pun intended If you select the perfect clubhead and ball to use, but if your shaft doesnt compliment them, it will be very tough to consistently hit drives that are as long and straight as they could be. And if you change any one of those variables, you will change the flight of your drives. Callaway Great Big Bertha Driver. Can a driver cure my slice Slicing is the bane of the amateur ranks. And golf club manufacturers know this. A slice is produced when you hit a shot with a clubface that is open to your swing path. This imparts left to right spin on the ball for a right handed player and makes the shot curve right. There are two kinds of drivers that are designed to help slicers Draw biased Designs Drivers with draw bias have weight in the heel area. That weight will make the clubface naturally close more easily on your downswing, so you will be less likely to slice. Several of the new 4. Closed face Designs Some drivers look like the face of the club points left when you set them behind the ball. Thats because they do. Clubs with hook faces are designed to impart right to left spin. Again, this will help you avoid the conditions that create a slice. Is bigger always better But not all of them are the same. Think about it this way Mercedes and Yugo both make sedans, but those cars are nothing alike. Dont assume that every 4. Weights and designs differ, and therefore, so does performance. Thats why you need to get out there and demo several drivers before you purchase one. Golf Club Launch Angle Distance. Driver Launch Angle Distance. Players make three significant errors in swinging the golf club when it comes to hitting the golf ball long. They use a Driver which has insufficient loft for their club head speed. They use a Driver which is too long for them to consistently make contact with the sweet spot of the club. They have a descending angle of attack which creates a low launch angle and too much backspin. Watch this video of a golfer who has plenty of club speed but a poor angle of attack which costs him distance. Id suggest you see a PGA professional to get help with your swing to improve your angle of attack. In the meantime, you can get a Driver which has more loft so that you can get a higher launch angle and more distance and a Driver which is not too long so you can make solid contact more often. Optimum Golf Club Driver Loft The optimum loft of the Driver depends on your club head speed and your angle of descentascent whether the club is travelling downwards or upwards at impact. As I said earlier, see your PGA Professional for some lessons to improve your swing so that you can get close to a zero angle of attack. Now, even the best players in the world have negative angles of attack. The average on the PGA Tour is 1 degree. So lets assume youve made some changes to your swing so that your angle of attack is close to zero. The distance a golf ball flies depends given that atmospheric conditions are the same on the speed of the ball, the launch angle of the ball and the amount of backspin. Optimum Loft of Driver Calculator Below is an image of a Driver approaching the ball with a descending angle. The ball direction launch angle depends on the loft of the club and the club direction. To acheive maximum distance, one needs the combination of maximum ball speed and optiumum launch angle for that speed. The greater the loft of the club, however, the less will be the ball speed higher loft more glancing blow. In terms of the physics of the trajectory of a golf ball, at a given ball speed, there is a optimum launch angle that produces maximum range. Free Download Driver Dell Vostro 220. Below is a graph of the trajectories of balls hit at different launch angles by a golfer whose swing speed is 8. I used my golf ball trajectory model that accurately models the flight of the golf ball. See the Trackman Golf Radar Data page for confirmation. Note that increased launch angle equates to increased carry distance up to a maximum carry of about 1. This is achieved with a launch angle of 3. At greater launch angles, the carry distance decreases. A 4. 1 degree launch, as shown, provides a carry of about 1. In order for a golfer with a swing speed of 8. Swinging with a 3. The collision between the club face and ball is a glancing blow which produces less ball speed, more backspin and less distance this is the main reason why a 6 iron flies much less far than a Driver difference in loft. So, as the Driver loft increases, ball speed decreases and the launch angle increases. Its the optimum combination of ball speed with launch angle that produces the greatest carry. Below is a graph of balls hit by an 8. Drivers note Driver Loft does not equal launch angle. Note that the maximum carry is about 1. Driver loft of 1. In terms of maximizing carry distance, the 8. Note that there is not a big difference in carry distance between the 1. Drivers. The 1. 9 would be more preferable than the 1. Driver will not slice as much. Given that the above distances are carry distances, what about the added roll one getsIf the fairways are soft and lush, there will be little roll and thus a 1. If the fairways are firm, however, a lower lofted club wil produce a lower trajectory. Even though there would be less carry, there would be more roll and thus more total distance. I have produced a spreadsheet which uses my golf ball trajectory model for the purpose of identifying the optimum loft of a Driver for various swing speeds for both carry distance only as well as total distance carry roll. Click on the link below to try it out. If you like it, you can purchase the spreadsheet. Optimum Loft of Driver Calculator What youll find is that higher club head speeds require lower loft Drivers for maximum distance. Optimum Golf Club Driver Length. There is very little difference between a 4. Driver standard and a 4. Driver in terms of club head speed. The extra 2 inches 4. In fact for most golfers, the speed will be less because its more difficult to have proper timing. One of the longest hitters on tour, Bubba Watson feels this way as well Twice Ive been offered a spot in the ReMax World Long Drive Championship, and both times I turned it down. It was nice to be invited, but I thought altering my swing specifically to get more distance for that one event might wreck my game. But I did toy with the idea, and even had Ping build me a driver with 5. The longer shaft, which many people assume is an automatic trick to generating more clubhead speed, didnt work at all. It threw my timing off, and I didnt hit the ball much farther even when I nailed it. I did much better with my standard 4. A shorter shaft 4. And, because the ball is closer to the golfer, its easier to hit the sweet spot on the face. Below are images of the inconsistency of ball impact with the club face for Low Handicap golfers and Mid to High Handicap golfers. Note the greater inconsistency with higher handicap golfers. Low Handicap Golfers. Mid to High Handicap Golfers. What happens when contact is made away form the sweet spot Less distance. Even low handicap golfers have a large portion of their hits towards the toe or heel. And, there is also significant loss in distance if the contact is low or high. So, to maximize your distance off the tee, you need to play with a short shaft Driver. Youll make better contact and likely have greater club head speed as well. As Bubba Watson says,Tiger Woods at his longest used a relatively short 4. Youll find it easier to hit the sweet spot with a shorter shaft, and you can go after tee shots without losing much control. Hot Stix did a study a few years ago using a Robot to determine the effects of hitting high and low off the club face. Here is what they found. Hotstix and Golf magazine Notice that above center hits yield greater distance. This is because the center of the club face on large Drivers is not the sweet spot. The sweet spot on the new, large Drivers is high on the club face, thus you want to make sure you tee your ball higher. You can easily take your current Driver into the Pro Shop and get them to cut it down a little. Itll change the swing weight and thus the feel a little but they can add a little lead tape to the sole of the club head and its feel exactly the same. Or, as an experiment, you can simply choke down on your current Driver an inch or two. Itll change the swing weight a touch. If you find it improves your ball striking, then you can get your shaft cut down or just leave it the same and continue to choke down on the club. Given that you manage a golf course at a significant elevation, just think of the advantages of offering your players this tool which takes the guess work out club selection. What do you currently tell your visiting golfers about how much more club to hit More After 1. Ive developed an accurate computer model.