Golf channel academy lead coach kyle morris explains how to improve your driving swing path for greater distance and accuracy. Stroker angle of attack has nothing to do with the loft of the driver. Get more driver distance with a positive angle of attack. In other words, it is whether you are hitting up or down on the ball.
You may have heard the term high launch, low spinwell, it really is what you should be after off the tee box. How to increase your angle of attack adam young golf. When it comes to the science of longer drives, few things have as dramatic an impact on overall distance as launch angle. Optimize driver loft for more distance true fit clubs.
Many factors affect launch angle, including swing speed, the angle of attack how the clubface approaches the golf ball and clubface position at impact. Launch angle is 16 degrees and spin rate is really low 1800 average. Clubhead speed, spin and launch angle all factor in gaining extra. Understanding your launch angle basics for longer drives. If you want to find out how to hit the ball farther than ever, listen up. Conversely, a downward angle of attack, which results in striking the ball on your downswing, will decrease the launch angle substantially. There is an optimum launch angle for maximum distance. The jury is still out as to whether this will make you a better player some say hitting up on the ball more will make you a wilder driver. The problem with this assumption is that it is excluding club head speed from the conversation.
Learn how to have a more efficient golf swing and get the most out of your current swing speed. A player with a 45 positive angle of attack is very good, so with a 10 driver this would produce a 1415 launch angle. This simple answer is the length of the golf course relative to the speed of the players. It is curious to see such a big difference between the two tours with the best players in the world. More driver distance through angle of attack youtube. Knowing this simple math can really help you to fine tune your balls launch angle, and it is now easy for me the teacher to understand exactly what piece of the puzzle is causing your launch angle issues. Now we need to learn how to hit up on the ball with our driver. You can see a player with a 95mph swing could go from hitting drives that carry 207 yards all the way up to 231 yards by significantly increasing their angle of attack. A shallower attack angle will launch the ball higher with a lower spin rate, both of which will help maximise distance. The lpga tour average attack angle with a driver is 3 degrees up. We have been told for years to hit down on the ball with irons. With a perfect launch angle for your swing firmly in place, you can check off this point and move on to the next as you strive to be the best player you can be. Club expert tom wishon says the key to increasing your launch angle is a swing with an upward angle of attack. As a sanity check, we know that a negative angle of attack does not launch the ball into the ground, so launch angle should be primarily determined by the loft at impact 50% face.
Driver loft helps determine this angle, but so does your angle of attack when you swing. We can get any launch angle with any type of attack. The nominal launch angle for a 10 degree lofted club is 8. That combination keeps the ball in the air longer, increasing carry and overall distance. Launch angle has a drastic impact on driving distance correcting a poor one will get you more distance today. But infact it turns out its much more important to optimise drivers for an individuals perfect launch angle and backspin numbers, based on how they attack the ball attack angle and the speed created club speed, and not simply just target higher launch and lower spin. They use a driver which is too long for them to consistently make contact with the sweet spot of the club. How it works to maximize your drives, you need to hit the ball on the upswing, because this increases your launch angle. Everyone who plays golf knows that the driver hits the ball the farthest of any club. Watch this video of a golfer who has plenty of club speed but a poor angle of attack which costs him distance. I look for draws to launch to the right of the target positive and the launch angle to be somewhere between 10. But the golfer who can increase their launch angle with a positive angle of attack will always optimize their launch parameters to a greater extent.
Optimal driver numbers on trackman andrew rice golf. Bubba watson and dustin johnson commonly have an upward. Theres a completely different approach to evaluating your attack angle with your irons compared with your driver. Aoa is which way the club, as a whole, is moving at impact. Does this mean hitting down is better because the best players in the world are slightly negative. Decrease the angle of attack to slightly lower the launch angle. With your driver, you want to positive angle of attack hitting up creating less spin on the ball. If the launch angle is much higher than that, we take a close look at attack angle and see if we need to reduce loft from 10. Youll also notice that the average pga tour player hits down on their driver attack angle 1.
In this short video, martin chuck of revolution golf shows you how important attack angle is when talking driver distance. Club head speed also plays an important factor in attack angle. You can add all of the loft in the world to a driver, but you wont be changing the angle of attack. Physics shows the optimum launch angle depends on ball speed. Dynamic loft, angle of attack and your launch angle golfwrx. A high cg works for a player that hits up on the ball a positive angle of attack. Teaj 5 years ago dynamic loft is actual face angle at impact. In this article, i will explain some concepts regarding. Gain distance by changing your attack angle youtube. With irons, the angle should be negative descending, with driver positive ascending. While a few other variables can come into play, such as attack angle, most golfers who swing slowly need to launch the ball higher and. Optimal driver numbers on trackman may 30, 2012 andrew rice. How this tiny thing can make a huge difference in your next driver.
Angle of attack is the amount a golf club is ascending or descending into the golf ball at impact. The drivers loft should be chosen so that it complements the golfers attack angle. Below you can see how the optimal launch angle, spin rate and landing. A positive attack angle increases launch angle and reduces spin for a given cluhead speed thus creating more carry and roll. Im not sure what loft your current driver is, but assuming its around 9. By learning how to hit up on the ball, or have a positive angle of attack, you will be able to launch the ball on the more optimal trajectory. Fitting drivers for attack angle dlance golfdlance golf. How to create an upward angle of attack for more driver. On the other side of the spectrum, fastswinging golfers would rob themselves of distance if they. Youll increase the launch angle and spin, but not the angle of attack. Launch angle deg carry yards club speed mph 75 80 85 90 95 166 178 187 176 187 197 199 211 223 215 228 239 243 244 256 total yards driver fitting chart. While the statement is generally true, golfers need to match their launch angle and spin rate to their swing speed, as well as their angle of attack. Ive posted several articles about driving the ball more effectively, some of which are linked at the bottom of this post. Optimal driver numbers august 24, 2015 andrew rice.
If you swing over the top with an outside in path, it is likely you would have a downward angle of attack. While a few other variables can come into play, such as attack angle, most golfers who swing slowly need to launch the ball higher and generate more spin. Optimizing your launch angle is an important step to take if you would like to send the ball as far down the fairway as possible with your driver. The attack angle, a measurement of how steep or shallow the clubhead is moving relative to the ground through impact, plays a vital role in how much distance youre able to generate off the tee. In fact, according to research conducted at the ping proving grounds, on a driver the ball will launch 85% toward the face. If your driver head is traveling on a downward trajectory as it approaches the ball, you will launch the ball lower which will rob you of distance. Attack angle is the upward or downward movement of the clubs geometric center at the moment of maximum compression. Attack angle is the angle at which your club is either descending into the ball negative attack angle or ascending into the ball positive attack angle at impact. Launch angle launch angle is the angle the ball takes off at relative to the ground.
Driver launch angleloft instruction and playing tips. An inefficient angle of attack can cause poor golf shots by affecting such things as launch angle, spin rate and energy transfer. With the driver, if your current shot trajectory is lower to much lower than the majority of other golfers using the same driver loft, you likely have a downward angle of attack. The pga tour average attack angle with a driver is 1. The loft of the golf club itself is the single biggest factor, of course. When the ball is hit on the upswing, the shots launch angle is greater than the drivers measured loft because the heads loft is tilted upward by the swing. Flightscope launch monitors as well as a brand new wrist sensor called. An increased spin loft angle translates to an increased spin rate of the ball.
If you do not have access to a launch monitor i recommend looking at the ball position. They have a descending angle of attack which creates a low launch angle and too much backspin. You can use clubhubs angle of attack parameter to achieve your optimum launch angle. The drivers loft should be chosen so that it complements the golfers. To maximize distance with your driver, hitting up on the ball positive attack angle is a must. Shallow your angle of attack to hit longer drives worldwide golf. Most brands talk about high launch, low spin with their latest driver models. Kyle morris driving attack angle tips golf channel.
Increase the loft angle by a couple of degrees and go for a club with a softer tip. Our average golfer will have around a 93 mph swing speed, 5 mph ball speed and a launch angle of. Driver loft does make a difference, but your angle of attack is critical hitting down on the ball is devastating to the average golfers distance. How golf club center of gravity makes a huge difference. Your driver should contact the ball on the upswing in order to launch it high into the air. You want a negative angle of attack hitting down with more spin with your irons. If you hit down on the ball, it comes off the face lower and requires more driver loft. Average golf ball driver spin rate is your rpm high or. Attack angle is a critical component when it comes to maximizing distance with the driver. Why you shouldnt chase high launch, low spin in 2020. Launch angle is determined solely on where the bat meets the ball. The general rule is that shots hit off the ground should have a negative attack angle, and shots hit with your driver should have a positive attack angle in order to maximize distance.
A positive upward attack angle results in a high launchlow spin. But the same club can produce very different launch angles in the hands of different golfers based on the other factors. But the longest drivers hit up on the ball and create a positive attack angle. Increasing the spin loft angle reduces the energy transfer efficiency between the clubface and the ball. Dustin johnson maximizes distance by launching the ball high, but with. Are you losing yards off the tee due to a low launch angle and too much spin. Watch todd kolb use a flightscope golf launch monitor to show how the angle of attack should differ from club to club and shot to shot. Desired launch angle, spin rates change based on driver speed. A negative angle of attack with your irons is positive. Its shocking how much distance a player could potentially gain by moving from a negative to positive angle of attack with their driver. His ball will balloon if he creates too much spin in combination with his positive attack angle, robbing him of both carry distance and roll. This player will often display a clubpath that ranges from neutral to intoout. If the bat hits the top of the ball, the ball will go down and if the bat meets the bottom of the ball it will go up and everything in between are varying degrees of launch angles. Attack angle is the angle between the ground and clubhead at impact.
The total distance of flight produced by initial launch condition. But an upward attack angle will also tend to launch the ball higher anyway, so the loft up message applies slightly less so here. Attack angle, dynamic loft and how they affect your game. This is how far pga and lpga tour players hit it with. Your driver should contact the ball on the upswing. It is not simply the loft angle stamped on the bottom of your clubface.