Angle of attack, or aoa refers to whether your club is traveling more up or. That way, your driver will be just beyond the low point and starting to travel upward again at impact. You can use clubhubs angle of attack parameter to achieve your optimum launch angle and greatest distance. Trackman master chris brook showing a drill how to work on a negative attack angle for irons, and how to get a positive with your driver. Launch angle is 16 degrees and spin rate is really low 1800 average. Kos upward angle of attack is typical of the lpga tour. As a general rule of thumb for standard shots, half of the ball should be above the face of the club head. Then place an alignment stick in the ground about 6 inches behind the ball and six inches above the ground. Attack angle, dynamic loft and how they affect your game.
When talking about hitting drivers, an important statistic to know is your angle of attack. If you want to find out how to hit the ball farther than ever, listen up. What if we could increase the aoa without affecting the dynamic loft. Too much spin with the driver will cost you distance and accuracy. By swinging upward toward the ball, this creates a high launch angle and the low loft reduces the balls spin rate. Tee a ball up so that it is about 34 of an inch above the crown of the driver. This number represents the downward or upward strike on the golf ball at impact. With pga professional michael bolt, trump international golf club, dubai. The up or down movement of the club head at the time of maximum compression. If you look at video or photographs of professional golfers showing their driver setup positions, you will notice that most set up with their hands directly over or just behind the club head and thus ball at address, and the club shaft is either vertical or leaning slightly away from the target.
If your ball placement for your driver hit is located on your left heel or in front right handed golfers you most likely have a positive angle of attack with the exception of golfers that slide their left shoulder forward during the downswing. This is how far pga and lpga tour players hit it with. 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 recent study by trackman revealed that by changing the attack angle on your driver swing from downward to significantly upward, you can boost distance by 23 yards and thats not for a. Does this mean hitting down is better because the best players in the world are slightly negative. Upward angle of attack head of club ascending at impact reduce the loft. The angle of attack with the driver should be ascending, because driver ball contact should happen with the driver on the upswing for maximum distance. This gives him a 11 to degree launch angle which is perfect for his ball speed of just over 200 mph. This drill should help you encourage the club to work on an upward angle.
In this article, i will explain some concepts regarding increasing your angle of attack, or aoa. How to create an upward angle of attack for more driver distance. Everyone wants to hit it farther, and theres a huge correlation between how far the ball goes and angle of attack, or descent. Ive posted several articles about driving the ball more effectively. The lpga tour average attack angle with a driver is 3 degrees up. 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. But an upward attack angle will also tend to launch the ball higher anyway, so the loft up message applies slightly less so here. If you do not have access to a launch monitor i recommend looking at the ball position. And now we know from experience that it is possible to get more driver. When we do a driver optimization using trackman, we look very specifically at launch angle, ball speed and spin rates. Shallow your angle of attack to hit longer drives with pga professional michael bolt, trump international golf club, dubai the attack angle is a measurement of how steep or shallow your clubhead is moving through impact, and it has a direct effect on how much distance you are able to generate with the driver. If you hit down on the ball, it comes off the face lower and requires more driver loft. The head of the driver should hit the golf ball at a slightly upward angle.
Maximizing driver distance using a trackman or flightscope. Sarah stone creating an upward angle of attack with your. 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. Get more driver distance with a positive angle of attack. In this short video, martin chuck of revolution golf shows you how important attack angle is when talking driver distance. Driver loft helps determine this angle, but so does your angle of attack when you swing. Driver attack angle and hands position at impact hi, have only recently come across the subject of hitting up on the ball with the driver ala bubba watson, jb holmes and many others. Its shocking how much distance a player could potentially gain by moving from a negative to positive angle of attack with their driver. The angle of attack with irons should be descending, because irons are designed for golfers to hit down on the ball.
Im routinely asked if the driver swing is the same as the iron swing, which requires a downward angle of attack because the majority of iron. Maximizing driver distance using a trackman or flightscope launch monitor. Below is a 2d representation of a steep angle of attack. Learn how to have a more efficient golf swing and get the most out of your current swing speed.
Lay another alignment stick on the ground 6 inches front of the ball to promote an upward move through impact. 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. It is impractical to strive for an upward aoa with irons, but with the driver, an upward aoa is desirable. With a slightly upward angle of attack rather than downwarda lowerlofted driver can produce better results. Watch pxg national staff member, sarah stone, demonstrate a move that will help you create an upward angle of attack with your pxg driver. If you were watching the cbs coverage from the canadian open today, youll have seen a swing breakdown on rory mcilroy with driver and how he gets positive upward attack angle there was nothing technically wrong with saying to swing like rory, but it was the whole thing once again on someone just telling you what theyre seeing, which you can see for yourself, and not a thing on how. Creating an upward angle of attack with your driver. He is playing a 6 degree lofted driver but his angle of attack is positive 5 to 7 degrees. 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. Your driver should contact the ball on the upswing in order to launch it high into the air. How to max out your driver improve your angle of attack. A downward angle of attack decreases the dynamic loft and lowers the launch angle of the shot for any given static driver loft. The ramp helps you see that you need to get the right shoulder lower than. With a slightly upward angle of attackrather than downwarda lowerlofted driver can produce better results.
Youll also notice that the average pga tour player hits down on their driver attack angle 1. 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. The driver has the shallowest average attack angle of any club in the bag. The term angle of attack is something you may have heard of in relation to a golf swing. Launch angle is determined by the clubs loft angle and the angle of attack at impact. When the ball is hit on the upswing, the shots launch angle is greater than the driver s measured loft because the heads loft is tilted upward by the swing. How to avoid creating too much spin off the tee with your. With todays large 460cc club heads a longer tee is almost always required. In the scenario stated, tuxen said in 20 that the upward strike would travel 28 yards offline compared to the downward strike of traveling 22 yards offline.
This will insure upward angle of attack and good control. In addition, i believe the secret to something is often very simple. The pga tour average attack angle with a driver is 1. 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. How to create an upward angle of attack for more driver. You may be neglecting another important difference between driver shots and iron shots. Golf channel academy lead coach kyle morris explains how to improve your driving swing path for greater distance and accuracy. But if that doesnt fix your problem, you may not have an attack angle issue. If you swing your driver in the manner that i am about to explain and the club is properly fit, you will see a dramatic change in your distance. Stroker angle of attack has nothing to do with the loft of the driver. First factor is the size and height of your golf driver. An upward angle of attack increases the dynamic loft and increases the launch angle of the shot for any given static driver loft.
Get more distance by increasing your golf swing angle of. The attack angle is a measurement of how steep or shallow your clubhead is moving through impact, and it has a direct effect on how much distance you are able to generate with the driver. This angle will generally change and become less steep or downward the longer the club we play. I have been harping on this for a couple of years but this is definitely a way. Swing path insidetoout draw hook more weight towards the toe of the driver. Face and angle of attack effect the ball flight and how the grip is key to success. The attack angle with your driver has an effect on how much distance you are able. The ball launches really low off the face and then climbs, due to. Ive posted several articles about driving the ball more effectively, some of which are linked at the bottom of this post. An angle of attack that is too steep or too shallow can cause poor golf shots. When you are hitting an iron from the fairway, a typical pga tour player will hit slightly downward into the ball.
Work out a reasonably consistent angle of attack, then adjust the loft on your clubface. Ideally the head is staying back, allowing the driver to move in an upward fashion sooner. My average driver swing speed is between 108 and 1 off the tee and ive found that with having to hit a lower ball indoors ive lost a bit of upward attack angle. A positive angle of attack means that the club head is moving upward. In trackman, we try to get the positive angle, which means the club is traveling upward at impact photo 2, instead of downward photo 3. Downward angle of attack head of club descending at impact increase the loft. While this is a singular 3d value, we often split it into horizontal angle of attack or swing path and a vertical component, which we call angle of attack. Shallow your angle of attack to hit longer drives worldwide golf. The answer is yes, you can it has to do with the golf swing angle of attack that you are using to strike the ball. Create a shallow angle of attack with the driver duration. We also see the most rearward head movement with the driver of all the clubs, particularly halfway down into impact.
For example, when hitting a driver, its important to have a positive angle of attack to achieve the most distance. Fitting drivers for attack angle dlance golfdlance golf. Club expert tom wishon says the key to increasing your launch angle is a swing with an upward angle of attack. Angle of attack study the secret sauce now i dont much believe in secrets to something, because i think they are intended to lead us to believe we can get something quickly with little or no effort. It refers to the angle the clubhead approaches the ball, looking at a swing face onwards. Make the most of your adjustable driver the golftec scramble. Conversely, a downward angle of attack, which results in striking the ball on your downswing, will decrease the launch angle substantially.
You can add all of the loft in the world to a driver, but you wont be changing the angle of attack. It is curious to see such a big difference between the two tours with the best players in the world. Gain distance by changing your attack angle youtube. Likewise, if your current shot trajectory is higher to much higher than the majority of other golfers using the same driver loft, you likely have an upward angle of. A pw spins a ball more than an 8i because there is more loft. Want to learn one drill that will teach you all 10 consistency keys of the pros. How to increase your angle of attack adam young golf. Below is a 2d representation of a steep angle of attack we even have positive, or upward angle of attacks. As you can see, fowlers attack angle allows for a shallower swing and he employs an insideto. Bending the left arm though impact can help to facilitate this upward hand path. Aoa is which way the club, as a whole, is moving at impact.