Instruction
Hit it farther with the right attack angle
If you have ever had a lesson or a club fitting using a launch monitor, you have heard the term “angle of attack.” Simply put, angle of attack is a measurement of how much a golfer is hitting up or down on the ball at impact.
With different clubs and under different situations, golfers can utilize a positive or upward angle of attack, one that is more level, or even a negative or downward angle of attack. With the shortest clubs, a golfer’s AoA tends to be more downward. A golfer’s middle clubs are not quite as downward (but still down), and their long irons, hybrids and fairway woods are almost level (but still down). The the AoA with a driver should be more upward, however, for maximum benefit. As always, there are many situations where these AoA numbers can be altered for different effects, but the general outline I just described is usually the way it works.
Most of the time, amateurs have an AoA that is too downward with the driver. This can be caused by a faulty set up, poor swing path or an improper pivot motion through impact. If you possess some or all of the swing flaws above then your driver will have a launch angle that is too low. This generally results in flat, low drives that rely more on roll than carry to achieve distance. Sometimes this can be a good thing, such as when golfers are playing in heavy winds or when the ground is very hard, but with the agronomy on most golf courses today, golfers need to fly their drives as far as possible to achieve maximum distance.
In this article, I am going to explain how a golfer’s set up can influence AoA so that they can optimize their driver’s ball flight ad overall distance.
How to raise your AoA
As stated, most amateurs tend to hit too much down on the golf ball causing low ball flight that usually results in decreased distances. If this describes your game, then follow the changes below and your angle of attack will change from too much down to more of an ascending hit. Life off the tee will be much better!
- Tee the ball up as high as possible.
- Play the ball more forward in your stance.
- Tilt your spine away from the target slightly at address.
Whenever a golfer tees the ball up higher, they will automatically raise their angle of attack because it’s much easier to hit up on the ball when it is teed in this manner. Hence, a lower tee height will cause the ball to come out flatter — more on that later.
Playing the ball more forward in your stance tends to raise your AoA because the swing bottom is just under the left shoulder, and if you play the ball in front of your left shoulder you will hit more up as well.
Finally, tilting your spine away from the target at address alters the low point of your swing and causes you to hit more “up” on the ball, ensuring a higher AoA.
Now let’s examine the data on the Trackman showing a ball hit with these setup changes with a sample student.
- You can see that the attack angle is now 5.1 up (the average amateur needs at least 3 to 4 degrees up!).
- The launch angle was 17.2 degrees, which is not too bad for a ball speed of 147 mph.
- The dynamic loft of this shot was 18.8 degrees, giving us a carry distance of 255 yards.
- You can finally see that the landing angle is 41.5 degrees, which shows this ball is landing at just under a 45 degree angle. That’s good for roll.
These simple set-up changes caused the ball to launch higher and carry farther; not bad for this level of player. Now let’s examine the opposite end of the spectrum.
How to lower your AoA
If you are one of the rare golfers who tend to hit too “up” on the ball, or you want to hit the ball flatter due to wind and/or course conditions, then follow these simple setup changes and your angle of attack will be slightly more downward.
- Tee the ball slightly lower — you should only see half the ball above the face of the driver at most.
- Move the ball back in your stance slightly so that it is more centered (you will have to experiment with this option — there is no magical ball position, just the one that works for you).
- Center the spine at address so that you are more “over the top of the ball at address.”
By lowering the ball’s tee height, you will instantly lower your AoA and thus flatten your ball’s flight — this is great for hitting tee shots into the wind or for maximum driver control.
Whenever you move the ball back in your stance, you place the ball behind your forward shoulder (which marks the low point of the swing). This new position will decrease your AoA. As stated earlier, this should be a very minor change. Putting the ball too far back in your stance at address with the driver can cause major issues with distance and control if you overcook it!
By centering the spine at address, you place the eyes directly over the top of the ball, not behind it, and this makes people hit more down on the ball.
Now let’s examine the data on the Trackman showing a ball hit with these setup changes with a sample student:
- You can see that the attack angle is now 3.0 down.
- The launch angle was 4.7 degrees, which causes the ball to come out much flatter than usual.
- The dynamic loft of this shot was 6.7 degrees, giving us a carry distance of 202 yards.
- When the ball comes out flatter, you will see that the landing angle is also decreased at 17.2 degrees — this causes the ball to roll a mile.
These simple setup changes caused the ball to launch much lower, but as you can see distance is usually compromised.
Remember, you cannot have an angle of attack that is too high, nor can you have one that is too low — both compromise your ability to control the ball and gain the distance you require to play better. Take your time and experiment with these changes — remember a little change in your setup goes a LONG way in influencing your angle of attack!
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Some call the image on the left laid off, but if you are hitting a fade, this could be a perfect backswing for it! Same for across the line for a draw! Stop racking your brain with perceived mistakes and simply match backswing to shot shape!
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My golf learning began with this simple fact – if you don’t have a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, it is practically impossible for your body to execute a fundamentally sound golf swing. I’m still a big believer that the golf swing is much easier to execute if you begin with the proper hold on the club.
As you might imagine, I come into contact with hundreds of golfers of all skill levels. And it is very rare to see a good player with a bad hold on the golf club. There are some exceptions, for sure, but they are very few and very far between, and they typically have beat so many balls with their poor grip that they’ve found a way to work around it.
The reality of biophysics is that the body moves only in certain ways – and the particulars of the way you hold the golf club can totally prevent a sound swing motion that allows the club to release properly through the impact zone. The wonderful thing is that anyone can learn how to put a fundamentally sound hold on the golf club, and you can practice it anywhere your hands are not otherwise engaged, like watching TV or just sitting and relaxing.
Whether you prefer an overlap, interlock or full-finger (not baseball!) grip on the club, the same fundamentals apply. Here are the major grip faults I see most often, in the order of the frequency:
Mis-aligned hands
By this I mean that the palms of the two hands are not parallel to each other. Too many golfers have a weak left hand and strong right, or vice versa. The easiest way to learn how to hold the club with your palms aligned properly is to grip a plain wooden ruler or yardstick. It forces the hands to align properly and shows you how that feels. If you grip and re-grip a yardstick several times, then grip a club, you’ll see that the learning curve is almost immediate.
The position of the grip in the upper/left hand
I also observe many golfers who have the butt of the grip too far into the heel pad of the upper hand (the left hand for right-handed players). It’s amazing how much easier it is to release the club through the ball if even 1/4-1/2″ of the butt is beyond the left heel pad. Try this yourself to see what I mean. Swing the club freely with just your left hand and notice the difference in its release from when you hold it at the end of the grip, versus gripping down even a half inch.
To help you really understand how this works, go to the range and hit shots with your five-iron gripped down a full inch to make the club the same length as your seven-iron. You will probably see an amazing shot shape difference, and likely not see as much distance loss as you would expect.
Too much lower (right) hand on the club
It seems like almost all golfers of 8-10 handicap or higher have the club too far into the palm of the lower hand, because that feels “good” if you are trying to control the path of the clubhead to the ball. But the golf swing is not an effort to hit at the ball – it is a swing of the club. The proper hold on the club has the grip underneath the pad at the base of the fingers. This will likely feel “weak” to you — like you cannot control the club like that. EXACTLY. You should not be trying to control the club with your lower/master hand.
Gripping too tightly
Nearly all golfers hold the club too tightly, which tenses up the forearms and prevents a proper release of the club through impact. In order for the club to move back and through properly, you must feel that the club is controlled by the last three fingers of the upper hand, and the middle two fingers of the lower hand. If you engage your thumbs and forefingers in “holding” the club, the result will almost always be a grip that is too tight. Try this for yourself. Hold the club in your upper hand only, and squeeze firmly with just the last three fingers, with the forefinger and thumb off the club entirely. You have good control, but your forearms are not tense. Then begin to squeeze down with your thumb and forefinger and observe the tensing of the entire forearm. This is the way we are made, so the key to preventing tenseness in the arms is to hold the club very lightly with the “pinchers” — the thumbs and forefingers.
So, those are what I believe are the four fundamentals of a good grip. Anyone can learn them in their home or office very quickly. There is no easier way to improve your ball striking consistency and add distance than giving more attention to the way you hold the golf club.
More from the Wedge Guy
- The Wedge Guy: Golf mastery begins with your wedge game
- The Wedge Guy: Why golf is 20 times harder than brain surgery
- The Wedge Guy: Musings on the golf ball rollback
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Not the dreaded headcover under the armpit drill! As if your body is defective and can’t function by itself! Have you seen how incredible the human machine is with all the incredible feats of agility all kinds of athletes are accomplishing? You think your body is so defective (the good Lord is laughing his head off at you) that it needs a headcover tucked under the armpit so you can swing like T-Rex?
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petie3_2
Apr 14, 2015 at 12:01 am
It’s not where the first shot lands, it’s where the second shot lands that’s important. Many times a longer drive just means it’s farther OB. Straight is good.
jt
Jul 1, 2014 at 11:24 pm
I really have a problem getting proper backspin with my driver. I used a launch monitor today and on average my Launch Angle is 14 deg, which I think is ok.
However my backspin rate is about 1000 rpm on average after taking about 10 swings. My driver is a Ping G15 10.5 and I swing about 90-95mph.
I have always been told I should hit ball on an upswing. Do I need to start hitting down on the ball?
Right now I am forced to use my 3 wood on the course. My 3 wood has about 2200 rpm of backspin.
For driver, I tee it up where half the ball is above my clubface, so it should be a fairly typical tee height.
Any help would be appreciated, this low spin rate is baffling me.
paul
Apr 21, 2014 at 2:30 pm
Good article. I used to practice hitting my 3 wood in the winter by painting a little ball on a rug in my garage. That got me doing very well with my woods in the spring. Problem was I always hit low shots with my driver now. If I put the ball higher I just tend to hit higher on the face.
Joe Merlin, PGA
Jul 14, 2013 at 11:47 am
Tom,
It’s good to see the range at Promontory is getting some use. I worked there in 2007 for a summer internship and enjoyed it. Great post, when using technology for analyzing golf swings, do you show your students the data or do you find doing so confuses them? Any other interesting thoughts you may have on this topic would definitely be welcomed.
Best,
Joe
Matthew McFarland
Jul 4, 2013 at 11:34 pm
This article expresses some valuable points about the effect of AoA on driver distance. I find it to be the most common factor when dealing with amateur players who suffer from a lack of driver distance. However, I feel that this article is incomplete. You can’t discuss the AoA without explaining the effect of spin rate, and more importantly, total distance.
There is actually very little difference in the distance in the two drives illustrated here. Most of the time a higher AoA proves to be more beneficial in maximizing driver distance, in this example, the shot where the student hit down on the ball proved to be the better outcome. It’s important to understand how altering the AoA changes the balls spin rate. The effect of AoA is mainly factored in to the final outcome of a drive by its impact on the ball’s spin rate.
– A lower AoA will cause a higher spin rate.
– The lower the spin rate, the less friction the ball will create when it makes contact with it’s landing surface and the further it will travel along it’s path. A low spin rate will also leave the balls flight path more vulnerable to becoming impacted by the wind.
-A smoother surface, such as the fairway, will create less friction on the ball than a rougher surface, such as…well you know where that is.
Imagine these two drives were hit on a course.
If the fairway runs 20 yards right of target:
The first drive would likely come to rest very near it’s landing point 255 yards away, in a penalized lie because it was 45 yards to the right. Meanwhile the second drive lands in the fairway 202 out and most likely rolls out to the 240 range before coming to rest in the rough.
If the fairway runs 40 yards right of target:
The first drive lands into the rough at a slightly high angle and gets maybe 10 yards of roll to 265. The second drive, landing 13 yards right, will most likely run its full path in the fairway. At 152mph it will have a very good chance of exceeding 265, while remaining in the fairway.
Therefore when trying to maximize driver distance, you must evaluate the potential total distance of a shot. A golfer needs to understand the relationship the spin rate has on total distance, so they can properly utilize a high and low AoA.
B MAC
Jun 27, 2013 at 8:40 am
I play off 5 and hit the ball really low I bought a nike covert driver and had to set it to 12.5 degrees and still hit it low so I left it at home after reading this I used your tips for Raising your AOA and hit it really high might even have to drop it back down !! Thankyou so much
Bart carter
Jun 26, 2013 at 4:44 pm
Making contact with the ball is now a major achievment, with any club in the bag. Forget the A.O.A.
Damon
Jun 25, 2013 at 12:44 am
Great article Tom. One thing I will touch on that you mentioned is that attempting to achieve a high AoA often leads many golfers to have difficulty making consistent center-face contact. Hitting up on the ball only yields more distance if sweet spot contact isn’t compromised. I’ve found steep attack angles usually correspond with over-the-top moves and when a golfer gets the path, sequence and transition working better the AoA naturally improves.