Not enough spin on drives?

[Gata]

Up until recently I had never really hit balls on a launch monitor so I did not know any of my normal numbers (i.e. ball speed, launch angle, spin, etc...).  I now have access to a Foresight monitor and have been a little surprised at some of the numbers I am consistently seeing.  My drives seem to have surprisingly low spin.  A normally hit drive is getting around 245-260 carry with 15-18 degrees launch and 1000-1400 spin.  My driver is a 440 Taylormade M1 9.5 degree with kuro kage silver stiff shaft.   Obviously you always here you want low spin/high launch to maximize distance, but in my case am I losing distance due to not enough spin?  I know the low end of what I have always heard and seen for ideal driver spin numbers is 1800 and that is for higher swing speeds.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.  

[null]

The 440 m1 is also very low spin head. And your spin is extremely low. With your launch angle, spin around 1800 to 2000 would be better for your overall accuracy and consistency.  Do you know what your ballspeed and or swingspeed numbers are? 

I wouldn't say you are losing max distance, but I'd wager your average distance is lower than it should be due to the low spin 

[Gata]

Ball speed is usually in the 150's.  The monitor doesn't capture swing speed but based on the radar i have, I am in the 100-105 range at the moment.  I did see a little bump in spin by sliding the weight all the way to the back.  I am just wondering if there is something else to be done outside of changing equipment.  

[RickyBobby_PR]

For that ball speed you want to be between 11.5-15* if launch and 2250-2850 spin. The more you get towards 15 and 2250 the more optimized your distance will be.

What is your launch angle?

the spin numbers you are seeing are going to hurt more than help. Your options would be to 1) loft up and see if it improves 2) get a larger head like 460 m1 or a more spinnier head I.e. m2 3) change shafts to a softer tip.

[TR1PTIK]

25 minutes ago, Gata said:

Ball speed is usually in the 150's.  The monitor doesn't capture swing speed but based on the radar i have, I am in the 100-105 range at the moment.  I did see a little bump in spin by sliding the weight all the way to the back.  I am just wondering if there is something else to be done outside of changing equipment.  

What monitor are you using? Even the Mevo is capable of capturing club speed. 

I'd agree with @jlukes though. You might see a couple of good long bombs during a round, but you're likely hurting your overall average as well as possibly sacrificing playability.

What does your ball flight look like out on the course? Do you find the fairway often? Do you see a large variance in driving distance from hole to hole? I ask these questions because before you go chasing a rabbit based on some intriguing launch monitor numbers, you should weigh whether or not it's something worth chasing. If you have a good tee ball and the means to experiment without selling your current driver then perhaps it'd be worth the experiment, but I would caution against selling what you have in hopes of something better. If, what you have now is working on the course anyway.

[Gata]

The monitor is the Foresight GC2 that PGA TOUR Superstore uses in their bays.

My launch angle consistently is in the 16-18 degree range, but the ball flight doesn’t seem to baloon.

Obviously excluding total mishits, I tend to have a slight fade that is able to find the fairway.  I am more than satisfied with a consistent down the middle drive that rolls out to 275, I am just wondering if there are tweaks to what I am currently doing to maximize what I have. I do tend to hit the ball on the upper half of the face. Would teeing it up lower and hitting closer to the center of the face as opposed to slightly above bring launch lower and spin higher? 

[juspoole]

Seems like overall good numbers, but as others have said you really need that spin a bit higher to really be able to control the ball a bit more and avoid knuckle balls.  It does seem like your ball speed is good so contact must be good  - kudos to your on that.  I thought the Kuro Kage was supposed to be mid spin, but I'm sure there are other combos out there to help you get optimized.  Best of luck!

[Gata]

The numbers just seemed a little out of whack to me when I first saw them. I plan on going through a proper fitting in the near future where hopefully I will have an optimized setup. Thanks for everyone chiming in. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, Gata said:

The monitor is the Foresight GC2 that PGA TOUR Superstore uses in their bays.

My launch angle consistently is in the 16-18 degree range, but the ball flight doesn’t seem to baloon.

Obviously excluding total mishits, I tend to have a slight fade that is able to find the fairway.  I am more than satisfied with a consistent down the middle drive that rolls out to 275, I am just wondering if there are tweaks to what I am currently doing to maximize what I have. I do tend to hit the ball on the upper half of the face. Would teeing it up lower and hitting closer to the center of the face as opposed to slightly above bring launch lower and spin higher? 

What is aoa? Where is your contact on the face?

[Kor.A.Door]

Are you a low ball hitter, is your normal ball flight  with all your clubs low or high. I tend to hit the ball high, so I try to keep the loft on my driver down, I think that has to do with angle of attack. It could be that your angle of attack is causing a low launch, it could be as simple as adding loft to the driver. Meaning, if your set at 9.5° And your AoA brings the club in at 7°, that could be the cause of the lower spin rates, loft it up to 10.5 and that could be the difference of getting to the optimal spin numbers. I would just play around with it on the range and see if you can get those numbers up with your current driver. If not, then check something newer to see if that helps. 

[Thin2win]

4 hours ago, Gata said:

Up until recently I had never really hit balls on a launch monitor so I did not know any of my normal numbers (i.e. ball speed, launch angle, spin, etc...).  I now have access to a Foresight monitor and have been a little surprised at some of the numbers I am consistently seeing.  My drives seem to have surprisingly low spin.  A normally hit drive is getting around 245-260 carry with 15-18 degrees launch and 1000-1400 spin.  My driver is a 440 Taylormade M1 9.5 degree with kuro kage silver stiff shaft.   Obviously you always here you want low spin/high launch to maximize distance, but in my case am I losing distance due to not enough spin?  I know the low end of what I have always heard and seen for ideal driver spin numbers is 1800 and that is for higher swing speeds.  Any thoughts would be appreciated.  

I'll throw my 2 pennies in on this one as I have the same ball flight characteristics.

1st, if you are hitting fairways, you are good to go. And if you are playing dry courses with lots of roll out, you are in great shape. If you are on wet courses with no roll... you could do better.

I struggle to get any driver over 2k spin. But I wish I could. It looks like you have about the same launch angle I have, which means you are hitting with a fairly positive AoA.  If you are purely looking for the longest drives possible, a swing speed of 100mph would go for 17* launch with 1700 rpm of backspin. If you take the launch angle down 1, you add 100rpm to back spin to keep up maximum distances. But a 16* launch with 1800rpm doesn't go quite as far as a 17/1700 combo. Similarly a 18/1600 combo also doesn't go as far.

Often you hear/see that the ideal is about  12/2300.  The reason for that is that there is enough backspin to keep mishits in check and not have diving hooks or swooping slices. That 17/1700 number gives the best theoretical distance, but it can be very unplayable due to lack of stability.

 

With you at the 16.5/1200 range...  yeah, you are losing some on distance on good hits, but mostly unless you are a very straight hitter, you are missing a lot of fairways and losing a lot of distance on any mishit. 

 

That 440 head is a low spin machine, and that shaft is also geared at low spin. If you love the clubhead and want to try some different shafts, I'd recommend something with a much softer tip section than what you are using, something like the Fuji Speeder IV, or Fuji Pro 2. that could help with a few hundred rpm, but switching club heads would probably give you the most improvement for control. 

 

Cheers and best of luck. 

[RickyBobby_PR]

59 minutes ago, Thin2win said:

I'll throw my 2 pennies in on this one as I have the same ball flight characteristics.

1st, if you are hitting fairways, you are good to go. And if you are playing dry courses with lots of roll out, you are in great shape. If you are on wet courses with no roll... you could do better.

I struggle to get any driver over 2k spin. But I wish I could. It looks like you have about the same launch angle I have, which means you are hitting with a fairly positive AoA.  If you are purely looking for the longest drives possible, a swing speed of 100mph would go for 17* launch with 1700 rpm of backspin. If you take the launch angle down 1, you add 100rpm to back spin to keep up maximum distances. But a 16* launch with 1800rpm doesn't go quite as far as a 17/1700 combo. Similarly a 18/1600 combo also doesn't go as far.

Often you hear/see that the ideal is about  12/2300.  The reason for that is that there is enough backspin to keep mishits in check and not have diving hooks or swooping slices. That 17/1700 number gives the best theoretical distance, but it can be very unplayable due to lack of stability.

 

With you at the 16.5/1200 range...  yeah, you are losing some on distance on good hits, but mostly unless you are a very straight hitter, you are missing a lot of fairways and losing a lot of distance on any mishit. 

 

That 440 head is a low spin machine, and that shaft is also geared at low spin. If you love the clubhead and want to try some different shafts, I'd recommend something with a much softer tip section than what you are using, something like the Fuji Speeder IV, or Fuji Pro 2. that could help with a few hundred rpm, but switching club heads would probably give you the most improvement for control. 

 

Cheers and best of luck. 

17/1700 is a marketing campaign that Tm pushed an they no longer try to achieve that. They don’t even have 17* launch for anything above ball speeds in the 120-130 range.

theres optimal condistuins for every range of ball speed and none of them are 17/1700

[TR1PTIK]

5 hours ago, Gata said:

The monitor is the Foresight GC2 that PGA TOUR Superstore uses in their bays.

My launch angle consistently is in the 16-18 degree range, but the ball flight doesn’t seem to baloon.

Obviously excluding total mishits, I tend to have a slight fade that is able to find the fairway.  I am more than satisfied with a consistent down the middle drive that rolls out to 275, I am just wondering if there are tweaks to what I am currently doing to maximize what I have. I do tend to hit the ball on the upper half of the face. Would teeing it up lower and hitting closer to the center of the face as opposed to slightly above bring launch lower and spin higher? 

If it's in the upper portion of the upper half, that could easily explain the launch and spin numbers. A little lower would certainly bring spin up, though I wouldn't worry about trying to hit geometrical center. Most drivers provide the best numbers somewhere a little north of the equator line - at least in my experience. 

[Thin2win]

1 hour ago, RickyBobby_PR said:

17/1700 is a marketing campaign that Tm pushed an they no longer try to achieve that. They don’t even have 17* launch for anything above ball speeds in the 120-130 range.

theres optimal condistuins for every range of ball speed and none of them are 17/1700

There are a few ball flight modeling programs on the internet, and 17/1700 calculated out to be ideal for maximum distance with a "normal rollout". 

 

The math is the math, TM might have seized on it once, but in a perfect world in which we all hit straight down the line with a square club face, 17/1700 would produce the best distances. It just doesn't produce much forgiveness and isn't a number that works in the real world. I wouldn't recommend it and I can see why TM has since dropped that sales pitch, but for pure distance, that is the winning formula for a 100 mph swing. 

 

I think to the OP's question, his spin down in the sub 1400 range can cause some real distance losses on mishits. I was just trying to add some math because I like it. 

[Thin2win]

3 minutes ago, TR1PTIK said:

That could easily explain the launch and spin numbers. A little lower would certainly bring spin up, though I wouldn't worry about trying to hit geometrical center. Most drivers provide the best numbers somewhere a little north of the equator line - at least in my experience.

Teeing lower might help. The problem that you might see with that is that it will also drop your launch angle. 

 

So you might get more spin, but it will come out much lower. It may or may not be worth the sacrifice. 

Also, since it will look all weird like, your ball strike might suffer. 

Worth a try on the launch monitor. 

[hckymeyer]

Here's the flightscope trajectory optimizer...

https://flightscope.com/products/trajectory-optimizer/

You can put in your parameters and then play around with variables (like adding more spin) and see what happens.  Like you already mentioned putting the weight to the back in the 440 is a good start.

[RickyBobby_PR]

1 hour ago, Thin2win said:

There are a few ball flight modeling programs on the internet, and 17/1700 calculated out to be ideal for maximum distance with a "normal rollout". 

 

The math is the math, TM might have seized on it once, but in a perfect world in which we all hit straight down the line with a square club face, 17/1700 would produce the best distances. It just doesn't produce much forgiveness and isn't a number that works in the real world. I wouldn't recommend it and I can see why TM has since dropped that sales pitch, but for pure distance, that is the winning formula for a 100 mph swing. 

 

I think to the OP's question, his spin down in the sub 1400 range can cause some real distance losses on mishits. I was just trying to add some math because I like it. 

Op is pretty much at those numbers. Math is math but what’s important is what can play on the course on a consistent basis. Computer models are fun but like with so many things they   rarely factor in human factor.

 

[Kwoodfield]

1k is wayyyy too low. You need to double that. It will help with accuracy and efficiency as well as picking up a little distance


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[bens197]

What golf ball are you using on your LM and which one are you playing during your rounds?


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