Attack Angle

[LeftyHawk]

The past few months I've been hitting on a Track man Sim. Mostly range stuff trying to zero in on yardage. I do work on my driver during those sessions which is why this question. 

I'm pretty consistent at -3 degrees which puts the bottom of the arc above 1"past the ball. I know if I can get the angle to +4 degrees I can add probably 30 plus yards to my drive.

So I'm trying to understand what I can try/do to get my angle of attack up. I've tried moving the ball (no change on attack) so I'm wondering now how much shaft stiffness plays into the mix?

I am planning a driver fitting later in March, im just trying to understand what the variables are?

Thanks, 

Chris

[tchat07]

I think this is a great question and am interested to hear the answer. Everywhere I look talks about lower launch angles then I currently deliver so would love to see if their is something I could do to improve that.

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[RickyBobby_PR]

https://www.andrewricegolf.com/andrew-rice-golf/2017/10/hitting-up-on-the-driver
 

 

[Kenny B]

Obviously, if you want to hit up on the ball more, you have to shallow the club.  There are many online instructors with videos on how to do this.  

One thing you might try is find a grassy slope and position a ball on an upslope.  Hit ball with driver off the grass.  You have to shallow the club or you will hit into the hill.  This will give you a feeling of what shallowing feels like.

I'm guessing that you don't tee the ball up very high.  I would suggest using an old driver, and tee the ball up as high as you can.  Find some long tees.  I suspect with your angle of attack, you could go right under the ball.  Hello sky marks!  However, you will adjust and as you learn the feel of a flatter swing, you will soon be hitting up on the ball.

Hope this helps.  I'm just the opposite; I have a flat swing and hit up about 5º, maybe a tad more.  I'm trying to bring it down a little.

[RickyBobby_PR]

10 hours ago, Kenny B said:

Hope this helps.  I'm just the opposite; I have a flat swing and hit up about 5º, maybe a tad more.  I'm trying to bring it down a little.

Something similar to my swing. My compensation for where I’m at at the top has been to get stuck and come to far from the inside and end up in the plus 4-5* range

[tony@CIC]

10 hours ago, Kenny B said:

One thing you might try is find a grassy slope and position a ball on an upslope.  Hit ball with driver off the grass.  

 

Exactly what my instructor told me to do - position yourself with the driver as if you had an uphill lie. In my case (a lefty) I had to drop my left shoulder quite a bit. 

[DaveP043]

I don't claim to know my current numbers, so take this with a grain of salt.  When I want to hit my driver a little higher, without making any real big changes, I simply try to feel like I'm bumping my lead hip towards the target at address.  Not much, like an inch or two.  I believe that probably gives me a little more secondary tilt, my spine is inclined a little bit away from the target, my chest a little further "behind" the ball.  If I can simply maintain that spine angle, I've changed the center of my swing slightly, which has to produce a slightly more upward angle of attack.  

[cnosil]

First thing you probably will need to realize is that swinging up will change other aspects of your swing.    As others have said,  can't be too steep coming into the ball.   The simplest drill that I found was put a driver cover about a grip length in front of the ball and when swinging avoid hitting the cover.  

 

[Micah T]

I’ve gone from -1.5 to +3 over the winter using my free trackman sessions from CC. 3 things I’ve been working on:

1) tee it higher: much higher than I used to.
2) Move the ball forward in my stance: a lot more forward, like past my big toe where it used to be inside of my heel.
3) Move my spine angle about 10 degrees to the right: what some people call a K stack.

It added 28.4 yards to my avg drive.

The downside?

1) it has moved my swing path left: say 4 degrees left from -2.4 to pushing -7 at times. This makes my shape shot a cut, and my miss a straight left pull if my face matches my path.
2) Loss of swing speed: my avg swing is only 112 now, as opposed to 117 with my older swing.
3) playability: I used to play a squeezy little cut fade that would stay around the fairway: now I club down to my 3 wood if there’s any danger on the right side.
4)Feel: I just don’t feel like I’ve caught the ball all that squarely, even when I see my ball speed pushing 169 and carrying the ball 300. Just doesn’t feel solid...
Lots of unintended side effects/consequences for me from focusing on AOA...
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[HardcoreLooper]

14 hours ago, tony@CIC said:

Exactly what my instructor told me to do - position yourself with the driver as if you had an uphill lie. In my case (a lefty) I had to drop my left shoulder quite a bit. 

My daughter's instructor taught her something similar.  He had her lean to the right and touch her right knee.  It's an over-exaggeration, but it works.