Reducing Driver spin

[tony@CIC]

One of my goals this year is reducing the ball spin off of my driver. AOA is too steep - at my last fitting a few weeks ago, the fitter mentioned I was hitting down on my driver, like i would my irons. Spin rate during that session was between 3600 - 4400. This is obviously having an affect on my carry distance. I have a driver lesson coming up early June, but in the meantime I've been doing some searching and came across this video. I like the exercise of sweeping the ground behind the back foot - about 5 min into the video. 

 

[Rich man]

Great drill. Place empty ball sleeve 1 grip length ahead of a teed ball. Miss the sleeve. Would also spray the driver face with foot spray to see where you are making contact. 

[Dave Tutelman]

Be careful how you go about this. A negative AoA with a driver often (usually?) results in a low launch angle. Launch angle and spin are closely related in what they do to distance. Yeah, I know the folklore that says: "Lower spin and higher launch for more distance." Well, a key word there is AND! If you have a low launch and you reduce spin without increasing the launch, you will LOSE distance, not gain. You have to do both to increase distance -- really, even just preserve distance.

Think of it this way.

• Launch angle give the ball a higher flight initially. This will keep it in the air longer.
• Spin keeps the ball in the air longer, because of aerodynamic lift.
• There is an ideal balance between launch angle and spin. For a given ball speed and launch angle, there is an ideal spin. For a given ball speed and spin, there is an ideal launch angle. Why is speed involved? Because lift varies as the square of speed, so it has to be part of the equation.

What that says is that, if you have a low launch angle, the first thing you need to do is raise the launch angle, not reduce the spin. If you can get a higher launch angle, then too much spin will cause ballooning and reduce distance. But if you have too low a launch angle, you need the spin to keep the ball in the air.

If you're interested in a more rigorous treatment of this, I have written an article which resides on my web site.

[tony@CIC]

12 minutes ago, Rich man said:

Great drill. Place empty ball sleeve 1 grip length ahead of a teed ball. Miss the sleeve. Would also spray the driver face with foot spray to see where you are making contact. 

I'll have to give that a try as well.

[RickyBobby_PR]

40 minutes ago, tony@CIC said:

I'll have to give that a try as well.

Chris Ryan is good and I like his content and how he goes about explaining things. Stick with his videos and drills

[RollingGreens]

I went through this last year, I found a simple solution @tony@CIC was to place my head over down where my tee would be placed. Swinging over the head over got me to a positive attack angle. Plus it was more incentive not to mess my head cover up 

[tony@CIC]

17 hours ago, Dave Tutelman said:

Be careful how you go about this. A negative AoA with a driver often (usually?) results in a low launch angle. Launch angle and spin are closely related in what they do to distance. Yeah, I know the folklore that says: "Lower spin and higher launch for more distance." Well, a key word there is AND! If you have a low launch and you reduce spin without increasing the launch, you will LOSE distance, not gain. You have to do both to increase distance -- really, even just preserve distance.

Think of it this way.

• Launch angle give the ball a higher flight initially. This will keep it in the air longer.
• Spin keeps the ball in the air longer, because of aerodynamic lift.
• There is an ideal balance between launch angle and spin. For a given ball speed and launch angle, there is an ideal spin. For a given ball speed and spin, there is an ideal launch angle. Why is speed involved? Because lift varies as the square of speed, so it has to be part of the equation.

What that says is that, if you have a low launch angle, the first thing you need to do is raise the launch angle, not reduce the spin. If you can get a higher launch angle, then too much spin will cause ballooning and reduce distance. But if you have too low a launch angle, you need the spin to keep the ball in the air.

If you're interested in a more rigorous treatment of this, I have written an article which resides on my web site.

Thanks - my issue is high launch angle - on average about 6*

[ejgaudette]

Just now, tony@CIC said:

Thanks - my issue is high launch angle - on average about 6*

6 degrees sounds low, did you mean 16 by chance. Either way good luck with the changes as it does seem like hitting up on the ball will help get better launch conditions and help get distance without having to swing any faster. Personally I find tilting the shoulders at set up gets me in a good place for impact, but find whatever works best for you.

[Rookie177]

One small thing that helped my spin and AoA was changing my club placement in relation to ball position. I used to setup with the ball off my front toe and the club right behind the ball. I recently switched to a setup where the ball is in the same location, but I rest my club one club-heads length back from the ball (~3 inches).  I focus on the location of the club face as if that was the point of contact. This brought the lower apex of my swing arc behind the ball and my AoA increased significantly. 

I only use this method with the driver. 

[JCbogey]

 While I like that drill in the video I think you could benefit quicker from adjusting your set up by having your trail shoulder (right if righty) lower than your front shoulder by about 6", tee the ball extra high when practicing. This will help with the angle of attack to the positive and ball contact center or high on the face which will lower spin to a more manageable number.  After you get that moving in the right direction I think you can delve into more complex drills. Good luck.

[juspoole]

I've got the same issue.  I recently came across the below channel and have really enjoyed some of the content I've watched so far.  I'm trying my best to really stay behind the ball all the way through impact and feel like I'm getting the driver lower earlier on the downswing so that I can hit up on it.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClOp9ASmFYATO1zFfpB7QlA