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Dan Oct 29, 2017
Ross, I have a question about driver loft. I bought a Titleist driver and I can adjust the loft on it. I was thinking that I might get a little more distance so I increased the loft. However, I can’t seem to hit the ball as solid with the slightly higher loft. It feels like the ball “slides”off the face, rather than hitting flush or on the screws so to speak. I’ll adjust the height of the tee and maybe practice with it a little more. If I don’t get better results I’ll go back to the lower setting. Is this typical, of increasing the loft? Do you have any ideas?Ross Oct 30, 2017
Hi Dan
It is all about angles. You want to find your ideal launch angle. This is one reason I teach playing the ball out in front of the front foot, so you’ll already be hitting up (or ascending into) the ball. This gets the “angle of attack” into the ball, after the arc has bottomed out and the club face is traveling up again*.Now for the tough technical stuff… “Effective Loft”. If you have a Driver with “X” loft and you hit the ball before the club head has reached the bottom of the swing arc, you’ll be de-lofting or reducing the loft (causes lower flight). Now, if you play the ball like I teach, the effective loft at impact is “X+” because the club face has more loft as it is ascending… SO, you may need to be changing the loft to “less” depending on where you’re playing the ball. Another thing that happens is when the club face loft is optimized, you’ll be catching the ball on the upswing which will turn into roll later when the ball lands vs. too much loft kind of slipping under the ball adding backspin and not much roll. Hope this helps.
* This assumes you’ve kept the club face square through impact and have not flipped (which can ruin everything).
Dan Oct 30, 2017
Ross, I play the ball in front of my front foot i.e. the Ross method. I’m not going to change that. The idea of the ball going higher with more distance is tantalizing. But out here in the windy New Mexico desert a high flying ball is not as consistent as the lower trajectory with more roll. I think I will stick with the lower trajectory and more roll. Thanks for the response.
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