Angle of Attack – Driver Edition
Hi again, this is Professional Golfer and Head Coach at Precision Golf, Raymond Hawkins.
The previous video I did was focusing on the angle of attack for irons which is really, really important for a consistent strike. Furthermore, really important for the driver, is the angle of attack again. We are looking in the opposite direction, with the irons you want to go down and with the driver, we actually want the club to go up.
A really simple drill that will help all amateurs, lowering their spin rate with the driver and helping them to get the ball going further, especially into the wind.
Here’s my Stealth 2 plus Driver from Taylormade that I am going to use for demonstration today. The feeling for me, number 1, making sure the ball is a little further forward in our stance. The second would be, to feel like my shoulders are really closed on set up, almost as if they are pointing to the right at about 1 o’clock. This is so the club can get a little more rounded and work a little more up through the thru swing, which produces an action for the spin rate to go forward, whereas hitting down on it, where the spin rate goes up.
So what we are going to do is set up to the ball, feet close together because we don’t want to get too aggressive here.
We are going to start with our club about a foot behind the ball, so our spine angle at set up is already behind it, so the club can actually go up at the ball.
Here is a demonstration, our shoulders are a little to the right so we can get an in to out path, and the club is going to work up to the ball.
So just from a basic half of a golf swing, not hit too hard, it went 250m, the smash factor is high which is good, means I hit it out of the middle. It had a launch angle of 12 degrees with a really low spin rate of 1730, that’s going to get the ball going quite a long way. So the feeling would be, letting the right shoulder work from the low point, up to the ball, so we are getting almost like a topspin forehand in tennis, rather than a cut, drop lob shot in tennis, that produces more backspin on the ball.
Hopefully these little tips help you guys. Come and see myself or some of the other coaches down at Precision Golf Chatswood to help you with these things or anything else you’d like to work on!
Moving forward we have our new store at Cromer, the largest trackman indoor facility in the world, we are looking forward to it in the next couple of months. Come down and say hello to the team at Precision Golf Chatswood.