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How to Hit the Driver Higher
When you look at tour pros' driver shots, they hit it unbelievably higher and longer.
How can you hit it like pros?
There are basically 3 factors which determine driving distance.
1. Clubhead speed
2. Launch Angle
3. Spin
Today, I like to talk about launch angle and spin.
Launch Angle
To hit it longer and higher, you need to increase your launch angle. To do that, you should pick that driver that has enough loft for your swing speed.
Some players think they should buy the driver with less loft, but less lofted drivers don't always give you more distance.
So get the driver that has enough loft on it. If you are like average players, I don't recommend anything less than 9 degrees. Get the driver that has 10 or 11 degrees of loft.
The higher you tee it up, the more you can increase your launch angle.
So to hit it higher, tee the ball higher with more than 1/2 or the ball visible above the driver head. If you tee it up higher than that, you should hover your clubhead above the ground to catch the ball on the sweet spot.
Also, to increase your launch angle, hit the ball at the lowest point or just after the lowest point of your swing.
Back Spin
You can launch it higher but not get any distance if the ball has lots of backspin on it.
You need to have the correct combination of the backspin and launch angle.
To hit it higher and longer, you need to have less backspin and higher launch angle.
There are 3 factors that increase spin.
1. Cutting across the ball or coming over the top
2. Slice or open face at impact
3. Hitting below the sweet spot on the driver face
If you cut across the ball or have an open face at impact, you ball will go higher but don't give you much distance off the tee.
To cure this problem, see the page about fixing the slice.
To reduce spin you can 1) hit the ball on the upswing, 2) hit the ball on the sweet spot or just above the sweet spot and 3) hit a draw.
If you hit the ball just above the sweet spot of your driver, you will get less spin. But if you do it too much, you will pop it up.
It's true that if you hit a draw, you can limit the backspin. However, hitting a draw will lower the launch angle at the same time.
To compensate for that, you need to tee it up higher and hit it on the upswing.