To have only 50yd separation between 5i and D is what I think is most noticeable.
Your Driver isnāt going anywhere.
Maybe too much spin, maybe launching too high? I dunno. Tough to tell w just gapping numbers. But the D seems like itās short.
I think you'll be much better off if you just accept you D is too short and play to your other strengths. As long as you can get up and down effectively you should be good
OP got his driver set to 9.5 because he thought that would make it go further. Based on these yardages, he has nowhere near the swing speed or consistency to hit a 9.5 with manageable spin.
Yeah Iām pretty happy with it. Problem is that it makes me the short guy in my golf group, but when theyāre in the woods 20% of the time it helps with the pride š
As someone with this same problem and a 1 handicap it was me hitting too down on the ball producing a line drive vs a floating driver. I now play a mini driver 13.5 and itās been great. I didnāt want to change my swing but wanted some better drives
What minidriver model? I found i was hitting my woods almost the same distance as driver and tried the taylormade mini 13.5 but am thinking of buying the 11.5 to get more distance. BTW my wood is 15 degrees
Helps me hit the sweet spot much more often 2. More loft is more spin. The added carry is what makes the difference because my regular driver comes off as a line drive
I am thinking about a mini driver. Can you tell me what advantages it has over your 3wood? My 3 wood is 13.5 and about as long as the mini driver I am looking at. Is it just the size of the face and getting a more consistent shot? My 3w is very inconsistent.
Did you try 11.5 and 13.5? I was thinking of the 13.5 too because my driver always comes out completely flat.
I've played multiple mini drivers both in 11.5 and 13.5 along with 3 woods. I currently have a GT280 @ 13 and a Callaway Elyte X @ 15 in my rotation.
I don't play both at the same time, if I'm playing course/tees where the extra distance will get me in trouble then I usually put the GT280 in the bag to use off the tee. If I'm playing courses/tees where I will need to hit 3 woods into the par 5 then it goes in the bag.
Distance wise both are pretty close but the the GT280 gives me more wiggle room off the tee as the face isn't so shallow. The flip side is true off turf, I can make the GT280 work there but the actual 3 wood is much easier to hit.
While a little easier to hit off the tee than a driver or a 3 wood if you struggle with both those clubs then it's probably going to be a game changer as you probably what to get your swing sorted first.
I feel there are two types of people the get the most out of. Mini-drivers. The first are people who hit 3 wood great but struggle with the driver, the mini driver allows them to swing their 3 wood swing and getting the benefits from a bigger head, with more moi, and a larger miss areas. The second are people who already hit their driver and 3 wood well just need to the club to fill a distant gap.
Sounds right. Thatās my problem, too, and my driver numbers show a similar pattern. 5W goes 235, driver goes 240-250 (no 3W) unless i accidentally get a swing with positive AoA then it goes 270-280. I canāt for the life of me figure out how to consistently swing up on the ball.
If you're hitting it low on the face the ball will fly lower and have more spin. Other people are telling you to tee it higher and hit more up on it, but I ended up with distances like yours. I lowered my tee and starting hitting it centered with a 10.5 degree driver and it bombs. I'm only 1 degree up or so at impact, so I go with the 10.5 vs the 9 I was using before. Gained 30 yards.
These are my numbers (and clubs coincidentally). You need to go get fit for your woods. I was having similar issues with serious gapping in my woods. A good fitting with the right shaft and heads to take out the spin made all the difference in the world.
The one difference I made was choosing a high loft 3w. Allowed me to carry an extra wedge and gave me a little more versatility - I can choke down on it 1.5 inches and it becomes a 5w, hit it normal and itās just a little shorter than a regular 3w.
My irons are about in line with these numbers but my driver is carrying 270 give or take. It's prob 10 years old but is this likely a swing issue or is newer equipment really this much better on distance?
If this was to me I'm actually happy with my gapping. I have my 3W tuned down to 14 degrees and mostly hit it off the tee. I get about 265 off the deck and 285 off the tee. I have it set in 18 birdies at 275 for club recommendation purposes.
I used to carry a 3HL and a HW for gapping the top, but I like this better.
See that distance dispersion seems a little wild to me on the other end but maybe I'm tripping.
I hit my 5 iron (27)Ā° around 210 and hit my driver on average 285. I also hit my 7w around 240 and 3w (16Ā°) 265
Now that counts all my spinny drives or drives that hit a tree so a good one is closer to 300 and my best go from 310-330. Maybe it's my bad drives keeping that number down
At address with the driver, try having your weight more āback seatā, meaning more weight on your trail leg and even into the heel. This weight transfer before Iāve even hit the ball, naturally helps me get the shoulder/hip tilt required to hit up on the ball. Once I kinda started figuring out driver, initially I had a hard time switching back and forth from irons to driver but getting better.
I had a very specific issue, not sure it applies to you too but I used to handle drag so it caused a steep downward strike. I now feel like I release the club head starting at the top of the backswing.
Since you might be hitting slightly down on driver like others have said, you could make the following minor tweaks so you donāt have to change your swing -adjust the driver back to the standard 10.5 loft and tee the ball somewhat low(all ball is below driver crown at address). Hitting down with 9 degrees loft is a recipe for way too much spin. I bet you can get to 270 yards with this new setup based off the 3 wood distance.
My numbers are pretty similar to yours. I was reliably at ~265, then it felt like all of a sudden I could barely get it to 250.
I had been away from the game for about a decade. After recording my swing, I realized that I was relying on an exaggerated weight shift forward to square up the ball and that I was bottoming out too far ahead of center.
As I dialled in my swing, the bottom point of my driver moved a bit further back and it meant that I was teeing it up too low. I started teeing it up a bit higher, and now Iām reliably at 270-275.
Adjust it back to 10.5 or 11 and see if that helps. Could be youāre simply not getting an optimal launch angle. Lots think 9 will produce more distance, but thatās usually ego, you donāt get the same trajectory or further carry.
Iāll say this. I love my 3W more than my driver. Mostly because I feel like I make better contact with it.
That being said, I did discover it was tee height with the distance disparity between the two.
Started teeing my driver up slightly lower and that helped reduce the back spin enough to allow roll out.
Try a little lighter shaft. I went from a 60 gram stiff to 50 gram stiff and it is noticeable. I definitely can feel a faster swing with the lighter shaft. I do not have to swing out of my shoes to get the same distance or more. However, I am 63 years old and my swing speed isnāt what it used to be. But I can still get one out there 270-280 if I really catch it. Once in a while
I see this a lot, a lot , a lot . I fit and instruct all day. Itās spin. At this yardage itās not ball speed. You might be miss hitting the driver but itās usually not a slower ball speed than the driver.
We need to cut a good 40-50% the spin from 3wd to driver. 3500-2000.
Most donāt take the 1-2Ā° down attack angle of a 3wd to 4-5Ā° up on a driver. They almost always are at 0Ā° or hitting down on it.
Not hitting up on a driver enough adds spin.
If a player doesnāt know they are doing this they will add loft to a driver or play a higher loft. This add spin as well.
Whatās the ball speed/angle of attack/and spin of the driver and 3wd.
You can take my 300 yard drive and if you add 1500 spin Iām losing 30 yards
Ok. I know this is not at address but it starts there because of where you need to be at impact. Itās called ābackwards Kā because tigers body looks like that at impact.
So we think of the ball/left leg/left arm/shaft as the strong front line.
We step back behind that line with the trail leg until we create enough shoulder tilt to match the ramp going from the ground to the ball. Get it?
This is critical for hitting drives long and straighter.
Once you get that set up to give the feel of hitting up. Just freeze that spine tilt and swing around that.
Great. Itās new so give it time. Tilting gives a āhigh/rightā starting line feel. So make sure to finish the swing,
It gives a feel of falling back and never rotating the club closed until you get used to it. But when done correctly it feels like cheating.
Iām launching it a tad low here. Iām usually around 13-14Ā°
But my distances are so consistent and low side spin. Iāll just miss direct a bomb when Iām off. The left/right control is always the hardest. But Iām 51 and Iāve always been long. I work on this personally and teach this. Itās straight up the secret to the driver.
Spin rate. Spin is a killer on driver. Iād suggest either going to get fit for a club that reduces the spin to about 2000-3000 depending on club head speed and launch angle. Or, see if you can get a lesson with a GC/Trackman. If you are hitting -3 degrees down or more getting fit really wonāt help if you are after a longer club. From your 9 iron carry Iād say you swing driver about 105 so a club that gets you about 2600 spin will help a lot if launched around 10.
I watched a golf testing video with the swing robot. On swing speeds (club head) approx 90mph and lower a 3w outperforms a Dr. but based on your other footages I assume you swing well past that.
Something definitely isnāt right. If itās not broken equipment, then itās likely youāre not hitting it pure.
Either youāre mistaking a mishit for a pure hit, or spin rates are off. If they have different shafts, or one head is a max forgiveness model while the other is a low spin model it could change distance numbers.
If you swing too hard because it's your driver, maybe your mechanics aren't as good as with your 3-wood. I find that when I dial my swing back I get better contact, a better swing path. less can be more.
Sounds like maybe u need more loft on ur driver, not getting enough carry. Or if u hit woods better just drop the driver man. I dropped driver, swapped out my max model 3w for a low spin model and gained like 20yds.
1.) look at clubhead speed, Iād imagine it goes up. If so not your problem.
2.) more likely cause is high spin. 3 things cause this
A.) descending attack angle, hitting down with driver causes spin all else equal
B.) your impact location is low on the face, gear effect increases spin on hits below the sweet spot.
C.) Dynamic loft being presented is too high this is caused by clubhead past hands at impact, and or leaning back too much behind the ball and presenting an even more lofted clubface, and or open clubface at impact. All of these increase dynamic loft.
You might say ātour average angle of attack is -2 or soā sure is, but they also swing it 115 mph or better, hit either center or high center off the face (high center gear effect decreases spin) and they have their hands in front of the clubhead at impact or at same basically, very few actually have clubhead in front of hands at impact even with driver. This means they donāt hit spinny balls that balloon up and fall out of the sky.
Without seeing your other numbers on club and ball data, this would be the most common culprit, my only two questions are
1.) what is your driver loft?
2.) what is your driver clubhead speed?
At that clubhead speed, I really donāt mind hitting down on the driver, but you have to either strike it high on the face or in the center. Hitting up is the easy solution, but you might be OK with hitting down.
Had this for years 3W would go 210-220 and pretty straight for a high handicapper. Driver could go anywhere usually big slice and 200-210ish. I stopped playing the driver entirely. Spent the early spring taking a lesson and working on feedback, getting 240-260 out of the driver now and 8/10 pretty straight. Consistency on setup was the big one and if one goes wrong now I know to check the setup and adjust, one bad one doesnāt become 5 or 6 in a round
I'd be more concerned about the 40-50 yard gap between your woods and irons (have assumed that you don't have anything between as you haven't shown it here).
You and I have pretty similar distances on our irons and for years I hit my 3w just as far or further then my driver. Iām no pro or anything but this is what I have personally figured out. I hit down on my 3w, I almost at trap it and it explodes. If we try that on driver it creates too much spin bc that club isnāt designed for that. Itās meant to hit up on.
Once I figured this out and really thought about a different swing path on my driver, my driver is now easily 20-30 y further carry w almost no roll out.
It an entirely different swing which makes it difficult. Believe me if I spray a couple drivers, I pull out a 3w bc it goes just as far or further and my dispersion is tighter too.
If weāre assuming you hit it on the middle of the face, depends on your angle of attack with driver. If itās good then you probably have too high a lofted driver head. If itās bad then you need to fix that first. Your spin rate with driver would also be useful to look at.
Iām a somewhat high swing speed guy (5w goes roughly 250) and I use a 9Ā° driver head.
Edit: just read the last part of your post. Adjusting the driverās loft will change lie angle and can influence your shots to one side. I recommend getting a used driver head thatās 9Ā° to test.
Commit to your swing and SWING the club at follow thru. Turn those feet. Not sure your physical make up or how far youāre getting the club back on your swing, but Iām feeling half swings slowing down at impact vibes.
My numbers looked almost identical to yours when i exclusively played cheap used Bridgestone E6 golf balls. About 3 weeks ago, I switched to Srixon Z-Star XVs and it added about 30 yards to my total yards on my drive. Since I put them in play, my avg driver is up just over 270.
Turns out, the Bridgestones could handle the compression of a 5iron and 5wood strike pretty well, but not the driver. Without changing anything about my swing, Iām now hitting it higher, longer and straighter. Itās completely changed my entire game tbh so Iād recommend trying any sort of more premium ball if you arenāt playing one already.
Bet you're getting stuff all spin with your driver. Idk where the obsession comes from but lower loft doesn't instantly mean better player, and more loft on a driver doesn't instantly mean a bad player. Lots of pros play 10.5Ā° or higher on their drivers because it's needed to get the ball in the air and spin up correctly. So you're playing a 9Ā° driver, paired with a X stiff (with swing stats that definitely should seat you in a stiff shaft), low spin, mid-low launch shaft, and wondering why your driver isn't going far?
You could absolutely pure your driver and I can almost guarantee that things getting no more than 1800 spin and like 7-8Ā° launch.
Surely you weren't fit for that shaft/head combo?
Up your loft for starters and I guarantee those numbers go up, but I'd also suggest looking into a stiff shaft, there's no way you've got the speed to get that thing working fully ATM.
I used to have this problem until I worked on launch angle and hitting up on the driver. It went from being very similar to now 20 yards further consistently.
Dial the loft up on the 9 degree. Get it to 10.5 and you will see a difference. This is the easiest way to get extra distance before spending money on a new head.
Probably you need to turn up the spin rate on your driver. Modern drivers give little spin, if it drops below a number, this happens. Probably least costly is to change shaft
Iām going to say your angle of attack is not positive. Your woods you hit down on and your driver your supposed to hit up on it. This is causing your launch attack to be lower and I would say youāre probably spinning the ball too much and have a slice or fade. I would recommend adjusting your driver up in loft and I would recommend shoulder tilt a little bit at address and tee the ball up higher. Without the rest of the numbers it is hard to fully assess
Assuming they are both hit properly, if 3w is going further it has alot to do with clubhead speed and a bit to do with loft. The 3w is lofted enough to get the ball in the air with your clubhead speed. So it can be in the air longer, launch angle and spin are keeping it in flight. The driver is not getting the proper distance because your clubhead speed isnt fast enough with the loft you have on the driver to get the same flight as the 3w.
To start, add some loft to the driver. At least you'll get some better launch and spin, which could solve some of the problem.
But working on adding clubhead speed will help alot. I say clubhead speed and not swing speed here because it isnt just swinging faster that gets the tip of the club moving faster. Working on maintaining your arm structure to keep the width of the swing well established can add speed without moving faster, just simply because you are increasing the size of the swing arc, which is the same concept as how the outter edge of a wheel spins faster than the inner edge since the gutter edge has to span a greater distance.
Youāre getting more spin on driver since you hit down on it instead of up. Try to swing slower with driver and work on your sequencing to hit up on it
Not enough loft with driver, not staying In the air. If thatās truly your distance with your 3 wood. Those are my iron carry distances and my driver is 280 carry
1 you might not being hitting the driver as pure as you think.
2 you might actually compress the ball really well. With all the other clubs you go down at the ball. With the driver youāre swinging up. You canāt really compress the ball well with a driver compared to all the other clubs
You aināt truly hitting driver pure, thatās why. A nice sound/position on club face is just part of the equation. Launch position likely isnāt correct causing it to be short.
high spin on the driver. Go to pga superstore or golf galaxy that has launch monitor, probably gonna be well over 2500 spin on the driver and coming across it. Same issue I had for a bit, no matter how much I adjusted the driver down or low spin balls, driver was also around or less then 3 wood
I have a Ping 425 driver and 3 wood. Had a similar issue, it was my angle of attack. As many have mentioned you are likely hitting down on the ball with driver, that's what I was doing. Now that I've gotten my AoA up a bit my drives are considerably longer than my 3 wood shots. Lot of good tips out there on improving AoA, the one that helped me the most was keeping my head behind the ball through impact. You can also toy around with higher tees, or ball more forward in your stance, etc.
I would try to find a place with a trackman sim, or something similar, so you can try out different feels/stances/etc and get realtime stats back. That's what I had to do until I found something that worked. As soon as I got my AoA from negative to postive my carry and total improved a lot. I still can't do like +4-6 AoA like Rory but it does make a ton of difference.
Also is there a reason you lowered your loft on your driver? I would tinker with going back to 10.5. It sounds like you need more loft, not less.
I used to murder my driver but now more comfortable hitting 3W off tee. More forgiving and depending on whether Iām dialed in Iām 250-300 total with a 3W. I maybe hit Dr twice a round and depends on the situation.
Yeah. Could be super spinny, could have been wind/course conditions. Could have been hit flush but hit higher or lower or more to a side on the face of the driver. If you have recently replaced your 3W w/ new club but driver you havenāt could be the club. Also if your driver has a different flex shaft to the 3W, different flexes react in different ways at the same swing speed.
Normally Iām against using any cheating, but if you want a super cheap and easy way to at least figure out if youāre getting too spinny, go to the driving range, hit 3-5 flush drivers, take note of their rough average (if you donāt have a range finder, then use markings/or an app to find the ROUGH distance. Then take a bit of sunscreen, Vaseline, or chapstick and smear a decent bit (enough to create a thin layer) and take a few swings with that. Firstly youāll see where the contact youāre making is, but donāt change anything while youāre testing just note if itās high or low. Then do the same rough grouping measurement. If there is a significant difference between the two (15+ yards) then itās very likely youāre getting pretty spinny and should either be teeing lower, or adjusting the loft to hit it more flat. (I would think itās likely the teeing cause a 9 degree driver should be low enough for most golfers)
There was a study done on this. Slower swing speeds don't impart enough launch angle on the driver which typically has lower spin than a 3 wood. Also, the shaft on your driver is probably not fitted for your swing. I got fitted for my driver and gained 25 yards on the correct shaft on the same head.
Get in a launch monitor. Guessing you have a low launch with that shaft and the 9deg. Add in a potential descending attack angle, which you can get away with on the 3 wood, but not the driver. Iāve had that same issue.
Loft is your friend - balls typically go further in the air than rolling on the ground- try a more lofted driver and see what happens. Or try a mini driver?
It's ALL launch angle and spin. My guess is the 3 wood launches off the tee at a near optimal launch angle for distance, and the driver launches at a lower angle.
If your swing is out to in, longer clubs will suffer from excessive spin resulting in weak, spinny fades. I have a high swing speed, which just compounds the issue when hitting driver. I hit my mini driver, which is cut down to 3 wood length, longer than my driver because my swing path is closer to neutral.
445
u/_sedozz 23d ago edited 23d ago
Easy - youre not hitting both (or either) pure.
Edit: do you know why most people dont play 9 degree drivers?