Unlocking Driver Distance: What Should Your Ideal Driver Attack Angle Be?

When it comes to the driver and terms like ‘attack angle’ I have been very late to the party in terms of understanding its impact.

That lack of knowledge has clearly cost me a lot of distance and shots over the years and as a result, I wish I had paid attention much sooner to what a good attack angle is for driver.

So in this video, we take a deep dive to see what the stats say when it comes to:

– Whether you should you swing up or down with a driver?
– What the ideal driver attack angle is?
– What driver angles of attack the pros have?

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Let me start first with a confession I have played gol for decades now and I’ve been lucky enough to play off a single figure handicap since I was a teenager but when it comes to the driver in terms like attack angle I’ve been very late to the party in terms of understanding its

Impact that lack of knowledge has clearly cost me a lot of distance and shots over the years and as a result I very much wish I had paid attention much sooner to what a good attack angle is for driver so in this video we take a deep

Dive to see what the stats say when it comes to the question of whether you should swing up or down with driver and how even the top Pros have changed their tune over the years when it comes to driver attack Angles welcome back to the golfing Focus Channel everybody and as a whole hitting up with a positive angle of attack when hitting driver will maximize distance as it increases launch and decreases spin the ideal attack angle for driver is of course different for each golfer but

Between plus two and plus4 deges is a good guide range for best carry and roll distance according to the leading launch monitor manufacturers long driving Specialists such as three-time World Long driving Champion Kyle Burkshire can even reach a tank angles up to plus 8° if you currently hit your driver with

A negative attack angle though in other words you hit down in the ball you are in a good company the majority of amateur golfers do this and trackman perhaps the leading launch monitor manufacturer in golf today has measured that the average male amateur golfer has a negative attack angle of minus 1.6

De but when it comes to getting as much carry and total distance of the T as you can which is the main goal with driver that unfortunately is not a good thing for a golfer with a near average swing speed of 95 mph hitting driver with a

Negative angle of attack of- 7° compared to plus 7° will cost them 31 yards of carry and 33 yards of total distance and that loss of both carry and total distance Distance by hitting down in the ball with your driver is evident in trackman’s analysis of the optimal

Distances of a very wide range of driver swing speeds from the slow of below 80 M hour all the way up to the very fast PGA Tour Level Club head speeds of 110 M hour and above now that we have answered the question of whether you should be

Aiming to hip up or down with your driver from a distance perspective it is clearly important to understand why before we get to that though of course first we need to be clear in what a negative attack angle actually means the attack angle of your driver or angle of

Attack as it is also frequently referred to is the vertical up and down angle the club is moving on at impact relative to the Horizon a negative attack angle therefore simply means that the angle your driver is making with the imaginary horizontal line that represents the Horizon when it makes contact with the

Ball is less than 0° this is not always the easiest thing to visualize given the very small degree differences in different drives but but the number displayed by launch monitors makes it obvious whether you’re hitting up in the ball and have a positive attack angle or hitting down with your

Driver with a negative attack angle and why that number matters when it comes to your drives is that the optimal mix of the three key elements that determine driver distance namely ball speed launch angle and spin rate is dictated by a golfer’s Club head stroke swing speed and their attack angle it

Impact as the attack angle changes the optimal launch angle and spin rate for the golfer change too and when a golfer has a negative angle of attack more loft is needed to launch the ball but the problem with that is the additional Loft requires the need for it

To be combined with higher spin rates to ensure the ball stays Airborne for longer and unfortunately too much spin with a downward hit Drive even when it’s struck well will reduce the distance your golf ball Will Roll talk of any ideal is often fraught with danger in golf however given how many variables

Are involved including a golfer swing where one is never the same as another although you’ve probably been aware much earlier than me about the general rule that hitting up on your driver with a positive angle of attack is a good thing especially if you’re looking to increase

The distance you hit the ball off the te it is always of course important to remember that there is no one siiz fits all when it comes to the optimal ball speed and launch conditions of individuals drives and as there a direct consequence there is no Optimum angle of

Attack that applies to all golfers any regular golfer will also quickly tell you that focusing solely in one small statistical aspect of the game in isolation is a risky strategy what we can say with certainty now though thanks to our understanding today of attack angles and their

Influence in driving distances is that a positive angle of attack is a good way to increase a golfers potential distance and that has principally come about thanks to the modern generation of golf launch monitors the original devices launched in the 1990s by measuring the key numbers allowed people to understand

Whether their launch condition i s I.E launch angles and spin rates werein the right ranges or too high or too low they couldn’t tell an instructor a golfer exactly why that this was but with the addition of metrics such as a tank angles into the modern generation of

Launch monitors we now know without a doubt that in order to maximize driver distance you want to hit up with a positive attack angle based on whatever your driver Club head speed is and because further metrics such as Dynamic Loft are now also measured it is

Possible for coaches to be clear in what piece of the puzzle is causing a golfer’s launch issues and therefore for them to lose distance it could be their angle of attack or dynamic loft or it could be both whatever it is though a good coach working with a modern launch

Monitor will help you to work out what it is and the distance rewards and offer can be substantial as I am now well aware of myself in a lesson last year I found that when I was hitting down in the ball with a minus 2.4 degree angle

Of attack impact I was losing over 32 yards of carry and 43 yards of total distance compared to driving with a positive 2.3 attack angle with almost comparable swing speeds of just over 100 Mil hour and I don’t know about you but that seems like a fair incentive to

Start working on hitting up on the ball on a consistent basis given how clear it is now that hitting up on the ball with a positive attack angle with your driver is the best way to maximize distance it may seem curious as to why some of the

Best Pros in the world have a negative attack angle with driver in indeed 2023 uspga Champion brutes kka is well known for his negative angle of attack with driver Pros hitting driver with a negative attack angle when hitting the longest cub in the bag is however not the norm

Anymore as a whole Pros do not have a negative attack angle with the PJ tour average being plus 2.2 de according to flight scope PJ Pros did previously though have an average negative attack angle with it measuring minus 1.3 de in 2015 on tour while it may not seem like it given the

Almost Flawless way they all seem to smash a golf ball off the tea tour Pros like amateurs have swings as unique to them as their own fingerprints and as such how they choose to hit their driver depends on what they are most comfortable will deliver the most consistent results and that means for

Some it makes sense to occasionally hit their driver with a negative angle of attack because it produces the ball flight they want and are most comfortable hitting this quote from six time PG tour winner mark leichman is a great example of this and clearly shows he knows that hitting up on the ball

With a high angle of attack will give him more distance but he is also well aware that his bad shot with a high angle of attack with his driver can result in a scorecard wrecking number and as a result he often chooses to hit with a lower one to deliver a more consistent

Result in other words it is a pragmatic decision he is making to allow him more control with his drives and luckily for him it doesn’t cost him a lot of distance given he’s still a AES around 307 yards off the T similarly Brook KK’s trackman numbers have shown he is still

Able to carry his Drive nearly 300 yards in spite of hitting the ball with a negative attack angle of minus 3.7 de yes it is also true that the game’s longest hitters like Rory maoy and Dustin Johnson average around the plus 4 degree Mark and often higher when they

Go for some of their huge hits and as we have already noted long drive competitors are targeting attack angles of up to as much as plus 8° to maximize their driving distances however some tour Pros choose consistency control and accuracy over a very high upward attack angle which would maximize their carry

And total driving distance and for those lucky enough like kka and leichman they don’t need to hit any further to compete at the top level unfortunately average golfers typically do not have this luxury and need to ring every last yard of distance out of their driver to score well and

Remember no matter what miss you hear about how the short game is more important than the long game there will be a ceiling in how much you can improve based on how far you can drive the ball to which point it is further interesting to note that by comparison

With the average driver attack angle in the PGA Tour going from negative to positive in recent years on the LPGA Tour it has always been around plus 2° and that is likely because LPGA Tour players averaging 257 yards off the te compared to the near 300 yards PGA Tour

Pros Drive the ball in average are aiming to maximize driving distances to a greater extent than their male colleagues and given the average swing speed in the LPGA Tour is almost identical to that of the average M amateur it probably makes the most sense for regular golfers to see how their

Driver attack angles and key launch monitor numbers match up to the best women players in the world so that’s it for our look at ideal attack angles to maximize your distance with driver as ever and most important importantly we hope you’re enjoying your golf and if

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