This increases the balls velocity upon impact, and you can hit it farther. One of the key factors in choosing your next best new driver is getting the right loft angle. Matching the lie angle of clubs to the specific golfer is one of the goals of a clubfitting session. If your swing speed is 100mph and your ball flies off at 150 mph, you have a smash factor of 1.5 (very high). Male Long Drive Competitors 135-155 mph. In irons, the range is typically from 59 or 60 degrees to around 64 degrees. If you have a slow swing, you may launch the ball low and lose distance with a 9.5 or 10.5-degree driver. So you are talking 2 Being close to completely flat at 0 degree, the putter has the lowest loft of any club while the loft of a lob wedge will hover above 60 degrees and will usually be the club with the highest loft in a golf bag. These are general calculations and do not take into consideration that loft and club head angles may vary from different manufacturers. The loft of the driver, between 7.5 and 14 degrees, influences the ball flights trajectory along with the design, shaft bend, and, among other things, you! The distance difference between clubs is created equally by the increments in club length and loft angle. Where the ball makes contact on the clubface and the subsequent gear effect. Input Club Speed mph. Here we can give the following guideline: Per loft, the spin of the driver changes by about 400-500 rpm. All your wedges (irons) need to have the same 2. Not all advice is good and often is bad. a. March 2, 2012. Most players equate distance with a lower lofted driver, but for most golfers, the opposite is more accurate. Similarly, decreasing the loft results in reducing the spin rate by 450rpm and trajectory by 1 degree. Master clubmaker Ralph Maltby says that adding 1/2 inch length can add about 5 to 7 yards in distance for irons. 30 comments. It states that for every 1 degree a plane veers off its course, it misses its target destination by 1 mile for every 60 miles you fly. Carry Distance Total Yards; 9.5 Degrees: 10.2: 231: 259: 10.5 Degrees: 11.3: 240: 270: 11.5 Degrees: 13.1: 246: 275: 12.5 Degrees: How Does Dirt and Water Affect Spin Rate? Very little. Probably 3 or 4 yards. My experience is that many players actually may gain distance (at least in terms of carry) in the longer irons Loft is needed on a putter because as the ball rests on the green it pushes down slightly into the grass. My experience is that changing lie angle does have a SLIGHT effect on ball flight. If that happens to be a good fit for your game and your swing, youll be in good shape. Step 1. Youre swinging approximately 80 mph if you drive the ball 206 yards, 90 mph if your drives reach 232 yards and 100 mph if you drive the ball 258 yards. How does driver loft affect distance? So generally think about putting in a 5. The average 7-iron from the 26 sets of forged irons we tested last month was 32, so 3 less. At a swing speed around 78 miles per hour and a club length of 37 inches every degree in Beyond 64-degrees, a wedge just cannot avoid biting into the ground or fully slipping under the ball. If the clubface is opened or closed to the club path at impact. In most cases, a 10.5 degree loft driver will be better than a 9.5 degree loft. The more loft, the higher the spin. In our review of 15 vs 16.5-degree fairway woods, it is clear that weakened lofts are best suited to the average golfer. Yes, bending lifts is common, just not for the entire set as the original poster wanted to do for the purpose of more distance. If you have too little loft on your putter it will drive the ball into the green making it difficult to get it rolling quickly. Rose. The distance depends largely on the gender and skill of the golfer. (Think delivered loft.) Loft and lie changes are more or less permanent. Medium Hitter = 42 m/s = 95 mph. Conversely, players like myself who have faster swings may gain too much height with a 12.5-degree driver and prefer a stronger loft such as a 9.5 degree. Yet Ko uses a driver with 9 degrees of loft1.5 degrees less than Koepka. If you have a slow swing, you may launch the ball low and lose distance with a 9.5 or 10.5-degree driver. Comparing their best fit to their worst fit, our testers gained an average of 17.6 yards of total distance (median 17.8). The answer will be 2 yards per degree of loft. All your wedges (irons) need to have the same shaft and you maintain consistent contact every time. Shaft length will also affect your distance, which is why hybrids with a 3 degree difference in loft will have a greater distance gap than your wedges. How to increase golf ball travel distance? The calculations here are based on 1/2 club length difference = 5 yards distance difference and every 4 loft angle difference = 5 yards distance difference. The effect of 1 degree loft should be minimal. With all things equal, the slower the club head speed, the flatter the ball will need to land in order to produce max distance. You can bend a club more than 2 degrees. Average Male Golfer: 87 mph. The loft will have a direct impact on the distance the ball travels - the lower the loft, the further the ball will go. The loft is therefore needed to lift the ball up and on to the surface for an end-over-end smooth roll. 58 Degree Wedge Distance. If your swing speed is 90-100mph and your driver loft angle is lower than 11 degrees, 90% of you are losing distance by playing the wrong loft. The greatest distance factors are mechanics and club head speed. Changing your loft on an adjustable driver. Just remember to carefully align the grooves on the face parallel to the level / ground. (Lie angles on putters reach into the 70s.) While the standard degree of loft on a 3-wood is 15 degrees, most players will yield more success with a higher degree of loft. The question is what happens when you take a 6 iron and reduce the length by one half-inch. The spin contributes significantly to the overall length. Weakening the loft on a 58-degree is going to add bounce to the wedge; going the opposite way on a 56-degree is going to have the opposite effect, removing bounce from the sole. Given that youre at your maximum clubhead speed, just 1-degree change in the loft angle of a golf driver can affect your driving distance by 2-4 yards. 07/20/2021. February 12, 2016. This adjustment will add launch and Note that the maximum carry is about 167 yards for a Driver loft of 19 degrees which is the loft of a 2-iron and 5-wood. The Mizuno T20 Golf Wedge is a good example of such a wedge. The more loft, the higher the spin. So I could increase the loft on the 5 or decrease the loft on the 7.Just wondering what the other effects would be as I understand that adjusting the loft on Woods opens or closes the club head giving a gearing affect that will tend to make the club fade or draw. The answer will be 2 yards per degree of loft . Dynamic loft will always be higher due to the shaft deflecting forward through impact. The standard lie angle of drivers and woods is in the range between 56 and 60 degrees, hybrid / rescue clubs between 58 and 62 degrees, irons between 61 and 64 degrees. Based on the numbers above, each degree of lie angle will cause you to be 6.5 feet off target when hitting a 120 yard shot with a 46 degree PW. If we look at carry distance, less loft produced more distance only 4 times out of 12. The Mizuno T20 Golf Wedge is a good example of such a wedge. 58 degrees wedges are commonly used to get the ball up in the air quickly. But all of this will be taken into account in a professional club fitting, with Ping's famous colour code chart, for example, ranging from 4 flat to 5 upright, with black the standard lie angle. Lie angles almost always range from the mid-50 degrees (in drivers) to the mid-60 degrees (in short irons). Where the ball makes contact on the clubface and the subsequent gear effect. It's expressed as a letter-number combination, such as C9 or D2. If your lie angle is too upright, typically meaning that it's closer to 90 degrees than 0 degrees, then that means you will typically hit the ground with Frank Thomas, the former Technical Director of the USGA, explains what happens with a loft of three degrees on a 10-foot putt: 3 Inches from Contact The ball is slightly airborne with some backspin. With increased spin loft, we also see an increase in spin rate. The least-lofted golf club, other than a putter, is the driver. A golf clubs loft refers to the club faces angle relative to the clubs shaft, according to PGA pro Mark Blakemore. 3 to 15 inches Out The ball is sliding, bouncing less and less, with no backward rotation. 5. Bending the he club changes the bounce by the same amount that you bend the club. The spin contributes significantly to the overall length. Flex: The flex of the shaft will The typical 58-degree wedge distance is 70 yards. that your club has 9.5 degrees of loft in the center on the face the "off-center" hit causes the clubhead to twist slightly during impact and this leads to vertical gear effect and a strike above the equator will have less spin than a strike below it. A longer distance can be achieved with a lengthened club if you have the ability to swing it with the same force and speed that you did with a shorter club. My wedge set is 50-08 bent to 51-09, 54-11 bent to 55-12; 58-04 and 62-07 are stock. Watch Morning Drive on Golf Channel. Angle of attack. The 9.5-degree loft produced a landing angle of 40.4 degrees. If you have a mid swing speed of 95-104 mph, a driver loft of between 10-11.5 will normally be a good starting point. After knowing How much does 1 degree of loft affect distance, you might wonder "How many yards will be affecting per degrees of loft?" If you buy clubs off the rack at a golf store, you probably focus more on the shafts length, flex and composition. Great news if you are able to keep the ball going straight with the extra speed and length, not so useful if you start ending up in the trees, rough or water! That kind of makes me wonder how far a 38", 48* pitching wedge would go. :D How much does 1 degree of driver loft affect distance? Whereas a lob wedge will have the shortest carry distances and have a loft of 60-64 degrees. Average Lady Tour Player: 95 mph. This would cause the face angle to point 1.5 degrees left of the target at impact resulting in a shot that is 15 feet off-line. Incorrect Lie Angle Could Hurt Your Game. You should consider this aspect before you change driver loft. The whole point behind the golf club shaft flex is finding a club that is going to flex just the right amount so you can unload it into the ball at the bottom of your swing. A strong grip b. Aiming to the left (for a right-handed golfer) c. Trying to swing easier d. Both a and b. 4. Loft is the #1 factor in determining your distance. Your driver at 35" will still go farther than your PW at the same length. Downward Hitters. As you look at the poll, the 12 to 13 degrees is considered a strong 3 wood; the 16 to 17 degree is considered a weak 3 wood and the 14 to 15 degree loft would be considered stock. a. For example a pitching wedge will have the longest carry distances and have a loft of 45-50 degrees. How the golfer releases the club head. If the loft is out even just 2 degrees it can affect the distance by 6-8 yards. If you hit down on the ball, youre likely to have high spin loft, so using less loft will actually reduce As you can see, landing angle has a great influence on roll out.. But a 45 degree wedge hit 130 yards with a wrong 2 degree lie angle would be offline by 4.5 yards. Your gap wedge should have enough bounce for long bunker shots in softer sand and the sand wedge should work in all conditions (55-12 is good). Loft and lie changes are more or less permanent. Back in the day, better players tended to favor very low-lofted drivers, often in Just like the launch, of course. It may even make the club too heavy for you, which will slow down your swing speed and actually reduce your distance. Based on averages a one half-inch reduction in overall club length will result in the loss of 1.5 to 2 MPH of swing speed which means your 6 iron will carry 2.7 to 3.6 yards shorter at a length of 37 inches than it would at 37.5 inches. In general terms, every extra half inch of shaft length added will make the club play 1 more upright and vice versa for shorter shaft lengths. It thats too upright for you, the toe of the club is going to be up in the air at impact, while the heel digs into the turf. Average Lady Golfer: 65 mph. Click here. However, with 12 degrees of loft, you achieve a high launch for added carry and distance. The much longer drivers used today have a much greater speed at impact.) With only 4 degrees between each club in loft and only 1 or 1/2 a degree between each clubs lie angles, you could end up with half the set essentially being the same club. 1/2 b. Choose a driver that has the right amount of loft, because that is the most critical part of your selection process. You might as well get a distance gap before bending. This will often result in lowering the spin and increasing the distance. How the golfer releases the club head. So, 4 x 5 yards = 20 yards. Forged irons should be checked every year or 2 anyway for loft/lie. Still not sure of your swing speed. This difference is mostly created by two club specifications; the loft and the clubs length. 3. It looks like Maltby's formula for loft and length impact on distance isn't as accurate for the average golfer. The launch angle is also lesser with the 14g weight positioned to the front. There are many websites out there that give you stats on optimum trajectory angles for Drives at different club head speeds. Here we can give the following guideline: Per loft, the spin of the driver changes by about 400-500 rpm. Female Long Drive Competitors: 105-120 mph. Lofts. 1-2 degrees b. As for irons, the difference in distance between 8-iron (37-39 degrees) and 9-iron (41-43 degrees) is usually 10-15 yards.