Gain Yards off the tee with PGA Professional Matt Hacking

The average club golfer swings a driver anywhere between 90 – 95 mph and usually with a negative Angle of Attack on average around  -3 Degrees. Angle of attack, or AOA refers to whether your club is travelling more up or down when it makes contact with the ball. Changing your AOA can affect strike quality and distance off the Tee.

Benefits of Angle of Attack

The benefits of a positive AOA can be huge. In my Students own game (See Below), using data from my FlightScope Xi Tour launch monitor it allowed him to hit the ball much farther and straighter than before without increasing clubhead speed.  This is because a positive AOA allowed him to launch the ball much higher, combine this with a lower spin rate and you have more distance.

How do we hit up on the ball?

Let’s look at some of the main ways we can achieve this.

• Tee the ball higher than normal.
• Placing the ball more forwards in your stance – opposite left foot – places the ball in the latter part of the swing arc
• Having a wider stance exaggerates this effect
• Adopting more spine tilt away from the target at address.

Please refer to the images below for the difference between a good driver set up and a poor set up for a driver.