Thoughts On Hitting Up On The Driver...

One of the standards that regularly bandied about in golfing education recently is hitting up as opposed to hitting down with the driving force.

For those who don?T understand ?Assault perspective?, it?S honestly measured from the caddy view as proven within the diagram under.

Many people confuse this with ?Coming in too steep?, which would be regarded from the Down The Line angle, along with this participant coming over the pinnacle.

A steep or shallow attack perspective isn't similar to a coming over the top or getting below aircraft principles. Furthermore, they may be not mutually extraordinary both. There?S an inclination for them to go hand-in-hand. The severe over the pinnacle participant might also have a propensity to have a steep attack perspective as well. But, that?S now not always the case.

WHY HIT UP WITH THE DRIVER?

This idea was popularized with the aid of Trackman when they located that now not simplest may want to one hit upward with the motive force, that every one matters being same the ball would move in addition as the attack attitude were given shallower or went upward. The ball will deliver similarly and could spin much less, consequently which means a protracted sporting shot that rolled greater.

However, ?This is all? That hitting up does. It will allow the golfer to hit the ball further provided everything else is the same.

Obviously, hitting the ball similarly has a bonus. My statistical research on Tour indicates that the anticipated rating values cross down as the Tour player gets his approach shot 25 yards closer to the hole. Meaning, if a Tour player have been to play 2 balls and hit his first power to 175 yards to the flag and the second force to a hundred and fifty yards to the flag, on average the predicted rating price begins to significantly get higher on the 2nd pressure that's 25 yards towards the flag. Using that instance, the first power (one hundred seventy five yards to flag) can also imply that on average the predicted rating price for the golfer on that hollow may be four.1 strokes. But the 2nd force (150 yards to flag) may additionally have an expected rating cost of three.Eight strokes. And even as zero.Three strokes may not appear like a large deal, do this across the path for a whole round, it in reality adds up.

All of that being said, hitting up with the driving force does now not equate to any gain as far as accuracy or consistency.

POSSIBLE DANGERS WITH HITTING UPWARD

I asked some of my resources who personal both a Trackman or the FlightScope X2 model launch monitor to get their mind on hitting up. These sources blanketed 4 cutting-edge PGA Tour players and 4 present day Nationwide Tour players. Along with five Trackman owner golfing teachers, some of whom teach the Tour gamers and a few LPGA gamers (I failed to talk to the LPGA players).

A few of these sources have been very lots for hitting upward at the motive force. But, the majority observed a few pitfalls with looking to hit up at the motive force.

One of the commonplace lawsuits became the fear of losing clubhead pace with the driver. Most of the resources claimed that they felt that there has been a point of diminishing returns with seeking to hit up and getting distance due to the fact they felt that any distance derived from hitting it extra upward might be offset through distance lost thru decrease clubhead velocity.

Currently, there are 139 golfers on Tour who have motive force clubhead speed measurements from Trackman in both 2012 and 2011. Two of the assets that I realize have changed their attack attitude if you want to hit upward are inside the pinnacle-10 biggest drops in clubhead velocity. And 2 of the assets who've stopped seeking to hit up a lot on the driver are inside the pinnacle-10 in multiplied clubhead speed.

From speakme to those sources and staring at some clubhead velocity data, I do trust that you may hit down too much and lose clubhead speed. However, I suppose the ones are situations in which the golfer is just swinging poorly first of all. So as some distance as hitting up and distance is going, there appears to be a state of affairs where the golfer desires to recognize that hitting up does not continually equate to hitting it similarly if their clubhead and ball velocity drops. Thus, they'll need to determine if the space received from hitting upward can counter any viable distance lost from a decrease clubhead speed.

Another commonplace criticism become that hitting upward required a completely distinct swing from hitting irons or even fairway woods. We recognise from the Geometry of the Circle that if you need to hit down and feature a rectangular course, the swing path has to move left. But if you want a rectangular path and hit up, the swing course has to be mentioning to the right. Thus, the commonplace criticism turned into making the switch from those specific swing instructions become frequently too difficult for the player to make.

There were different proceedings in addition to no longer feeling cushty with the trajectory windows being hit on upward strikes versus their ?Ordinary? Downward or ?Flat? Strike (zero.Zero? Attack perspective).

ADVANCED TOTAL DRIVING AND HITTING UPWARD

I utilize a metric called Advanced Total Driving that could be a proprietary formula to help decide effectiveness off the tee for golfers on Tour. Advanced Total Driving includes the subsequent metrics:

Driving Distance

Fairway Percentage

Distance To Edge of Fairway (on shots that omit the golf green)

I have observed that those metrics encompass the primary attributes we look for in riding skill?Distance, accuracy and precision.

From what I even have discovered, there may be no actual statistical correlation that can be draw with attack attitude and Advanced Total Driving. Part of the hassle is that there's a small sample size that I?M operating with seeing that I handiest have about 25 PGA Tour player?S attack angle recordings through Trackman.

However, the handiest correlation I generally tend to look is in golfers that hit greater than -four.Five? Down with the driving force. The correlation there may be to carry out poorly in Advanced Total Driving. But once more, it seems that those are issues with the golfer simply swinging poorly period. These golfers almost completely play poorly in each of the Zones (Birdie Zone, Safe Zone and Danger Zone) as nicely.

Boo Weekley ranked #1 in Advanced Total Driving in 2011 and is currently ranked #2 this year and he hits -three.Five?. However, Bo Van Pelt is one of the higher drivers on Tour 12 months in and yr out, ranked tenth in 2011 and presently ranked twenty sixth and hits up about 2? To 5?.

CURRENT CONCLUSIONS

The end sport in driving the ball is set being able to hit the ball as well as you could from the attitude of distance, accuracy and precision. We need to combination all of these collectively. Obviously, there may be situations where a golfer may increase strength however lose a few accuracy or precision off the tee. It then will become the golfer?S duty in order to gauge whether the alternate-off can be greater effective in lowering their ratings.

I do now not assume there?S anything wrong with hitting up at the driving force if the golfer can execute it nicely sufficient to in which they're greater effective off the tee in doing so. However, the equal is going for hitting down with the driver.

I have concluded that a golfer needs to understand that hitting up at the driving force isn't always mandatory in any way, form or form as proven by golfers like Boo Weekley and Hunter Mahan. Furthermore, the golfer need to apprehend the capacity risks of hitting up at the ball as opposed to the capability risks of hitting down at the ball.

I suppose that all serious Long Distance driving competitors MUST hit up at the motive force so one can be successful. But, the ones golfers are far extra involved about optimizing the elements of effect that optimize distance in place of annoying approximately accuracy and precision as they're given 6 pictures to hit the ball as some distance as they could and nonetheless find a grid that is 40 yards huge.

But for the average golfer, I think there are numerous factors to don't forget and hitting up on the motive force is nowhere near being obligatory. There are some people who consider that the driver is ?Designed to hit upward on?, but I definitely assume that the driver is more designed for a ?Flat? Attack angle (zero.Zero?) and the common assault attitude on Tour is ready -1? Downward (measured with the aid of Trackman).

I suppose that closer to a flat assault angle probably works better for maximum golfers in terms of generating clubhead pace, accuracy, consistency and being able to transition better to swinging the alternative clubs as nicely. Obviously, a few exceptions apply.

3JACK