Welcome to Play Smarta regular GOLF.com game improvement column that will help you play smarter and better golf.
The longer shot off the tee does not always require you to swing harder. Sure, it helps to give the ball more power, but there’s another way to belt it out with your playing partners without swinging from your shoes – and it all starts with optimizing your launch conditions.
One of the best ways to hit the ball longer is by increasing your angle of attack. If you can hit the ball more “up” you can launch it higher and with less spin, which is essential for hitting longer drives.
So how can you increase the angle of attack angle? A simple way is by adapting the placement to the ball.
Basics like set up are often overlooked by recreational players, but they can have a huge impact on how you hit the ball. Poor organization can lead to all sorts of moving issues, which lead to offsets that can have long-term negative consequences. But if you place the ball correctly, you’ll put yourself in the best possible position to hit it consistently.
If you want to increase the angle of attack (and prepare for a hard hit on every drive), it’s important to learn how to set the ball correctly with a driver. I recently learned how to do this from GOLF Top 100 Teachers Jason Baile, and it has helped me hit the driver longer than ever before.
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Increase the angle of attack with a setup adjustment
One problem I have when setting up the driver is that my shoulders and hips are too level in the set up. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing when hitting irons and wedges, but for clubs that require a more positive angle of attack (like the driver), it causes some problems. Namely, it creates conditions for a negative angle of attack.
A negative attack angle isn’t necessarily a death knell when hitting driver, but when you’re a player with a slower swing speed, it can throw you off distance. When you hit the ball, it increases spin. This is great for control, but it takes away your distance. So if you want to hit the ball longer, you better hit it.
If you watch the LPGA pros, you’ll notice that they don’t swing the ball particularly hard, but they still get a lot of distance on their drives. This is a direct result of optimizing their attack and ball strike angles, allowing them to maximize their distance without swinging harder.
In my lesson with Jason Baile, we made it a goal to raise my angle of attack to not only help me get more distance, but also to put me in a better position for a consistent shot. It all started with adjusting my setup.
The first thing he asked me to do was lightly “bump” my hip toward the target at address. This movement slightly raised my lead hip and lowered my trail hip.
“I’d rather see you get the right anime at your address with your lower body than your upper body,” Jason said.
The next thing he fixed was the orientation in my arms at address. Before, I had a tendency to raise my trail arm too high, which covered my lead arm when looking at my swing from down the line. To fix it, he got me thinking about pointing my trailing elbow more into my trailing hip when I grip the stick.
By correcting these two simple setup mistakes, I immediately increased my angle of attack and got into a better position to make swings that didn’t have as many built-in offsets.
If you’re someone who needs more driver distance, look at your driver’s angle of attack numbers on a launch monitor. Most likely, you need a more positive angle of attack to launch the ball higher. For this, all you need to do is make some minor configuration adjustments.
