These are measures of 'static' loft since the clubhead is at rest. If we could get the
club in motion, say with a sling shot, we can safely say the iron as shown, with more
loft, would hit the ball higher in the air than the wood with a lower loft.
The Driver
If you were firing a cannon and wanted the shell to go the maximum distance you'd set
the cannon at a 45 degree angle and fire away.
When you are hitting a golf 'driver' you have one objective - maximum distance. It
doesn't matter what club you use - an iron, a wood, a putter - the role of the 'driver' is
distance.
If possible, we'd hit the driver as we'd shoot the cannon. We'd tee up the ball very
high (maybe use a 20" high tee) and whack it on the upswing so the trajectory of the
clubhead and resultant launched ball would be at 45 degrees relative to ground level.
Energy and Momentum
The reason we'd like to hit the ball this way is that we'd maximize the power we
deliver to the ball. When a golf ball is struck, energy and momentum from the clubhead are
transferred to the golf ball. Clubhead speed is a measure of how much energy and momentum
the clubhead has. So, higher clubhead speed at impact means the ball will rebound faster
and go farther. Ideally, to generate the most ball speed at impact one would need a no
loft or 'zero degree loft'. With zero degree loft nearly 100 % of the swing's energy and
momentum would be in the forward direction that we want to hit
the ball.
However, I haven't seen anyone, pro or amateur, hit a ball on a 45 degree upswing,
probably because the person's swing would need to be rather contorted. Most of us tee the
ball up an inch or two on a wooden tee. And that's a problem for the zero degree loft
club.
When hitting the ball off of or near ground level even a long driving champion swinging
a 'zero degree' lofted club 150 MPH could only fly the ball about 5 yards off a 1"
high tee before the ball hit the ground. Gravity pulls the ball down too fast. Even a
bullet fired at 2000' per second (from 1" off the ground) would go less than 50 yards
before it bit the dust. So, what's the solution? It's simple ..almost. Design the face of
the club with a 'loft' angle. But here's the rub. Once we apply loft to the face
we lose some of the forward energy and momentum we've tried our
darndest to create by the golfswing. As seen in the sketch below, with loft some of the
energy and momentum we've created goes in the upward direction, instead of forward, at
impact. We want forward for distance.
Luckily, because golf balls are soft this upward energy component converts into
backspin which is beneficial to helping a launched ball stay airborne longer. However,
regardless of backspin we'd prefer to use as much of the forward energy component as we
could when whaling away at the driver. Deciding what driver loft should be for a given
swing speed is very important in maximizing our driving distance. Putting it in other
words, we need to decide what level of loft we need to maximize our distance for a given
swingspeed.
Less loft means more energy and momentum are directed to the
forward direction ( a positive use of our swing energy ) BUT less loft also means the ball
will be launched on a lower trajectory and gravity will want to pull it down faster ( a
negative ). More loft will get the ball trajectory higher but at
a cost - more of our swing power is wasted on the upward component (vertical) when we're
seeking horizontal distance.
Optimal Loft
So we NEED loft to get the ball airborne. How much? That may be a PHD thesis for
someone sometime. About all we can do here is make some educated guesses on what is
probable - just plain ole common sense. It is safe to say that for a given swingspeed
there is some optimal loft which will allow us to carry the ball
the maximum distance
The idea is to have more loft the slower you swing to maximize distance. Fast swingers
can experiment with lower lofts. The following table is intuitive and illustrates what may
likely be the optimum lofts for a 'driver' for a given clublength and swingspeed.
| Clubhead Speed |
Estimated Optimal Loft |
Category |
| 130-150 |
4-7 degrees |
Men's driving champs |
| 110-125 |
8-9 |
Men's touring pros |
| 95-105 |
10-11 |
Strong men and women |
| 85-90 |
12-13 |
Most men golfers |
| 75-85 |
14-15 |
Senior men and most women |
| 65-75 |
16+ |
Most women golfers |
For golfers swinging at 65 MPH the loft should be 16+ degrees, based on the
table. Nowadays that would be a 3, 4 or 5 wood wood depending on club manufacturer. But
remember we're not saying to use a 3, 4 or 5 wood because these clubs are built for
fairway use and are shorter and heavier than a driver. You can't simply attach an
off-the-shelf 4 or 5 wood component head to a driver length shaft since these heads are
designed for fairway use with shorter shafts and they weigh more than #1 wood heads. So if
you fasten them to a longer driver shaft they will be too heavy to swing comfortably.
Besides who wants to hit a 'driver', at full driver length, with a tiny 5 wood head. Now
most of us want large heads to enable us to at least strike the ball on mishits.
What's really needed is driver length clubs with driver weights with driver sized heads
BUT with higher lofts than the industry is now providing.
Summary
To maximize driving distance the average golfer needs maximum clublength and
weight/swingweight they are comfortable with but with a loft which is probably
significantly higher than what the leading club and component designers are now
delivering. I have a retired Saturday morning Nassua opponent who uses a $ 500 nine degree
driver; he swings about 70 MPH and can't figure out why he hits farther with his $ 49 five
wood. He's considering another 'in vogue' technology driver as the solution du jour --
bigger head with guaranteed maximum energy transfer diamond coated spring face, maraging steel sole and
super lightweight extra-length aerospatial composite shaft --
his 'answer' as advertised, once again.. but still 9 degree loft. It won't help much but will look great
in the bag!
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