Why everybody needs to try more loft—and that means you! New Golf Digest testing proves you need more loft on your driver than you think

Golf Digest, Nov, 2003 by Mike Stachura

Dick Helmstetter remembers the first time he saw a group of long drivers in training. This was long before portable launch monitors, laser-distance-measuring devices or even reliable swing-speed gauges.

"They were using stopwatches," says Helmstetter, Callaway Golf's senior executive vice president and chief of new products. "They figured 10 seconds of hang time was what they needed to be competitive. They had it figured out back then. They knew that the longer the ball stays in the air, the farther it's going to go. Period."

The lesson of the stopwatches from years ago has been confirmed by recent Golf Digest player and robot testing. Higher is better. The action plan for average golfers is simple: Take the headcover off your No. 1 club right now. If the numeral on the sole is less than 10, and you are not a member of the PGA Tour, try a driver with more loft. It could change your life.

"The single thing that I have found to help people hit the ball better with the driver is to give them higher loft," says Tom Stites, director of product creation for Nike Golf. He's convinced that about 90 percent of average recreational golfers would see better results if they could add 1 or 2 degrees of loft to their drivers. "But golfers really do have a psychological barrier to loft," he adds.

Well, here's an attempt to break through that barrier with some cold, hard numbers. Golf Digest tested various swing speeds using a collection of different lofted drivers (9, 11, 14 and 16 degrees) provided by Tom Wishon of Tom Wishon Golf Technology. Not surprisingly, at the slowest speeds, the 16-degree club performed best, but for the speeds that represent the majority of average golfers (and even at a tour-level 115 miles per hour), the driver that provided the greatest carry distance had a loft of 11 degrees (see next page). Conventional wisdom suggests that higher-lofted drivers produce shots that fly far and stop dead where they land, but even when total distance was measured, our tests showed that higher-lofted drivers didn't suffer much. Says Wishon: "The perceived penalty of less roll on higher-loft club-heads isn't as bad as golfers might think."

Just as impressive were the results from a sampling of average players whose carry distance improved by as much as 36 yards by switching to a new driver with more loft (see "We tried it," page 118).

These results might seem counterintuitive. It must be true that just as you hit a 9-iron farther than a pitching wedge, an 8-degree driver should go farther than an 11-degree driver. It isn't. The key to maximizing power at any swing speed is to launch the ball on the proper trajectory with the right amount of spin to take advantage of the golf ball's aerodynamic properties. That launch angle is usually 10 to 15 degrees (slower swingers can get more distance with a higher launch angle). Ideal spin varies, but generally a spin rate of 2,000 to 3,000 revolutions per minute is desirable, again a little higher with a slower swing speed because the increased spin helps the ball stay in the air.

To achieve the optimum distance-producing trajectory, even tour players have gone to higher lofts. For example, about half the pros recently teeing up TaylorMade drivers on tour used lofts of 9 degrees or higher--including Hank Kuehne, the new big bomber on tour (see page 120). Nearly 40 percent of tour players using Callaway drivers play at least a 9-degree driver. About 40 percent of Titleist tour players use drivers with 9.5 degrees of loft or higher. Tiger Woods and Ernie Els each used a driver with 9.5 degrees of loft in 2003.

Average golfers could experience the same kind of benefits, the kind that could mean carrying the lake on No. 10 or reaching the top of the hill on 18. Some research suggests that a launch angle approaching 20 degrees is the best way to maximize distance. Although it's not yet practical to launch a tee shot with low spin at such an angle, the closer you can get to the paradigm of "high-launch, low-spin," the better.

Dr. Tetsuo Yamaguchi, senior director of product development for Srixon and the man who pioneered the concept of high coeffecient of restitution (springlike effect) in drivers, believes the benefits of more loft are only beginning to be discovered. "It used to be that the faster-clubhead-speed players favored drivers with 8 degrees of loft," he says. "I could see in the future faster swingers using 14 degrees."

For average players, the key is to change your perspective on what makes for a desirable ball flight. "An average golfer should never be happy with a medium trajectory on the driver, and low trajectory is not an option," says TaylorMade's Benoit Vincent, vice president of research and development. "Pick a driver that gives you as high a trajectory as you can get without sacrificing accuracy. When you feel you are uncomfortably high, take the loft one step down to see if you are still as consistently long nine out of 10 times. If in doubt, take more loft rather than less."