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My experience has been that when I hover I grip the club lighter reducing tension in my arms and shoulders.I do not understand how it relieves tension to hover the driver.
When I did it, I did not notice any more or less tension, but it felt different hovering it. Kind of hard to explain the feel you get. I am guessing tension has a lot to do with how much strength a person has in their arms too.
My left arm has gotten weaker than it used to be and I can tell if I hold something off the ground for a long time. I realize though that you only swing so many times a round and is not like swinging it 40 times during a practice session.
As a side note, I was watching some pros and caught a number of them hovering with their driver. Some would touch the ground but then hover just before striking, others complete hover, and others complete grounders. Golf is strange
Jack Nicklaus hovered and Greg Norman picked up Jack's technique of hovering. It never dawned on me at all and I never really paid any attention to it. The two reasons Greg said he adopted the technique taken from Greg's website:
"First, it keeps my grip pressure constant. As you stand over a shot, you have a natural tendency to regrip, and each time your hands shift on the club - even a fraction - it has a major effect on the outcome of the shot. Second, it promotes a very smooth one-piece takeaway with the clubhead flowing straight from the ball. This is particularly true with the driver; there will be no tendency to snap the clubhead up quickly and vertically as there can be when the club is soled. "
Do you hover the driver or ground it before you swing?
I have been doing some testing on the launch monitor and here are some interesting numbers when hovering the driver versus not hovering it. Take these numbers with a grain of salt because they are from my launch monitor, but they give you an idea of what is different. You data crunchers may see something totally different than I do.
When I hover the driver it appears I swing through the ball at around 5 degrees less launch angle which seems more strikes were better. I noticed not near as many mishits and yet I thought there would be more than when grounding the driver.
Notice swing speed, ball speed, and smash factor are pretty much identical, but the real differences are in the launch angle, apex, and the spin. It is fairly obvious when I ground the driver and swing, I tend to swing up more and get a lot more spin.
More spin can often indicate poor accuracy, but that is not always the case. I would really like to try this on the course and see how my accuracy is. I may have to give it a shot tomorrow.:
Not - hovering the driver yesterday:
- 20 swings
- Average Carry - 233.7
- Max Carry - 247.5
- Swing Speed - 96.0
- Ball Speed - 140.5
- Launch Angle - 19.9
- Smash Factor - 1.47
- Spin - 3675
- Apex - 134.5
Hovering the driver today (17 more swings than yesterday):
- 37 swings
- Average Carry - 237.1
- Max Carry - 258.9
- Swing Speed - 96.0
- Ball Speed - 141
- Launch Angle - 14.3
- Smash Factor - 1.47
- Spin - 2832
- Apex - 84.6
I swing pretty much swing in my practice net every day except on the weekends when I play, although I swing through irons up to the driver. Once it gets too hot in my shop for the summer, I normally don't practice as much cause I might get a heat strokeSo swinging 2 days in a row.. but did you swing the day before starting the experiment?
It could be argued that the 20 swings on day 1 loosened you up for day 2
But to answer, no I don't hover, I just couldnt be comfortable I dont think
I do both. I ground the driver behind the ball to check tee height and get set up. Then I hover for my swing.