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Anybody else just going with a neutral Angle of Attack on driver?

Big SoIL

Big SoIL

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I've tried all summer, fall, and early part of this winter trying to get a more positive AoA on my driver and it just gets all kinds of wonky and who knows where it's going for the most part. I did hit some long, long bombs but it wasn't consistent and all the work put in was taking away from parts of my game that could help my score a lot more than the 10-20 yards I could gain with AoA.

I saw a piece on the Golf Channel a while back with Jim Furyk and he was talking about his philosophy of hitting the driver and it really hit close to home with me. So I started to tee the ball down low, getting as neutral of an AoA as I can, and it has really made a huge difference in my ball striking and dispersion.

For now I'm going to stick with what's working, it's not like I'm playing it short off the tee anyway. My SS goes from 112-117 depending on swing weight so I'm still getting them out there on well struck balls. I'm going to leave AoA alone on my driver for now and work on getting more GIR's and when I'm happy there maybe I'll try to squeeze out those extra yards.

Anybody else gone through this before and just left it alone for a while?
 
I was negative AoA for awhile and after some lessons the last couple years I'm on the positive side and don't plan to go to neutral at the moment
 
Not sure where I am right now, however I do know that teeing the ball a bit lower and a bit further back in my stance has made me a far more consistent driver. I'm not negative that I'm aware of, but I do know that not trying to force a positive AoA really turned my tee game around.
 
I think I'm pretty neutral right now and I'm not really worried about it. I get it out there plenty for the most part thanks to the GBB.
 
It's been awhile since I've seen my numbers but I think I'm close to Neutral AoA. No 2 swings are the same with me but keeping it neutral gives me a wider allowance on misses.
 
Can you actually tell in you're neutral or not? What you feel and what might show on a LM can vary greatly and on top of that we are not robots. For a long time I thought I had a positive aoa, got on trackman and I was -4 on avg.
 
I can't really tell you for a fact that I'm neutral on every shot, but I think I'm pretty close to neutral. My balls aren't ballooning anymore like they have in the past and my spin numbers weren't too bad last time I was on a LM. My miss is a slice and when I hit down on the ball with the face opened it would go waaaaay right, now that miss isn't near as bad. Like was mentioned above, if I do tee the ball up higher and further up in my stance I can hit the ball higher and further. It's just not as consistent.
 
russtopher said:
Not sure where I am right now, however I do know that teeing the ball a bit lower and a bit further back in my stance has made me a far more consistent driver. I'm not negative that I'm aware of, but I do know that not trying to force a positive AoA really turned my tee game around.
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This is pretty much exactly where I'm at, just not going to try to force it anymore for 10-20 yards right now. I have other irons in the fire.
 
ArmyGolf said:
It's been awhile since I've seen my numbers but I think I'm close to Neutral AoA. No 2 swings are the same with me but keeping it neutral gives me a wider allowance on misses.
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I feel your pain about no 2 swings being the same and agree about it being less punishing on misses.
 
Nope I'm all in for making my swing the best most efficient it can be and I know putting in the work to be +aoa with driver and negative with irons will give me consistency in the long run so I'll keep working.
 
I recently found out my natural swing with 10.5 driver produces a +6 AoA. I've taken that info and tried to apply it to me game by now using the loft when I need it downwind and teeing it lower into the wind. Made a world of difference since I don't have to manipulate my swing to try and produce different shots. I tried going to a more neutral AoA and I had trouble elevating the ball properly.


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I need a driver lesson.
 
alez367 said:
I recently found out my natural swing with 10.5 driver produces a +6 AoA. I've taken that info and tried to apply it to me game by now using the loft when I need it downwind and teeing it lower into the wind. Made a world of difference since I don't have to manipulate my swing to try and produce different shots. I tried going to a more neutral AoA and I had trouble elevating the ball properly.


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+6 is crazy talk I'm going for+2
 
alez367 said:
I recently found out my natural swing with 10.5 driver produces a +6 AoA. I've taken that info and tried to apply it to me game by now using the loft when I need it downwind and teeing it lower into the wind. Made a world of difference since I don't have to manipulate my swing to try and produce different shots. I tried going to a more neutral AoA and I had trouble elevating the ball properly.


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Nice man, I wish that was my natural swing but it's just not. When I try to get into the reverse K position it just feels wrong to me and it causes bad strikes. Hopefully one day I'll get there, but for now I guess I'm just content with my swing. I'm going to focus more on scoring clubs and hitting GIR's. Once I get better there I'll be back to trying to squeeze out more yards with the driver. I just don't have the time to work on every club in the bag, so it'll just be maintenance with the driver and improvement on scoring clubs.
 
I don't know what my angle of attack is but fwiw I have always tee'd the ball lower than most people. I use a medium height tee and just never felt comfy with a high tee at all but I also lightly rest the driver on the ground at address and do not hover. I feel (without knowing for certain) that my contact is anywhere between at neutral and just slightly on the upswing. There are times (via a delayed wrist break swing) where I also hold my torso back a little too and I hit the ball higher but I only try to intentionally do that when my normal tee shot is lower than normal as I sometimes feel I may be getting ahead of the ball a little. Other than that and when my driver works well I don't worry about AoA nor think about it.
 
rollin said:
I don't know what my angle of attack is but fwiw I have always tee'd the ball lower than most people. I use a medium height tee and just never felt comfy with a high tee at all but I also lightly rest the driver on the ground at address and do not hover. I feel (without knowing for certain) that my contact is anywhere between at neutral and just slightly on the upswing. There are times (via a delayed wrist break swing) where I also hold my torso back a little too and I hit the ball higher but I only try to intentionally do that when my normal tee shot is lower than normal as I sometimes feel I may be getting ahead of the ball a little. Other than that and when my driver works well I don't worry about AoA nor think about it.
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I do pretty much the same thing, use a 2 3/4" tee, tee the top of the ball just slightly above the top of the club face, and have the club grounded at address. My miss is still usually high on the face and you can see turf interaction well before contact. It's not bad though, just a little loss of distance and a higher ball flight.
 
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