Ball Flight, what are you looking for?

Ok I have a follow up question. What is a high ball flight? And what constitutes a mid ball flight? Where is the measuring height?
I think it varies from player to player. I know I hit it higher than most, but I do have a couple of friends who hit it higher. For me, it is as high as possible without losing distance. IT is a hard question to answer. I don't know what it is in feet, but I can tell when I hit it well, compress the ball, and the flight looks good to my eye.
 
Ok I have a follow up question. What is a high ball flight? And what constitutes a mid ball flight? Where is the measuring height?


We all have talked about our ideal ball flight. 'I like it high' or 'I want that mid flight bullet'. What ever you look for, it's been talk about. Our thirst for optimum ball flight has us buying the latest shafts, clubs and balls. We've been promised they will give is what we want.

I wonder if we know what we want and fully understand why. I hear talk like 'I didn't like that ball flight' but it was on the best drive hit all day. Or the opposite, a horrible pop fly and someone says 'great ball' an you agree.

Do we know what a good ball flight is? If you hit a mid flight iron and stick the green are you upset because you were looking for a high ball. I just wonder if we place too much on the process and not enough on the results. So I ask, what are you looking for in a ball flight and why?

I like to have a medium ball flight, I guess the tallest it would be at its max point would be like s stories but still rolls out after it hits the ground.
 
mid to me would be considered really low to some and high to me would be ballooning to others
not more than 25-30ft in the air... any more than that would be a popup and it wouldnt go anywhere(for me)
if i can get driver in the 25ft in the air range with my best swing on ideal conditions... i could get 230-250ish
my brother and my cousin are bombers and they hit a ridiculously high ball... like above the treeline high
in ideal conditions they pop it 280-300 where if mine had the same trajectory it would most likely be 190-200ish
 
I usually like it pretty high. I hit the ball really low naturally so any equipment changes to get it up are nice.


Slicing for show and chunking for dough, because I spend too much time Tapatalking from my iPad.
 
I like a medium height flight result with my driver and 3W. I have a medium to high flight with irons. I like what I'm getting now....no problems with holding greens and rarely am I ever long when attacking a green. (I credit the Sky Caddie for that)

My problem is consistency in line. That's a swing tempo thing, not a club thing. If I can get more predictability in that area, I'd be really happy until it revealed some other flaw I have and dont know about. :act-up:
 
I want the best of both worlds. High Launch with Low Spin.....AKA......the Knuckleball
 
I like a piercing ball flight. If the ball gets too high it balloons and doesn't get the true distance from your club choice.
 
i prefer a mid ball flight so i can release to the back of the greens
when i hit my burner 2's the ball just falls out of the sky and just sticks on the green with no roll
now my j33's which are more of a players club have a mid ball flight and its perfect for me
 
I looks like there is no one right answer. Everyone seems to be in favor of one type of ball flight or another. I guess, in this case, its a personal thing. I've always operated under the premise to maximize you ball flight you want a 14-19* launch angle with the driver. This will vary as you move through the bag but the angle of attach should be similar to maximize the clubs throughout the bag. I honesty don't know what the correct answer is at this point but I am sure that there is a formula to maximize ball flight
 
i prefer a mid ball flight so i can release to the back of the greens
when i hit my burner 2's the ball just falls out of the sky and just sticks on the green with no roll
now my j33's which are more of a players club have a mid ball flight and its perfect for me

So let me ask you this; with your current ball flight with the burners you can get to every pin on the green. The J33s (players irons) take away any front pins. On Saturday and sundays half the pins are tucked. would you want to learn to hit a high ball with the J33s?
 
I want as high as possible without losing distance.
I think this is ideal for just about anyone. I hit everything high, but I don't think I am sacrificing any distance on any clubs. I never have problems holding a green, even with long irons. That is why I like having the rangefinder. Not to say I can hit the specific distance every time, but I can play for the distance knowing the ball isn't going anywhere when it lands. Thinking about it, just about every iron goes about the same height. There might be some variance there, but the trajectory and ball flight are real similar for me whether it is a 6-iron or a PW. I've actually had people comment on the range about how far I can hit a wedge, even though I might have been hitting a 7 or 6. My gear is all set up to be low launch so I guess it mostly has something to do with my swing. Driver and 3-wood both fly high as well, but it is a penetrating takeoff and I still get a ton of roll when it is dry. I played with a guy last Friday who had a 48", 2X stiff, 5.5º driver and I hit it with pretty much the same height and trajectory that I hit my driver that is 8.5º. Just something in the swing I guess.
 
It's interesting to see the professional ball height averages from Trackman.

PGA players have an average height between 27 and 31 yards for every club.
LPGA players have an average height between 23 and 26 yards for every club.

Those are both pretty high.
 
I love to refer to this chart, it's the Trackman averages for the PGA and LPGA tours from 2009:

stacks_image_82_1.png


The interesting thing to me is that even though the launch angles change a good bit from club to club, the maximum height of shots with all clubs is pretty much the same. Also interesting: the slower swing speeds of the LPGA Tour (which corresponds to most of us amateur golfers as well) means that the launch angles should be a little higher than the PGA guys, but the max height of the shots is still lower. For the most part, that corresponds to what I've seen in playing many different people: it's much easier for people that have higher swing speeds to hit the ball higher.
 
I love to refer to this chart, it's the Trackman averages for the PGA and LPGA tours from 2009:

stacks_image_82_1.png


The interesting thing to me is that even though the launch angles change a good bit from club to club, the maximum height of shots with all clubs is pretty much the same. Also interesting: the slower swing speeds of the LPGA Tour (which corresponds to most of us amateur golfers as well) means that the launch angles should be a little higher than the PGA guys, but the max height of the shots is still lower. For the most part, that corresponds to what I've seen in playing many different people: it's much easier for people that have higher swing speeds to hit the ball higher.

seriously? average pga driver distance is only 270? i knew it wasn't quite 300 but dang, that's really not that long for being PGA..
 
seriously? average pga driver distance is only 270? i knew it wasn't quite 300 but dang, that's really not that long for being PGA..

Remember, those are all carry distances listed, not total distances.
 
I love to refer to this chart, it's the Trackman averages for the PGA and LPGA tours from 2009:

stacks_image_82_1.png


The interesting thing to me is that even though the launch angles change a good bit from club to club, the maximum height of shots with all clubs is pretty much the same. Also interesting: the slower swing speeds of the LPGA Tour (which corresponds to most of us amateur golfers as well) means that the launch angles should be a little higher than the PGA guys, but the max height of the shots is still lower. For the most part, that corresponds to what I've seen in playing many different people: it's much easier for people that have higher swing speeds to hit the ball higher.

That's a great chart Ary, thank you for posting it.
 
The carry is 270, not total. Bit of a difference there
 
Edited.
 
Last edited:
I hit a moon shots from driver to wedges and have accepted it =)
 
I'm not very wise when it comes to the numbers, but I compared the chart Ary posted with the launch numbers from a few weeks ago when I hit some demo 6 irons and it's about what I expected, I swing like a girl lol. J/k. I hit 4 clubs all of them 6 irons and here they are. top 3 balls are the Mizuno MP63s, the second 3 are the TM R11s, the third 3 are the Adams CB3s, and the fourth 3 are the Cleveland 588 blades. Distance is somewhat important to me, but the most important number to me is yds off line and I hit all of these very well and within a small circle. What doe these numbers tell you? Help me understand what some of this stuff means because when I get fit, the guy says yes or no to the club.

Iphone015.jpg


(Edit) All of these had S300s with the exception of the Adams, it had a white shaft.

Looks like you have 15-20 yards of roll after your ball lands....is that good or bad?
Seems like a lot to me!
 
For some reason I had it in my head that I was hitting my irons way too high. Probably because I didn't get the distances I could before I quit playing for so long. Started lessons and a new swing a month ago. The pro said I was adding some loft to my irons in my angle of attack, but the height was were it was supposed to be. Now I am hitting most shots about the same height as before lessons, but with more distance. Distance and club head speed are still not where I want it, but I'm getting there.

Went to the Ryder cup Thursday practice round, and was amazed at how high all the pros were hitting the ball. Much higher than even my weakest shots before lessons. Of course they have a lot more carry with it :).

And thanks for posting the Trackman tour averages, very cool to see and compare.
 
Looks like you have 15-20 yards of roll after your ball lands....is that good or bad?
Seems like a lot to me!

It's not really an issue for me, I want roll sometimes but most of the time it stops pretty quickly on a green.
 
It's interesting to see the professional ball height averages from Trackman.

PGA players have an average height between 27 and 31 yards for every club.
LPGA players have an average height between 23 and 26 yards for every club.

Those are both pretty high.
wow and i thought 25-30 was kinda lowish middle
when you see these guys in person it looks like its a hundred feet high
 
wow and i thought 25-30 was kinda lowish middle
when you see these guys in person it looks like its a hundred feet high

You'd be close at 30yds would you not?
 
Back
Top