M5 - Face Height

First time out with an M5 today.

Entirely different sound than my TS3, but not bad. Very solid feeling on most drives.

My question is on the most effective area of the face. I was told that this driver is most effective high on the face.

I spent all day hitting shots center of the face and high. I’m not that good, just happened to be where I was hitting it based on tee height and swing, I guess. Pretty consistent except for one toe shot, that was not badly penalized.

Here is a face shot of my next to last drive of the day:

Slightly toward the toe, and centered vertically on the top scoring line.

Question is this a good fit, or should I be adjusting the club or tee height?

Please advise as I am gouging to game this for a second round later in the week.

Thanks.

In general, the ideal spot tends to be about 1/4" to 1/2" from the center dot towards where it has "FACE" written. That will generally give the best ball speed but that doesn't always necessarily mean the best numbers. Without knowing anything else about the impact conditions you generate and the resulting ball numbers, there is no way to know what might be ideal for you. e.g. That high on the face can loose a lot of spin and in some cases, if the spin gets too low, one can loose distance.

Second, the most important thing about face impact is consistency and from that picture it doesn't look like you're getting that. This tutorial might help you improve that (BTW next time use some foot powder spray to show face impact location and consistency):

Stuart already gave you the link to my DIY driver tune up where you get help to find your drivers VCOG who is important here.

But....no matter how "good" the "design" is, there will always be "tolerances", so to actually find the hottest spot on the face, we need assistance from a launch monitor.

Some face design is hottest at the very center of the face, others above the centerline, but we should not get to high above VCOG, then we mostly cut of spin, we loose ball speed when we make impact to far outside VCOG so as a general guideline, max 4/8" toe side (club speed is 2 mph higher there), and 3-4/8 above VCOG is the max to gain launch and cut off spin, without getting to far off VCOG.

This test where COR values was added was made using a Launch monitor, so take them for what they are, but they do tell about 4 different heads and where the hottest spot on the face might be very different depending on design and tolerances. Head D (low right) is the head thats the hottest where we expect it to be, in this case 10 mm toe side and 10 mm above the centerline (who can be "inline" with VCOG)

PS! Head D has the highest COR value (0.829) 5 mm toe side, but since club speed is even higher at 10 mm toe side, the hottest spot for maximized ball speed would be the spot where COR value is 0.827

The other heads in the test, might loose ball speed high toe side since COR value drops to much. ONLY a launch monitor test and some trial and error will tell you where YOUR driver has max ball speed.

Good info as usual from Stuart and Howard. That COR map in particular is super interesting.

Very generally speaking though, one groove high on the M5 and a bit out towards the toe is indeed going to give you the hottest numbers, but what Stuart said about spin is important. That area will start to cut spin quickly and if it gets too low then you end coming dangerously close to snap hook territory. As was said, you'll need some numbers along with those strikes to determine what is best, but you're in the right area!

Thanks guys!

Great info and I learned a lot here for a 64 year old guy who’s been playing for over 50 years, never took a lesson, and has been fitted for exactly one club (my TS3, which may be the best club I’ve ever played)! What a coincidence, huh?

Obviously more to it than the comment “ try to catch it a little high on the face”.