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Greatly improved ballstriking. Now, how about optimizing the Driver?


apearsa

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10 months into finally starting lessons (if you've been thinking about for a while, pull the trigger and take lessons, it'll be the best money you've put towards your game), and my ballstriking has improved by leaps and bounds. More repeatable movements, and better movements, have raised my ceiling and my floor in terms of range of shot outcomes. The video from now compared to my last upload from April 2018 shows how much things have changed. Iron play, which had kept me in the mid-teens for a few years, improved so much in 4 months last summer that my index dropped from 14 to 9 from July to September. It's continued as I've made an effort to practice in New York during the winter. I've gained about 10-15 yards across the board with anything off the deck. These changes have seen 7 irons go from: SS 80mph / path +4* right / AoA 0* to -1* down for a 150-155yd carry to SS 87-89mph / path -1* to 1* / AoA -2.5* to -4.5* down for a ~170yd carry. It's renewed my enjoyment of the game. Putting is the 100 year war I'm fighting with the goal of scaring a low single digit index. The battle will eventually end when I die.

 

Now to the "problem", putting aside: I was carrying Driver ~240yds before I found another 5-8mph of swing speed. It's straighter and more predictable, which is a win in and of itself, but I'm greedy. I've gotten Driver SS up to the 101-105mph range depending on the day and am striking it relatively centered, +1* to +3* AoA, and on a predictable line. I just haven't gained any distance. Ball speed is 149-153mph, launching at 15*-16*, spinning up over 3000rpm. There's a lot of info out there, some of it conflicting, on what "optimal" launch is for a given swing speed, and I feel less than optimal. If I'm already close to that with these clubhead numbers, I'll go back into my hole and resume my role as reader, not poster.

 

Any thoughts from this esteemed population on causes, and equipment (this is a custom-fit, 10.5* Epic Subzero with a "lower spinning" shaft) or approach (swing more right? hit up on it more?) changes to squeeze some more yardage out of it? Including video below (Driver swing and some irons) and the Trackman Optimizer numbers correlated to the driver swing on video.

 

 

 

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I’m very close to your numbers, it’s very difficult to reduce spin with shaft alone.

I’ll leave it to the clubfitters to weigh in, but in my case, changing to a 9* head

and reducing the loft to 8* cut the spin down to 2000 and only reduced the launch

to 14*. Supposedly ideal launch for @150 BS.

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What's your spin axis? Those numbers aren't bad .. launch is a little high. Your apex must be over 120ft? Asking to determine if it's worth the upgrade (spin axis can drive higher backspin)

 

Spin Axis on that specific shot was +2.6* and sat around -6 to +6 depending on the shape I was hitting on a given shot. From what I understand, that implies something close to a squarish face and a centered strike. Apex on that shot was 135ft. Average apex over 15 shots was 124ft, and that included some while I was actually trying to hit a lower draw.

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I’m very close to your numbers, it’s very difficult to reduce spin with shaft alone.

I’ll leave it to the clubfitters to weigh in, but in my case, changing to a 9* head

and reducing the loft to 8* cut the spin down to 2000 and only reduced the launch

to 14*. Supposedly ideal launch for @150 BS.

 

2000 spin is way too low for 150 ball speed. but yes if OP just loses a 1-1.5 degrees of loft they will probably be golden

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10 months into finally starting lessons (if you've been thinking about for a while, pull the trigger and take lessons, it'll be the best money you've put towards your game), and my ballstriking has improved by leaps and bounds. More repeatable movements, and better movements, have raised my ceiling and my floor in terms of range of shot outcomes. The video from now compared to my last upload from April 2018 shows how much things have changed. Iron play, which had kept me in the mid-teens for a few years, improved so much in 4 months last summer that my index dropped from 14 to 9 from July to September. It's continued as I've made an effort to practice in New York during the winter. I've gained about 10-15 yards across the board with anything off the deck. These changes have seen 7 irons go from: SS 80mph / path +4* right / AoA 0* to -1* down for a 150-155yd carry to SS 87-89mph / path -1* to 1* / AoA -2.5* to -4.5* down for a ~170yd carry. It's renewed my enjoyment of the game. Putting is the 100 year war I'm fighting with the goal of scaring a low single digit index. The battle will eventually end when I die.

 

Now to the "problem", putting aside: I was carrying Driver ~240yds before I found another 5-8mph of swing speed. It's straighter and more predictable, which is a win in and of itself, but I'm greedy. I've gotten Driver SS up to the 101-105mph range depending on the day and am striking it relatively centered, +1* to +3* AoA, and on a predictable line. I just haven't gained any distance. Ball speed is 149-153mph, launching at 15*-16*, spinning up over 3000rpm. There's a lot of info out there, some of it conflicting, on what "optimal" launch is for a given swing speed, and I feel less than optimal. If I'm already close to that with these clubhead numbers, I'll go back into my hole and resume my role as reader, not poster.

 

Any thoughts from this esteemed population on causes, and equipment (this is a custom-fit, 10.5* Epic Subzero with a "lower spinning" shaft) or approach (swing more right? hit up on it more?) changes to squeeze some more yardage out of it? Including video below (Driver swing and some irons) and the Trackman Optimizer numbers correlated to the driver swing on video.

 

 

 

 

Not an answer to you question, but super curious what changes you made to increase the AoA with your 7i to up to - 4 down. I was on trackman recently and even though I was carrying my 7i an avg. of 168, my AoA never got steeper than -1 down. Been a sweeper for a long time, but when I do (somehow) get a bit steeper, distance and ball flight is vastly improved. Let me know!

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Any thoughts from this esteemed population on causes, and equipment (this is a custom-fit, 10.5* Epic Subzero with a "lower spinning" shaft) or approach (swing more right? hit up on it more?) changes to squeeze some more yardage out of it?

 

The high spin and launch likely come from a high dynamic loft - which can be an unintended consequence of trying to increase one's AoA with the driver. So you might actually try to hit up on it less and see what happens.

 

Also it's very important to check impact location on the face (foot powder spray) - that can potentially have much more influence on spin than almost anything else.

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Cool... I guess you should adjust the driver loft down. I had issues with Trackman 4 before... it was near a refrigerator and basically its magnetics or whatever else would disrupt Trackman ended up giving it funky numbers on calculated fields like (spin, apex, etc.) based on initial read data. Face,path, ball speed, swing speed, etc. is still accurate. Just those extrapolated/calculated fields were off, because of a fridge.

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10 months into finally starting lessons (if you've been thinking about for a while, pull the trigger and take lessons, it'll be the best money you've put towards your game), and my ballstriking has improved by leaps and bounds. More repeatable movements, and better movements, have raised my ceiling and my floor in terms of range of shot outcomes. The video from now compared to my last upload from April 2018 shows how much things have changed. Iron play, which had kept me in the mid-teens for a few years, improved so much in 4 months last summer that my index dropped from 14 to 9 from July to September. It's continued as I've made an effort to practice in New York during the winter. I've gained about 10-15 yards across the board with anything off the deck. These changes have seen 7 irons go from: SS 80mph / path +4* right / AoA 0* to -1* down for a 150-155yd carry to SS 87-89mph / path -1* to 1* / AoA -2.5* to -4.5* down for a ~170yd carry. It's renewed my enjoyment of the game. Putting is the 100 year war I'm fighting with the goal of scaring a low single digit index. The battle will eventually end when I die.

 

Now to the "problem", putting aside: I was carrying Driver ~240yds before I found another 5-8mph of swing speed. It's straighter and more predictable, which is a win in and of itself, but I'm greedy. I've gotten Driver SS up to the 101-105mph range depending on the day and am striking it relatively centered, +1* to +3* AoA, and on a predictable line. I just haven't gained any distance. Ball speed is 149-153mph, launching at 15*-16*, spinning up over 3000rpm. There's a lot of info out there, some of it conflicting, on what "optimal" launch is for a given swing speed, and I feel less than optimal. If I'm already close to that with these clubhead numbers, I'll go back into my hole and resume my role as reader, not poster.

 

Any thoughts from this esteemed population on causes, and equipment (this is a custom-fit, 10.5* Epic Subzero with a "lower spinning" shaft) or approach (swing more right? hit up on it more?) changes to squeeze some more yardage out of it? Including video below (Driver swing and some irons) and the Trackman Optimizer numbers correlated to the driver swing on video.

 

 

 

 

Not an answer to you question, but super curious what changes you made to increase the AoA with your 7i to up to - 4 down. I was on trackman recently and even though I was carrying my 7i an avg. of 168, my AoA never got steeper than -1 down. Been a sweeper for a long time, but when I do (somehow) get a bit steeper, distance and ball flight is vastly improved. Let me know!

 

Been a long time coming. I was a bad flipper and early extender. Worked a ton on a proper weight shift and lower body work, then the AoA fell into place. It was a result of a better, more centered turn back-and-through. All of that reigned in path from like +4 to +6* right and got it close to zero, and AoA went down with it at an almost 1:1 ratio.

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