How to properly hit a persimmon driver

[dpark]

Going old skool for our Bandon Dunes trip

Ok, this may seem like an odd question, but for WRXers out there who actually still hit persimmon woods, I have a technique question.

What is the best way to hit a persimmon driver to maximize distance?

The reason I ask is that I am taking some classic clubs to Bandon Dunes in a couple of weeks and am having a bit of a problem figuring out how to hit my persimmon driver again. I hit the 3 wood and 4 wood just fine. For those clubs I take the exact same swing as I do with my metal fairway wood and I get a perfectly acceptable result.

My driver is 50s or 60s MacGregor SEOM of unknown loft, probably 9 or 10 degrees, True Temper C shaft (which should be stiff flex IIRC) and 43" long.

The best results I get is teeing the ball up fairly high (relative to face height), with well over 1/2 the ball above the top of the clubhead. I get a nice launch angle and pretty good distance. What freaks me out about this is the fear of putting a skymark on the head.

When I tee it up low (like I used to do ages ago), I get low-flying knuckleballs, nothing even close to the low-launching and then rising rockets I remember. I think it is because the modern ball spins so little compared to the old balatas.

Any tips/tricks that others have tried to get good results would be appreciated. I may just stick with the high tee ball, but I am sure that I am going to screw up badly at some point and put an idiot mark on the clubhead :)

[majic]

Change ball to a softer ball like the Wilson Zip or Srixon Soft Feel. You should be able to tee it lower. No distance loss. Tad

[Maxwell]

dpark

(Satire)
Sir, you can tee it up or down, slant the tee/ball forward or backwards, you can lengthen the shaft or go to a seniors flex shaft, you can swing faster on the downswing or take it back slow - in my opinion - it isn't going to make "that much" of a difference "distance wise".

Fact - I lost yardage when I didn't move to swinging "outboard motors" off the tee.

I do play Srixon Soft Feel and have tried Wilson Soft Balls too! Great golf balls BUT until the R & A , RCGA and USGA sanctions golf balls made of "Flubber", I am just going to have to accept the loss of yardage playing with my Mens R/H 1950 MacGregor Tourney M43's persimmon woods.

Max

[Bella Woods]

dpark:

Don't let Maxwell fool you - when we played together at a course in
Michigan (Shepherds Hollow) this past July (chrisbellaire was there too)
- we had a "long drive contest" on a par 5.

Maxwell's drive was 262 yards with his M43 driver (in the fairway). Not
bad for an old guy hitting a persimmon wood.

[dpark]

Thanks for the comments on the softer balls, I will give that a try.

But how do you swing/tee your drives with persimmon? Do you tee it low and hit the Arnold Palmer climbing drives?

Do you try to tee it up like a modern driver and hit up on the ball, high-launch, low-spin style?

I am very curious about the different styles you are using to hit your drives. As I mentioned, I am not having ANY problems with my fairway woods, hitting them the same way I hit my fairway metals, but I am very perplexed on the best way to hit the driver.

[rileyj]

For maximum distance you will still want to tee the ball up and catch is on the upswing slightly. For these types of drives I like to have about 3/4 of the ball above the face (I also play a 50's EOM Mac). In order to avoid popping it up make sure the ball is played up in your stance, even or slightly inside left foot. Remember that since it is so far up of your low point the club should actually be working back to the left, encouraging a fade. So it's high tee...forward ball....hard fade. Adjust stance to accommodate initial line.

When I don't need to go all out I'll tee it lower, maybe only 1/3 of the ball above the top of the clubface. More middle of stance. Catch it with a descending blow or horizontally. You'll get more spin and since the ball is positioned at or prior to lowpoint the clubhead is moving out away from you at contact and this will encourage a draw. So it's tee low, mid stance ball, low/medium draw.

Hope this helps.

[drewspin]

stabilize your ears and focus your intention.

Persimmon will let you know in a hurry if you are getting sloppy.

Fear not.

[rileyj]

I forgot to say cheers on your decision to go at Bandon with traditional gear. What better place to bring your persimmon. There will be many holes where you have the edge with the ability to keep it down and protected.

[ssp]

I was a tee it high and let it fly. Even used the pencil regularly. I do think you need to go with the high spinning ball.

[astamm8]

I find that I hit my persimmon drivers low. So, I play ones with more loft than other drivers (and similar drivers that I played with balatas, etc). More loft does wonders. Additionally, I get the best performance (longest, among other factors) on balls that I hit high. This is, in part, due to hit the high part of the sweet spot of the club. There's even more loft there (12* probably), and I personally think that's a hot spot on drivers (high launch, low spin). To accomplish that I do tee up the ball pretty high. The down side is my miss is to get it to high on the face (something I don't do with a 460, but can happen pretty fast with a persimmon), hitting a moon ball, so it's a trade off. It's my opinion that you can't really leave a pop up mark unless you come over the top (steep attack angle) and go under the ball. With a good path/angle you can hit the top line but it's not a 'true' pop-up (and not that hazardous to the club). So I tee it pretty high because that's comfortable, but I try to tee it a little bit lower because most of my misses are a result of teeing it too high.

Hope that helps.

[freddiec]

I prefer to tee the ball fairly low. Only about 1/3 to half the ball above the club at address if you rest the club on the ground, but if you do this and your hitting the bottom of the face, tee it up some, its all personal choice based on your swing. I find with persimmon the sweet spot is in the middle of the face, perhaps a tad below that. It'll fly if you hit it solid. Don't forget the club twirl ala Faldo on the follow thru , on a good hit, that'll give you an extra few yards and style points too! Play good!

[dpark]

[quote name='rileyj' timestamp='1320806229' post='3777495']
For maximum distance you will still want to tee the ball up and catch is on the upswing slightly. For these types of drives I like to have about 3/4 of the ball above the face (I also play a 50's EOM Mac). In order to avoid popping it up make sure the ball is played up in your stance, even or slightly inside left foot. Remember that since it is so far up of your low point the club should actually be working back to the left, encouraging a fade. So it's high tee...forward ball....hard fade. Adjust stance to accommodate initial line.

When I don't need to go all out I'll tee it lower, maybe only 1/3 of the ball above the top of the clubface. More middle of stance. Catch it with a descending blow or horizontally. You'll get more spin and since the ball is positioned at or prior to lowpoint the clubhead is moving out away from you at contact and this will encourage a draw. So it's tee low, mid stance ball, low/medium draw.

Hope this helps.
[/quote]

Actually this is what I was looking for. When I was having the best launch/carry, it was just like you stated, ball teed up high, I tilted my shoulders away from the target and put the ball on my left heel. It just freaks me out to see that much air under the ball I also get a nice cut, which is my preferred ball flight when using a modern driver as well. There is just so little "face area" on the persimmon driver that I get the willies a bit but I guess I will just have to get used to it.

When I tee it lower I don't get the "lift" I used to remember getting. I think it is because I am using a Pro-V1x. I will look for some softer, more spinny balls to see if that helps. I was not getting much distance teeing it low and I seemed to get a lot more side spin and curvature in the ball flight (even though it never got more than about 20 feet in the air).

[dpark]

[quote name='astamm8' timestamp='1320808181' post='3777613']
I find that I hit my persimmon drivers low. So, I play ones with more loft than other drivers (and similar drivers that I played with balatas, etc). More loft does wonders. Additionally, I get the best performance (longest, among other factors) on balls that I hit high. This is, in part, due to hit the high part of the sweet spot of the club. There's even more loft there (12* probably), and I personally think that's a hot spot on drivers (high launch, low spin). To accomplish that I do tee up the ball pretty high. The down side is my miss is to get it to high on the face (something I don't do with a 460, but can happen pretty fast with a persimmon), hitting a moon ball, so it's a trade off. It's my opinion that you can't really leave a pop up mark unless you come over the top (steep attack angle) and go under the ball. With a good path/angle you can hit the top line but it's not a 'true' pop-up (and not that hazardous to the club). So I tee it pretty high because that's comfortable, but I try to tee it a little bit lower because most of my misses are a result of teeing it too high.

Hope that helps.
[/quote]

I don't have any way of figuring out loft on the driver I have. I don't think they had stated lofts back in the day (I wish they did) and I just don't have the time to search for one. I have however, just purchased a Tommy Armour 693 Tourney 2 wood in really nice shape. The price was so cheap I figured it would be worth it just to see if it has enough loft so that I can tee it up at a height that makes me feel more comfortable and also get a decent launch angle. We'll see. I should have that club by the end of the week. If it works out as expected, it may be what I use as a driver at Bandon. I am also a big fan of more loft on drivers, its just hard to find them in persimmon I guess that is why they used to make 2 woods

[dpark]

[quote name='rileyj' timestamp='1320806519' post='3777507']
I forgot to say cheers on your decision to go at Bandon with traditional gear. What better place to bring your persimmon. There will be many holes where you have the edge with the ability to keep it down and protected.
[/quote]

Thanks.

That's what my 2-iron will be used for I can still hit a pretty good punch 2-iron (or "trap draw" in Johnny Miller parlance) that will run forever at Bandon. The hole I am most concerned about is the 3rd hole at Old Mac. Depending on the wind direction, I am not sure I will be able to clear the hill from the green tees

[Hofnar]

For distance I tee the ball high. Quite high, but it´s a scary thing hitting that way with a precious old persimmon driver. Can you say Sky mark? Anyway, for me that´s the way to do it. Then just swing smoothly and let the club work it´s magic. Also I favor soft two-piece balls w low spin for maximum distance. Precept Laddie X works fine for me. With the high (ballistic) trajectory you don´t really need much spin to keep the ball in the air and it lands hot and gives you a decent bit of roll (which doesn´t hurt, distancewise).

[dpark]

Well, the first weekend on the course turned out well. Shot a 74-75 playing from the combo tees (half white, half blue) which was 6100 yards. Also brought out some old blades (Hogan Apex PCs), a Wilson Staff Fluid Feel Buttonback SW and a Bullseye putter.

Had to hit driver-3 wood to reach some par-4s that I could normally reach with a driver-9 iron, but my short game and putting managed to keep the distance damage to a minimum. There were a couple of holes where I just nutted the driver, getting it out there 240-250ish which made me smile, but usually was only around 225-230. I also had some that maybe went 200 yards if I was lucky. The 3-wood was pretty consistently around 200-210 which is at least 20 yards shorter than my Adams 5050 fairway wood.

Some people asked for pics of my MacGregor woods, so here they are. Both are refinished but the 3 wood is in much better shape than the driver. Neither have idiot marks (yet). I had to slap about 3 strips of lead tape on the back edge of the 3-wood to get the swingweight up to D-2. Both clubs have the original True Temper C shafts.

My 2-wood should arrive on Weds or Thurs according to Fedex, so will probably bring that to Bandon too.

[freddiec]

dpark,
Those are some nice sticks. Your distances with a driver are pretty good I would say. 230 to 240 is probably like hitting a Ti about 275 I'd say, so your swinging well. Good luck at Bandon Dunes, you lucky stiff.

[Bella Woods]

dpark:

Having to hit long irons or fairway woods into par 4s - reminds
me of the "good old days" when golfers actually had to use all
of the clubs in their bag during a round of golf.

Have fun at Bandon Dunes!

[oldschoolrocker]

Play the persimmons about a quarter of my rounds and have found the key to getting off the tee for me is...TEMPO TEMPO TEMPO. I setup the same with my woods, as with my [i]modern metals, except tee it a bit lower with regard to the face, [/i]and really think tempo as my only swing thought. I read something the other day about making your transition from the top the same speed as your inital move off the ball and it has really helped me with respect to tempo. Have a great time at Bandon Dunes....

[dpark]

Well, just got back from Bandon. It was a great trip (as usual) with the added bonus of having great weather for Sat and Sun. Played 6 rounds over 4 days and half of them with persimmon and blades. Overall, I played like crap because my putting was horrifically bad but my lowest round was with persimmon at Bandon Trails with a 78 and 3 birdies

The Tommy Armour Tourney 2 wood made the bag, kicking out the SEOM driver. Wasn't too hard a decision because I did not have to tee up the 2 wood abnormally high to get a decent launch angle. I just teed it up with about 1/2 the ball above the top of the driver and swung normally.

Distance off the tee wasn't an issue at all from the green tees. Ground was still firm and I got tons of roll with many drives easily out there 240-250 with one bomb of 300 yards on the 15th hole at Old Mac when I caught the downslope perfectly. The only hole I was concerned with was the 3rd at Old Mac, where I was worried I might not clear the hill but cleared it with no problem.

When I teed of at Bandon Dunes the starter made a poin to shake my hand as I was the first person he had seen all year playing persimmon.

I enjoyed it so much, I plan to play this setup for a lot more rounds over the winter. I do plan on making two changes: I will put in a modern sand wedge as the Wilson Staff wedge is just too unforgiving for soft conditions and will put in my normal Odyssey putter over the Bullseye/8802.

Thanks for all the advice and comments.

[Doublebuck]

Only one key. Find out where to tee it for you to hit the center of the clubface. There is nothing more important.

[Mattrick]

On 11/8/2011 at 10:31 AM, majic said:

Change ball to a softer ball like the Wilson Zip or Srixon Soft Feel. You should be able to tee it lower. No distance loss. Tad