The golf swing and club fitting: What is the Angle of Attack?

From time to time Aussie Golfer will be featuring a number of guest posts from Daniel Marsh at Callaway Golf explaining the technical details associated with the golf swing and correct club fitting.

What is it and why is it important to hit longer drives?
The easiest way to explain Angle of Attack is it is the club’s angle of approach into the ball relative to the ground.

For instance if you have a negative attack angle of 3 degrees this means that your club is meeting the ball in a descending blow, decreasing the loft of the driver, decreasing the ball’s launch angle and increasing the rate of backspin on the golf ball.

Many people I fit ask me why is this important to hitting longer drives? My simple response is, the ball is sitting nicely on a tee off the ground right? So if your ball is off the ground why do you want to hit down into the ball aiding in backspin like you would with an iron.

With a driver we normally want to lower the amount of spin we have on the ball to create a stronger more penetrating flight especially once the ball has reached its peak and is on its way down. Creating a positive or neutral attack angle helps to impart less backspin and a higher launch helping the ball to fly straighter and longer.

Let’s have a quick look at some numbers to show how this can affect your ball flight.

Driver Swing Speed: 92mph, 10.5 deg driver
AA       Launch Angle        Back Spin (rpm)        Carry Distance (m)    Dynamic Loft of Driver
 -3                 10                              3600                      195                               8
 0                  13                              3000                      205                               10
+3                 16                              2400                      215                                12

In saying all this it’s not the end of the world if you do hit down on the ball. Some of the world’s best players have a negative Angle of Attack. It just makes it ultra important to have the correct loft in your hands to help in creating the correct ballistics.

For more information please contact your local Callaway Authorised Retailer or call 1800 217 77 quoting aussiegolfer.net to book your club fit at one of Callaway’s Performance Centre’s and get that ball flying longer and straighter.

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