Ah, thats why a driver is so much more chaotic.
Last week, I discussed thetwisting of the club head on off-center hits, as well as how this causes something called gear effect. This week, we are going to understand why a driver can be so infuriatingly difficult to control. It might also explain why you get different results with your irons compared to your woods.
Location, location, location
Where the center of mass of a club is situated is massively influential on the amount of gear effect produced. To help you understand the concept, lets examine theillustrationbelow.
The illustration shows a toe hit. The center of mass (pink gear shape) is traveling along the pink line (swing path). The ball is struck onthe toe of the club, and this creates a twisting of that contact point around the center of mass. In other words, the yellow line will twist in the direction of the blue and white arrow, similar to a clock going from 1 oclock to 3 oclock.
As the club rotates along theblue part of the arrow, the contact point on the club face will travel more to the right before traveling increasingly more backward (and less rightwards) as it moves alongthe white part of the arrow.
The bluest part of the arrow (the part where the contact point is shifting more rightwards) is where the most gearing occurs, applying an opposing twist to the ball. So, as the club face opens up clockwise, the ball will rotate counter-clockwise.
Remember that the exact opposite twisting of the clubhead and ball occurs on a shot contacted on the heel of the club.
Iron it out
With an iron, the center of mass is much closer to the face than with a metal wood, so the twisting at impact can produce a different result.
A similar scenario to our driver shot is illustratedbelow.
The iron is traveling along the pink line and when the ball is hit on the toe of the club, it produces a clockwise twisting of the club face. We can see from the blue-and-white arrow, however, that the iron will behave more like a screen door rotating nearly straight back with almost no rightward movement of the contact point on the face.
Theres still a little rightward movement, of course, but nowhere near as much as with a driver. As a result, gear effect is minimized and can be overridden by the opening of the face.
Bulge
Have you ever wondered why the face of a driver is not completely flat? Take a look at your driver now, and you will see that it is slightly convex something called bulge. This was introduced first by Spalding decades ago, and is a way of counteracting gear effect.
With a perfectly flat club face, a toe hit would produce an insane amount of gearing, launching the ballwith a lot more hook spin (or less slice spin) than it would have otherwise. By adding bulge, toe hits start more to the right (for a right-handed golfer) and heel hits start more to the left. This gives golfers of all levels a much better chance to hit the fairway when they dont hit the ball exactly on the sweet spot which by the way almost never happens, even for the best golfers in the world.
Take action
The first thing to realize with all of this is that a driver is going to be far more difficult to consistently control simply because strike location plays such an important role in direction.
With that said, you should never underestimate the power of simple drills, such as using the dry erase marker, foot spray or face tape to identify your strike location. I see so many golfers hit a heeled slice with the driver and then try and fix their swing path when it was never the issue in the first place.
If you can get better at identifying whether a strike was heeled or toed, as well as improve your ability to hit the desired location, you will see far more consistency in your game.
Here is a simple exercise which can help with the awareness element.
Improving contact point awareness
Place a dot on the back of the ball with a dry erase marker pen.Hit the shot.Based on the sound, feeling of twisting and the ball flight, try to guess where you hit the club face (too high/low, too heel/toe).Take a look and see how close your guess was to reality.
I have found a clear correlation between a players ability to identify where they hit on the club face and their handicap level. I have also seen simple improvements in awareness create lowered handicaps.
Editors Note: Adam is Author of the amazon bestseller The Practice Manual, where he discusses some of these concepts and more. You can purchase the bookhere.
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