Blog, Lewis Clarke

Do you curve the ball with Driver?

Well done to all of you who agreed you curve the driver… because we all do!

Contrary to popular belief, every golfer on the planet is creating some sort of curvature with driver… yes that’s right, even the guys and girls on tele! Whether it’s a fade, draw, slice or hook, everyone has some sort of shape shot with the driver.

So if the tour pros are curving it… why aren’t I on tour?!

The tour pros are creating a much more consistent curvature as well as minimising curvature. This means they can repeat a shot shape (fade or draw) much more consistently, whilst keeping the amount of curvature within 10 yards.

This chart from Ping shows how much curvature per 100 yards of carry a tour pro, scratch handicap, 10 handicap and 20 handicap creates. As you can see, the higher the handicap, the higher amount of curvature per 100 yards of carry.

Too make things as equal as possible… lets say an average driver across the 4 categories was 250. This means the Tour Pro would curve the ball on average around 8 yards. Compared to the 20 handicap player, who would curve the ball on average around 27 yards.

Let’s discuss why this amount of curvature is bad…

What is the objective of golf?

I ask this question a lot in coaching sessions because I am always interested to hear your thoughts on what is the objective of golf. The answer often varies from scoring as little as possible to enjoying a nice walk and one of my favourites was hitting targets.

If we can hit our intended target more often, then our score is going to be better… whether it be off the tee and finding the fairway, or hitting an approach shot onto the green, both of these factors are going to help your scoring. Before I’m hit with the “drive for show, putt for dough phrase”, strokes gained data from Mark Broadie suggests the biggest scoring advantage come from off the tee and approach shots. This is not me saying putting doesn’t matter… it’s a huge factor to scoring well. However, over 10 rounds if you hit more fairways and greens, you will score better compared to holing the odd putt here and there.

So if we all curve it and we need to hit our intended target… where do we start the ball? The best players can start the ball off target and slowly work the ball back onto the target, with great control over their start direction and amount of curvature. I did a video to demonstrate this not too long ago…

Why do I create too much curvature?

This can be for a number of reasons:

Strike Location – striking the ball not out of the middle of the club will make you curve the ball too much…check out Robs video on this!

Club Path and Face Angle – if you swing across the ball (club path) too much to the left or right, with an excessively open or shut club face then you are going to create too much curvature.

Club Technology – using modern head designs, in club fitting we can change the centre of gravity of the head to change the amount of curvature on the golf ball.

Here is an example of a driver with a moveable weight port. Moving the weight into the draw setting is going to promote less fade.

 

If you would like to understand how to reduce your curvature more so you can find more fairways and hit the ball longer, get booked in with one of the team on our amazing technology. Using Trackman or GCQuad, we can identify exactly the reason you create curve and go about fixing it.

Any questions, let me know!

Lewis

@LClarkePCoach