golfrewind.com

Well I went to Golf Galaxy today to get some new golf shoes and decided to try to hit some balls on the launch monitor.

My ball flight was straight and my swing speed with the driver was around 110 but the ball was only going around 235 yrds....

Then I noticed that it said my launch angle was 19.5 degrees. Could this be why it was't going very far? Am I swinging up on the ball too much or what causes such a high launch angle?

235 seems about right. I plugged 110 mph and a 19.5 launch angle into my simulator (see this old thread Mathematical representation of a ball flight )

and I got 223.7 yards of carry. The high launch angle is killing you here. Ideally, it will be 13-14 degrees. You could be swinging too high up, or you could be hitting the ball too high on the driver face. Hitting it too high on the face means you are probably missing the sweet spot which will limit distance, too.

235 isn't terrible by any means. The average male golfer drives only about 190, but, of course, we all want more yards. Try teeing the ball a little lower and maybe just a little back in your stance and see what that does.

From that old thread, we all know that you are more proficient in the use of that spreadsheet than I am.

Therefore, what is the max. distance the OP might get out of his 110 mph swingspeed, and what would be the launch angle to 'make it happen' for him?

Hmmm, let me put together some numbers:

10 degrees --> 214.9 carry
11 --> 216.9
12 --> 218.9
13 --> 222.3
14 --> 224.4
15 --> 225.5
16 --> 226.0
17 --> 225.6
18 --> 224.7
19 --> 223.8
20 --> 223.7

all these numbers calculated with 3500 rpm of backspin. That may not be right.

So, it looks like 15-17 may be the perfect range there. However, it looks like it may not matter too much, as the numbers are actually closer than I thought. So, maybe it doesn't matter as much. An important thing to note is that those numbers are only carry. And a ball coming down from a 14 degree angle is going to roll much better than a ball coming down from a 19 or 20 degree angle.

So, it looks like I probably overstated how much the 19 degree angle was hurting you. However, missing the sweet spot is probably the biggest thing, and unless you are attacking the ball with a 5 degree upswing, 19 degrees is still pretty high. Usually, you want to aim for around a 2 degree upswing, and, like I said above, the biggest thing really is hitting the sweet spot.

Thanks Bignose!

Good point about the spin. I conveniently forgot about that!

What was your ball speed?

Thanks Bignose. I think you are right about me hitting it too high on the driver face because when I it doesn't feel like im hitting the sweet spot. It feels like a thud kind of and sounds like a dull noise. So I'll try teeing it up lower and putting it back in my stance some.

I'm not really complaining about the distance but I played the other day and I hit my 3 wood off the deck on a hole and it went around 250... so I was just curious why my driver was shorter.

Not sure about ball speed or backspin ZmaXimus, the stats clear off the screen so fast...
=(