I just wanted to write quickly about a topic that many of us think about from time to time--that is, driver loft.  Many golfers out there don't really realize how much it can affect their accuracy--much more so than their length off the tee.

I'm going to take a wild guess and say that probably 100% of you out there can hit a wedge pretty straight (unless something goes drastically wrong, like a horrible lie or something).  Or if you mis-hit one, I'd be willing to bet that it almost never curves to the right or left, but rather simply goes straight right or straight left.  Ever wonder why that is?  It mostly has to do with the club's loft.  A wedge imparts a great deal of true backspin on a golf ball--regardless of what grooves we're talking about these days.  Why is this?  The more loft a club has, the longer the ball stays on the clubface.  It's a tiny fraction of a second of difference, but it makes a big difference in terms of the amount of spin generated.  And it is physically impossible for a ball to spin in two directions, right?  So it stands to reason that the more true backspin a ball has, the less sidespin it will have.  And obviously, as you go up the bag, the clubs begin to have less loft and less backspin.  And the less backspin you are creating, the more likely it is to impart sidespin on the ball--and this is why a 3-iron with just a slightly opened clubface can slice way off target, while a wedge with the face opened to the same degree simply goes straight and slightly right.

(By the way, did you know that grooves themselves are not what create spin?  The clubface does!  All the grooves do is channel grass and moisture away from the golf ball, so that the ball and clubface make as pure contact as possible, with no grass in between.  Those big U-shaped wedge grooves simply channel more of that grass and moisture away, and you get cleaner contact and therefore more backspin.)

This "more backspin equals straighter shots" philosophy holds true for the big stick as well.  A driver imparts about 3000 rpms of backspin on a well-struck golf ball.  That sounds like a lot, but in comparison, a U-grooved wedge can get up to 11,000 rpms of spin according to robot tests.  So even though the catch phrase these days is "high launch, low spin," don't concern yourself too much with that because a driver just isn't spinning the ball very much to begin with...and we need to keep as much of that backspin as we can in order to limit sidespin, and ultimately hit more fairways. 

Now what about distance, though?  "Am I going to lose distance" is the common question.  On paper, yes you will lose a few yards.  In real life, probably not.  Here's why:  I see many, many distance-crazed golfers at my club playing 8.5-degree drivers, thinking that a lower-lofted driver will give them greater distance.  In theory, this should be correct...but remember, if you're a fraction of a degree open or closed at impact, you're going to throw a lot of sidespin on the ball, and a sidespinning golf ball NEVER stays in the air as long as one with more true backspin.  The result is actually a loss of distance, not to mention accuracy.   And have you ever noticed that often times your 3 wood goes just as far, if not farther than your driver?  Backspin, baby.  3 woods have more loft, more loft equals more backspin, more backspin equals less sidespin, less sidespin equals more accuracy and greater distance.  If you're in the "3 wood goes longer than driver" camp, it's time to up the loft on your driver.

So the moral of my little story here is to really look seriously into a higher-lofted driver.  10.5 derees is a good starting point, and 12 degrees might not be a bad idea either, especially if you have low clubhead speed.  Remember, the longer the ball stays on the clubface, the better off you are in terms of accuracy.  And you're most likely going to gain distance over your lower-lofted driver because of the lack of sidespin.  So an increase in distance and accuracy...who doesn't like a little shot of that?