How Many Lofts Does YOUR Driver Have?
If you have done tests on a Launch Monitor with your driver and seen differences in driver spin and launch angle, you might wonder why this happens. And you have heard that driver spin is reduced by hitting just a little high on the face of your driver. A recent article by Tom Wishon in his bi-monthly "ETech Report" Newsletter illustrates how Driver Design can explain some of these results. Here is the link: Tom Wishon Newsletter - Backspin and Driver HeadsThe schematic below, from the Wishon article, illustrates that all driver heads have some amount of vertical radius on the face:  The first thing for you to note is that drivers actually have different lofts depending on where you hit the ball on the face. The "designed loft" is the loft that is measured at the vertical center of the face. But where you hit the ball on the face can actually result in more or less loft for your shots. Because a driver has a "vertical roll radius" then, there are two things that can result from shots hit at different vertical locations on the face: - If you hit high on the face your shots can launch higher, and low on the face your shots can launch lower; and
- There is an affect called the "Vertical Gear Effect." If you hit shots high on the face, ball spin will reduce, and low on the face ball spin will increase. The Wishon article notes that the spin difference between shots high and low on the face can be as much as 800 rpm.
I hope you enjoy reading this full article about driver loft and spin. It should convince you that you want to hit your drives JUST a little high on the face!
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What is the Most Important Part of a Putt?
From the standpoint of how much a putt breaks, which part of the putt is most important - the beginning or the end? I suspect most folks will say the end, that most of the break occurs there. However, Mark Sweeney, the developer of AimPoint green reading, wrote a fascinating article that demonstrates that the beginning of a putt is actually the most important in terms of what the total break of the putt will be. Here is a link to that article: The end of a putt is the least importantBelow is a schematic from the article, showing how different portions of a putt affect the total break that will occur. This schematic is for a cross-hill putt that breaks 1 inch from the edge of the hole from 5 feet away: 
Note that for this putt, from 15 feet away the total break would be 12 inches. The first 5 feet of the putt account for 6 inches of the total break, the second 5 feet accounts for 5 inches of the break, and the final 5 feet of the putt account for 1 inch of break.
As Mark, describes, the first part of a putt greatly changes the trajectory - and so the total break - of a putt. I hope you take the time to read this article, it clearly explains how sensitive the break of putts are to total length.
AND - if you look to the left of the article, there are a number of other AimPoint posts that are well worth reading!
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Putter Loft - and Thanks!This past month a pitcher for the Knoxville Smokies baseball team called me and said he was having putting speed control problems. I checked his putter and it had a loft of 7 degrees. Once I bent it to 3 degrees, his putting improved significantly - he created topspin rather than backspin at impact. Sometimes it is just a small change in your putter that can produce big results!
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Some of you may have noticed - near the start of this newsletter - that the Golf Digest logo now has the year "2013" in it. Game Improvement Golf was again recognized by Golf Digest in their list of about 700 U.S. custom club fitters.
Game Improvement Golf received another recognition a few weeks ago. You may recall I mentioned the "2012 Pro Golf Synopsis" ebook in my newsletter a few months ago. This was written by Richie Hunt, who in addition is a professional club fitter. Richie recently released "3Jack Golf's First Annual Top-30 Clubfitter's List - the link to this is provided below....
3Jack Golf's First Annual Top-30 Clubfitter's List
There were a lot of what I would call "heavy hitters" in the club fitting world on this list - and it was delightful that he included Game Improvement Golf on it. Makes me want to continue to learn and improve what I do to help golfers play their best!
The Fit Is IT!!
Tony Wright (The Golfer's Clubfitter)
GAME IMPROVEMENT GOLF
Oak Ridge, TN
The PREMIER Short Game Fitting Center in East Tennessee!
tony@gameimprovementgolf.com
www.gameimprovementgolf.com
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