Everyone says the draw spin produces more distance. It is supposed to be true for both the right handed golfers as well as the left handed golfers.
Has anyone really think of the reasons why a draw spin produces more distance? Or, it is just a myth? Supposedly, given the same force, the right spin should produce the same distance as the left spin under the same condition, right?
Does it have anything to do with the human anatomy? Or, ball flight? What cause the more distance?
Would it be from the carrying distance? Run-off distance or from both?
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That’s a good question. I always assumed it may be the the face being a little more closed relative to club head path for a draw. But as I cant consistently hit one I am totally unqualified to give an opinion.
Not that i ever let that stop me!
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Not to attack the Google poster.
Information freedom has provided convenience and basic help. However, we all know not to take what we learn online as the final edition of the solution to our issue. Somehow, unfortunately, a few of them were not afraid to expose their ignorance. Some times it makes me feel like going back to grade school environment.
All else being equal, draw spin and fade spin will go the same distance. A draw doesn’t explicitly go further than a fade.
Having said that, if you hold a club down by the ball and turn it closed, the loft goes down and if you twist it open, the loft goes up. So generally speaking, a draw swing presents the club with a lower spin loft than a fade. So the end result is that a draw winds up going further.
There are long drive competitors that play fades though. If the club is optimized for fade presentation, then a closed clubface will make it less effective and it will go shorter.
Another way to look at it is draws don’t necessarily go further than fades, but, especially for irons, lower spin loft means higher smash factor, which means more distance. Lower spin loft and draws tend to go hand in hand. Spin loft is just the effective loft relative to the attack angle.
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Which goes farther…when I banana slice one into the trees, or duck hook my club chuck into the lake? I’m pretty much optimized for both…
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Excellent!
Normally it’s the way explained. The effective lower loft with a drew should produce longer distance.
How about if the effective loft are the same and the ball flights are the result of the swing path instead of the face angle?
Supposed if the face angle is held the same with either the draw or the fade ( only the swing path will be different ).
We’re not talking about a hook nor a slice. IMHO, the draw or the fade should be within maximum 10-15 yards from 150 yards and out. The longer the distance the shot covers, the more variance from the line.
Thinking of the human anatomy, the swing path producing a draw might be a smidgen longer than the swing path which produces a fade. The shoulders and the arms would travel a bit longer?
Typically a R-L shot (draw) will travel 10-20 yds further total distance than a L-R shot (fade) for a right handed golfer. There is scientific reasoning behind it. If Rory wanted to hit a draw it would go further. , pros like the fade because it offers more control. A fade travels on a higher trajectory with a little more backspin. It does not travel further carry wise very close. When a draw hits the ground, hit properly it usually takes a bigger bounce forward because of a lower trajectory and less backspin. A fade swing will go straight on a mishit. A draw on a mishit usually ducks hard left. My long and mid iron swings from a clean lie will typically fade 10-15 yds very consistently. I can hit a draw but the slightest early flip it smothers. My driver and wood swings I actually pull my right foot back on address, point my left foot out about an inch further than normal and hit a draw now. There was the 40-50 yds I regained last year and this year. I do hit the occasional ducky. But there are the real answers. I did look it up online and the engineers said the same thing. Back in the days of persimmon the bulge in the face caused something called “gear effect” and struck properly the draw produced more total distance than a fade.
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True.
As explained.
How is the high draw vs. fade. Where the apex are similar in height but with two opposite direction? In this case, the effective loft and the height of the ball flight should not come into play? The sin should be close also if, the deviation from the center are equal?
Case in point. Bubba Watson’s iconic wedge shot at the #10 during the 2012 Masters, an impossible high draw ( hook) from behind the trees which stopped quickly after landing.
How about Ben Hogan who could hit a low fade in windy condition?
Does the size of the swing arc from the same golfer vary with a fade swing and a draw swing?
Pulling your right foot back with the driver will give you more travel with the shoulders ( thus more with the hands and longer swing arc); it allows more freedom with the back swing, relative to the target line, you would have a longer swing provided if the follow through not shortened. Should be very obvious if you video tape your changes with the foot position.
BTW, that little shuffle with the right foot is what Hogan was advocate in his books. Not many golfers could follow this because, too complicated and needs a lot of practice to have the different ball position and foot work to become second nature. A golf nut will spend the time to ingrain his system, but, for most of the golfers, they don’t want to spend too much time on the practice range, they just want to get out on the golf course and have fun. Hogan said, he really enjoyed practicing; even the days after he retired from competition, into his 70’s. His daily routine would be to the Shady Oaks G.C.C. from his home, hit the practice balls in the morning, have his lunch there ( usually a sandwich and a bowel of soup ) then off to his office in the early afternoon . Everything he did seemed so mechanical and precise, because with all the practice, the routine had become second nature to him. That’s why the routine could hold up under pressure in competition. He could have competed with the young bucks for many more years had it not for his eye sight was interfering with his putting.
Mickey Wright ( Hogan’s counter part in LPGA in the same era ) quite golf completely; some inside news told the reason because she felt she could not golf like she used to after retiring. So she gave up the game completely. Only hit some balls off he back porch with her 7 irons sometimes.
The ball doesn’t know if the person hitting it is left or right handed. The only thing the ball sees is the clubface and the direction it’s moving in. So a left tilted spin axis and a right tilted spin axis, all else being equal will go exactly the same distance.
However, if you swing out to in, which will tend to generate a fade/slice result, then you need a steeper angle of attack, where if you swing in to out, you need a shallower angle of attack. That’s to do with D-plane, which is getting outside of my comfort zone. Shallower angle of attack with the same static loft is a lower spin loft, which means more speed and lower spin. Steeper angle of attack means less speed and more spin.
Any given shot though has an optimal launch, spin, speed ratio to generate the longest distance. If your fade swing generates the optimal conditions to create distance, then hitting a draw with the otherwise same parameters will go shorter than the fade. If that were not true then the WLDA guys would all be hitting draws and they’re not.
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My swing plane is always flatter, but it produces a high ball flight with bias to fade/straight. Long ago, my first instructor had always marbled at the outcome of my golf swing. Bless his heart that he did not try to change my swing in a major way to be text book ideal. Funny thing is, it was never lack of spin. ball flight was high, never lack back spin for the approach shots.
Perhaps I dropped my elbows a fraction of the second too soon. ( thus flatter plane going into the impact. Divots were never lacking in the first decade of the learning, eventually the size of the divot got shallower. It could also be the quick release of the hips. That has always been my issue of turning the hips sooner than the shoulders and cause the hands not able to sync with the core.
Anyways, life is such, my score is higher these days but I enjoy the game a lot more than the past.
I was accused by my friends that I was too serious about my game on the golf course. They must have felt the tension.
Agreed, though slicers tend to introduce so much spin (decent draw shots don’t) that it slows the forward motion of the ball. A good cut can match a good draw (as Dustin Johnson has shown).
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What?? The club face doesn’t know I’m right handed??? Ty, say it ain’t so! Just messing’ with ya brother :). Your point is well taken.