Driving: attack angle, tee height and what the numbers show.

Attack angle

TrackMan defines attack angle as the vertical direction in which the clubhead's geometric centre is moving at the moment of maximum compression of the ball, measured against the horizon. A positive number means the club is travelling upward at impact, a negative number downward.

TrackMan says that getting the most distance from a driver requires a positive attack angle, with loft matched to that attack angle and to club speed. It adds a caution: a positive attack angle on its own does not guarantee maximum distance, which is why fitting matters. The club fitting page explains what a fitting involves.

Tour averages, and why two sets differ

Two sets of tour averages are widely quoted, and they do not match.

The two sets come from different collection periods, and neither source states when its data was gathered, so they should not be read as a trend or compared directly. What they agree on is the pattern: in both, PGA Tour players on average hit slightly down on the driver and LPGA Tour players hit up. TrackMan's 2024 listing also gives 6-iron averages of minus 3.7 degrees on the PGA Tour and minus 2.3 degrees on the LPGA Tour, which shows how much more the irons are struck on the way down.

Spin loft

A 2013 Nextgengolf article drawing on TrackMan describes spin loft as the difference between attack angle and dynamic loft at impact, with more spin loft producing more spin. That is the link between attack angle and the spin a drive carries.

How high to tee it

Trillium Rose: start from attack angle

Trillium Rose, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher, calls attack angle the most important factor in choosing a tee height (GOLF.com, 2023). Golfers who swing up can tee the ball high with little risk. Those who hit down tend to produce pop-ups and marks on the crown of the club, and Rose suggests they tee it lower while they work on their attack angle. She says no single tee height suits everyone and recommends testing different heights on the range.

The GOLF Magazine experiment

In an experiment published in GOLF Magazine in June 2006 and republished in 2024, Eric Alpenfels and a researcher the article names as "Bob Christian, Ph.D." had 27 golfers aged 25 to 71, with handicaps from scratch to 29, hit ten drives at each of three tee heights, recording the best five at each. Mid and high tees produced significantly more carry than low tees in every handicap group, mainly through higher launch and lower spin. The high tee averaged about 12 yards more carry than the low tee overall, and about 18 yards more for the high handicappers.

The same test reported that accuracy did not suffer with the high tee, but that is a magazine experiment rather than peer-reviewed research, so treat the accuracy finding as unconfirmed.

Staying balanced

Dana Dahlquist, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher, links a balanced finish on the lead side to the speed and centred strike the driver needs. His cue is to finish with the knees together and the hips up rather than drooping. The 2005 biomechanics review by Hume, Keogh and Reid adds that in a drive, ground reaction force shifts from the back foot to the front foot during the downswing. More on both is on the full swing page.

When to hit driver

Technique is half the question. The other half is whether to take driver at all.

• Scott Fawcett's DECADE system, as reported by GOLF.com in 2020, advises being aggressive off the tee and conservative into greens.
• The DIY Golfer's review of Mark Broadie's "Every Shot Counts" says strokes-gained data favours driver over 3-wood even on narrow holes, though the reviewer would still take 3-wood if it is working better that day.
• Kellie Stenzel, a GOLF Top 100 Teacher, advises starting with the fairway wood you hit most consistently, and using the width of the teeing area to open up a better angle away from trouble.

Those views pull in different directions, which is why the course management page sets them out in full. On using the tee box: in November 2019, under the Rules then in force, the R&A's Assistant Rules Director Shona McRae described the teeing area as two club-lengths deep, with its front edge on the line between the forward points of the two tee-markers and its sides running back from their outside points.