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Is hitting a draw with a driver all it's cracked up to be?

I'm a slicer of the ball with the lower lofted clubs and I'm trying everything to get a straighter ball flight. I catch the odd one with a feint draw but obviously I'm aiming left to counter the slice - hugely annoying!

What never ceases to amaze me when I do get that feint draw is the extra distance over the fade / slice. A draw is 20-30 yards further than a straight shot but at least 50 over a slice.
 
I'd take a slight draw over a fade any day of the week.
With my lowish ball flight I find that a draw gives me a lot more distance.
Many is the time I've hit a slight draw and despite my first bounce being miles behind my playing partner I've not finished up that far behind him when the ball has stopped rolling.
I never find that if I put a slight fade on the ball.
Maybe it's all in my imagination???
 
J55TTC said:
I'm a slicer of the ball with the lower lofted clubs and I'm trying everything to get a straighter ball flight. I catch the odd one with a feint draw but obviously I'm aiming left to counter the slice - hugely annoying!

What never ceases to amaze me when I do get that feint draw is the extra distance over the fade / slice. A draw is 20-30 yards further than a straight shot but at least 50 over a slice.
Click to expand...

Are straight shot has to be longer, given the same launch conditions. A fade or a draw travel in an arc, and the shortest distance between two points being a straight line etc.....
 
One of our regulars in the swindle is desperate for a draw because he believes it's the "better shot" and gets more distance

He normally hits a nice natural fade

So one day challenged him that his natural fade would go further than his draw

So he hit two tee shots - one his natural fade and the other a slight draw

His fade went a clear ten years further - he hit the ball better with the fade

And lots are like that - your natural shot shape will go further
 
This is an interesting question but I believe the launch and swing speed are more important to the distance of the drive, and I believe that when you have distance you worry less about the shape as long as it's controlled distance.

From personal experience, I went to my pro to have a quick look at the driver a couple of months ago. My problems were low flight and carry as well as a slice. We looked at the numbers and confirmed that my angle of attack was ranging from low to too very low. -1 to -6-7. We also confirmed that my swing speed was fairly high, 110-112mph. A few small changes later and I was hitting more 1 to -1 kind of numbers and the height was back.

Snap forward a couple of weeks and I was fitted for a driver courtesy of Callaway, during the fitting we changed shafts to a stiffer heavier shaft (although not too heavy as those felt dead to me!).
Combine the lesson changes with the new driver and some slightly drier courses and my driver AVERAGE is up from 235 to 270 on game golf and I've hit some over 300 (313 being the longest).
So far, I've not looked at draw vs fade as my natural shot is a fade I've not tried to change that, but I have made some small setup changes and been re-fitted with the new swing to something which is giving far greater distance.

The distance I'm getting now gives me confidence that I don't need to knock the skin off the ball and as a result I'm finding approx 60% of fairways with misses being small misses not lost balls!
Point of the story do you need to work on trying to hit a particular shot shape? or would you better trying to improve you driver numbers like dynamic loft, swing speed and smash factor due to general swing?
 
J55TTC said:
I'm a slicer of the ball with the lower lofted clubs and I'm trying everything to get a straighter ball flight. I catch the odd one with a feint draw but obviously I'm aiming left to counter the slice - hugely annoying!

What never ceases to amaze me when I do get that feint draw is the extra distance over the fade / slice. A draw is 20-30 yards further than a straight shot but at least 50 over a slice.
Click to expand...
If your aiming left to counteract a slice are you actually making it worse, I thought it was swinging out to the right and swing path in to out, if your coming over the top and across the ball your going to increase the risk of slicing it.....I think.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=mRJkLs0gXkg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dougajmcdonald said:
This is an interesting question but I believe the launch and swing speed are more important to the distance of the drive, and I believe that when you have distance you worry less about the shape as long as it's controlled distance.

From personal experience, I went to my pro to have a quick look at the driver a couple of months ago. My problems were low flight and carry as well as a slice. We looked at the numbers and confirmed that my angle of attack was ranging from low to too very low. -1 to -6-7. We also confirmed that my swing speed was fairly high, 110-112mph. A few small changes later and I was hitting more 1 to -1 kind of numbers and the height was back.

Snap forward a couple of weeks and I was fitted for a driver courtesy of Callaway, during the fitting we changed shafts to a stiffer heavier shaft (although not too heavy as those felt dead to me!).
Combine the lesson changes with the new driver and some slightly drier courses and my driver AVERAGE is up from 235 to 270 on game golf and I've hit some over 300 (313 being the longest).
So far, I've not looked at draw vs fade as my natural shot is a fade I've not tried to change that, but I have made some small setup changes and been re-fitted with the new swing to something which is giving far greater distance.

The distance I'm getting now gives me confidence that I don't need to knock the skin off the ball and as a result I'm finding approx 60% of fairways with misses being small misses not lost balls!
Point of the story do you need to work on trying to hit a particular shot shape? or would you better trying to improve you driver numbers like dynamic loft, swing speed and smash factor due to general swing?
Click to expand...

Back to the lesson it wasn't to try to get to a draw per se..... more to neutralise the path. She was even happy for me to see if I could hook quite a few in a row then try to work back from there as I said my bad shot a couple of times a round is a slice.

So the aim of the lesson was to go the opposite way and feel quite an extreme in to out path(the reality being different from feel) but after I start getting more control in path we are going to work on spin, launch etc
 
Ultimately it's just a means of getting the golf ball around the course, and both options work well for each of us. I always hit a draw as a kid, changed to fading it for 15 yrs and last year went back to drawing the ball. The reason for changing was to be more accurate; the fade worked for years but fell out of favour when a pull became the predominant shape. Went back to a draw and never looked back. A nice bonus is that I'm a club longer with the draw but don't honestly care - position is simply everything and I'd hit any shape to achieve it. My best rounds are usually a combinations of different shapes to access pins better.
 
murphthemog said:
A ball always has some spin. It then has an axis of rotation, about which it spins. Tip this one way, you get a draw, tip it the other you get a fade. If it was horizontal, the flight would be straight.

Draws having top spin is a myth.
Click to expand...

Myth, math moth. My mate who's 60 and 5ft 5 (off 7) hits a draw and his ball goes the same distance as mine (220 meters ish) in the winter with no run. In the summer he is always past me and can be can be 50 meters past me.

They land the same but something makes the ball roll further in the summer. Explain please.
 
J55TTC said:
I agree with you but theres obviously something in my swing that releases more power when it draws.
Click to expand...

No murphs right, any shot hit at the same speed and same place on the clubface will go the same distance

if closing the clubface makes the ball go farther then a true fade should win ..yes? because the face path is open for a draw

i believe smash factor is the key here, a 90mph hitting out the middle will go further than a 100mph one off center

2.-Smash-Factor.png
 
Crazyface said:
Myth, math moth. My mate who's 60 and 5ft 5 (off 7) hits a draw and his ball goes the same distance as mine (220 meters ish) in the winter with no run. In the summer he is always past me and can be can be 50 meters past me.

They land the same but something makes the ball roll further in the summer. Explain please.
Click to expand...

Clearly there is a difference in launch conditions. Your ball drops like a dead hamster, his doesn't. You must have more spin, and probably a higher launch angle. You aren't maximising your numbers, he is. It has zip to do with drawing, or fading the ball.
 
All I know Patrick is that when I have ever witnessed a "forum length" drive with my own eyes, there has always (always) been a bit of draw involved whether that ball has been smoked by JustOne, Pieman or any other of the big hitters on the forum
 
ruff-driver said:
No murphs right, any shot hit at the same speed and same place on the clubface will go the same distance

if closing the clubface makes the ball go farther then a true fade should win ..yes? because the face path is open for a draw

i believe smash factor is the key here, a 90mph hitting out the middle will go further than a 100mph one off center
Click to expand...

The clubface may be open relative to alignment/target line, but must be closed relative to the swing path. The clubface may be aimed right of the target, but by a lesser degree than the tangent to the swingpath. That gives what some call a push-draw. You can swing down the swingpath with a slightly closed face and hit a pull-draw.
 
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