Lack of backspin

[Imurg]

Me old Mate CVG went for driver fitting last week.
He currently uses a Titleist 913 10.5 set to A1 with the standard Bassara shaft in A flex - apparently that's because he's a Grandad ( don't know what Fragger's excuse is).
Anyway, when he hit a dozen or so drives at this fitting he was very consistent in strike, angles, spin and distance.
I don't have the actual numbers as CVG can't remember them but....
He was told he was creating way too little back pain. So he wasn't getting enough carry.
They tried different heads, shafts, lofts, teed the ball higher, even tweaked his technique a little but all to no avail. They just couldn't get the spin rates up to where they need to be.
Everything seems to be geared towards lowering spin but that's exactly what he doesn't need.
I couldn't think of anything else that they haven't tried except, maybe teeing lower and trying to hit down a little..
Any other ideas..?

 

[Kellfire]

He was told he was creating way too little back pain.

I'm surprised if he's an older gentleman!

 

[Imurg]

I'm surprised if he's an older gentleman!

I tell you, Autocorrect is the work of Satan. Type in spin and it corrects to pain - obviously back pain is more prevalent than back spin
Bloody technology😫

 

[Foxholer]

Swing faster AND add loft!

Perhaps (more realistically), tee the ball DOWN a bit - if it's possible to do so and still get a centered strike! The effect is have a descending club when the ball is struck, so the 'spin loft' is increased! Moving the ball back (slightly) in the stance has a similar effect, so a combination of the 2 may work. Moving the ball back (particularly) would need a adjustment/compensation to the face angle when the ball is struck - otherwise pushes are likely.

 

[the_coach]

Me old Mate CVG went for driver fitting last week.
He currently uses a Titleist 913 10.5 set to A1 with the standard Bassara shaft in A flex - apparently that's because he's a Grandad ( don't know what Fragger's excuse is).
Anyway, when he hit a dozen or so drives at this fitting he was very consistent in strike, angles, spin and distance.
I don't have the actual numbers as CVG can't remember them but....
He was told he was creating way too little back pain. So he wasn't getting enough carry.
They tried different heads, shafts, lofts, teed the ball higher, even tweaked his technique a little but all to no avail. They just couldn't get the spin rates up to where they need to be.
Everything seems to be geared towards lowering spin but that's exactly what he doesn't need.
I couldn't think of anything else that they haven't tried except, maybe teeing lower and trying to hit down a little..
Any other ideas..?

using 'real quality' balls for this or not ?

contact strike losction needs to be at least at horizontal center of face not below - lower than center cuts optimum back spin rate for whatever speed

so after contact location a real key is the swing speed range itself, lower the CHS the less back spin can be generated anyways

real keys to look at with a lower range of club head speeds would be dynamic loft presented at impact
so as well this what the swing motion is like to be producing the launch conditions as they are

but also - more dynamic loft is needed at strike to get the LA up for this a positive upward attack angle real important (so AoA of +3º, +5º) to generate some back spin - so tee height will also play into all of that, so ball teed no lower than to have the equator of the golf ball level with the top of the face to be able to deliver that good positive AoA

a real key to more dynamic loft at strike from the get-go, is having good static loft on the driver - so depending on the range of speed available the static driver loft could well need to be up even of 13º so maybes even up around 15º - 16º with a shaft that has a kick point and frequency to deliver as much speed for the motion and a high launch angle

would need to always use good quality high spinning balls

could be that although the numbers were consistent that the contact locations were too low on the face, with a negative AoA - and maybes not enough loft on the driver from the get-go

for sure does not want to be teeing the ball lower and deliberately swinging down

 

[Imurg]

Thanks Coach.
I believe they use proper balls, but probably 2 piece so, I guess, a lot less spinny than some.
Im going to have a play with his driver tomorrow - I'm going to up the loft as high as it will go and see what happens...

 

[Foxholer]

...
but also - more dynamic loft is needed at strike to get the LA up for this a positive upward attack angle real important (so AoA of +3º, +5º) to generate some back spin - so tee height will also play into all of that, so ball teed no lower than to have the equator of the golf ball level with the top of the face to be able to deliver that good positive AoA
...

Why the 'for sure not tee-ed lower/swinging down' comments? It's definitely not something that i'd normally suggest, but in this case it might help! Provided a centred strike is able to be made, both/either increases dynamic/spin loft, which is what seems to be required. Doesn't a (more) positive upward attack angle decrease the dynamic/spin loft?

A shallow faced Driver (TM Burner style?) may help! That way, the tee can be a tad lower and strike can still be centred. I use a deep faced Driver because my misses are more High/Low than Heel/Toe!

My assumption was that, as per the OP, they have already tried increasing the static loft of the club as far as possible.

Further to the actual problem...
It may be that 'Driver' just isn't a suitable club for the guy. I can remember (several years ago) a guy in a different forum had this sort of problem and the fitter overcame it by using a (high loft) Driver head on a 3-wood (even a touch shorter) length shaft - which he actually swung a bit faster than a driver one! The results were pretty acceptable.

 

[the_coach]

if taking a look at an example scenario

ball speed of say around 128mph (so club head speed approx 84mph) (ball speed lower because of a low strike on the face) with a real low launch angle of 7º/8º so no height for any real carry the kinda figs you'd get if having a negative AoA, so hitting downwards - this is goin to deliver a distance of around 178 yards (carry) but the spin rate would be up around 3800 rpm so not low spin but high - with that back spin rate you goin to get less roll out (normal fairway conditions so somewheres around 15/16 yards - so overall not quite 200 yards distance

but exact same swing speed (84mph) but with good contact at or just above center (so better AoA) would immediately give you around 12/13 mph extra ball speed so missing 'sweet spot' by 1/2" to 3/4" you immediately lose ball speed off of the face

but same swing speed but with launch conditions of a + AoA of around 4º up with ball contact either at or just above 'sweet spot' will give you a ball speed of around 138 mph (ss hasn't changed any) with a launch angle around 14º/15º (so double the previous 'hit down' Launch angle with high spin rate) you goin to get around 232 carry normal fairway conditions around 20 yards or roll out - so just over 250 yards overall - but the spin rate would be around 2800 rpm

the answer to the issues would be found in just what the all relevant data numbers were during this driver try out as well as what the driver specs were

 

[Foxholer]

I strongly suspect that his swing speed is much lower than 84mph

If you plug in 75 (or probably even 70) mph, what sort of figures do you get?

Just occurred to me that this would seem to be a similar 'problem' that many Ladies have! How do they overcome it? Or do they just accept that they are very short hitters (even) with Driver.

Edit:
Oh..I've just plugged a few of the numbers into Flightscope Optimiser. http://flightscope.com/products/trajectory-optimizer/ Launch Angle seems to have more effect than Spin for most (normal or even slow swing) flights. So the key would appear to get the Launch angle up rather than increasing Spin! Getting that upward strike - and with high loft face - should indeed be the target! So a higher Tee could well be better!!

Without seeing the actual numbers, I'd query the 'fact' that 'the spin is too low'! Seeing the numbers would enable the figures to be plugged into an optiniser and analysed!

 

[Imurg]

A flex shaft so I suspect the SS is down in the 75-80 range.

 

[the_coach]

yep then if the swing speeds are lower you even more cannot afford to hit down on it as it's goin to kill ball speed even more by striking low on the face and also killing the launch angle

low swing speeds - to get best possible outcomes you still got to get the launch angle up at a decent ballpark figure
so there's got to be a +AoA

lower the swing speed the more static loft you need on the face - what were the driver spec etc.

plus you got to max the efficiency (smash factor) of the strike by getting good at hitting the sweet spot with those good launch conditions

so real spinny ball, soft kick extra light shaft, lot of loft on the face

but depends what spin rate they were saying was low first off - cause even given the issues you don't want the spin rate over say 2800 rpm as that also would start to have a negative affect on carry and roll out