Easy On-Course Driver Face Adjustments
February 5, 2024
Legends of the game of golf like Ben Hogan, Kathy Whitworth, and Annika Sorenstam have been credited with quips and quotes about “golf being a game of misses and the player who misses the best is the winner.”
Conversely, high-handicappers often mistakenly think they need to drive the ball perfectly off every tee every time. That's because they have yet to learn what many champions of the sport already know.
Truth is golfers that play a smart game avoid “a bad round” by hitting fewer errant shots. Hogan not only understood the resilience needed to play the game, but he too was an avid club thinker who started his own equipment company in order to test the merit of his ideas.
So if golf is really a game of misses, how do you account for a less than perfect drive off the tee box? Well, that’s where creating your own shot dispersion pattern can help you know where to aim. Some drives fly dead straight but most end up to the right or left and long or short of where you aimed. Shot dispersion is the average distance of your mis-hits from your intended target.
Think in terms of shot dispersion...
Consider you are on the driving range and hitting a bucket of balls at a distant flag with your driver in hand. The dispersion of your shots is the average distance that balls to the left, right, long and short come to rest from the pin. So, think of dispersion as where each of ball ends up inside the shotgun pattern of golf balls. For example, your dispersion number may be plus-or-minus 30 yards short, long, left or right of your target.
Historically, ball dispersion was a manual calculation performed with a tape measure to plot your shot span, but today most golfers use a launch monitor to track flight data. Nonetheless, once you have a clear understanding of potential misses off the tee, you can make adjustments to hit fewer trouble shots and give yourself more opportunities to post a lower score. But, instead of seeing your target, learn to see your ball pattern.
A key to reducing shot dispersion is to minimize the rotation of the clubface through the contact zone. When you do this, it ensures the clubface is in the right position to compress the ball for better control of distance, trajectory, and accuracy of the drive. Beginners naturally have a much wider and deeper shot dispersion pattern as they naturally have more issues with controlling the clubface path of their driver.
Fix Your Shaft to Work with Your Swing
The shaft in your driver is the longest of any club in your bag. It is a tapered tube that connects you to the clubface of your driver. The primary purpose of the golf shaft is to provide you with a way to generate the force needed to effectively strike the ball. The "spine" of a golf shaft is the seam that runs its length. Since most shafts start out as a flat piece of steel or graphite, it is a common result of the manufacturing process.
No golf shaft is completely round or straight. So, shafts do not bend the same amount in different directions when the force of a golfer’s swing speed is applied. The art of shaft spining requires determine the location of the spine and correcting the alignment of the shaft so the club face is less likely to be open or closed as it comes through the hitting zone. In general, the most stable orientation works well for any shaf.
Once the spine is located, the shaft is positioned into the club head to determine the angle at which the spine faces the target for a longer, straighter ball flight off the tee box. Spining the shaft for the most stable bending plane can improve the stability of the swing process. The longer the shaft, the wider the shot dispersion. Since recreational golfers have a larger shot dispersion, a spined shaft can improve ball control.
CONCLUSIONS:
As one of the greatest ball strikers of all time, Ben Hogan once said he was happy if he hit a couple of shots each round exactly how he had intended. Here at Krank Golf, we always talk about optimizing distance while adding accuracy and control to your ball’s flight.
“Most causal golfers mistakenly believe that professional long drivers only think about killing the ball off the tee,” says Lance Reader , the founder of Krank Golf, “but nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, distance matters but so does where the ball lands. Winning a long drive event often comes down to which golfer can take advantage of landing a ball as close as possible to the most favorable spot on the grid for optimal rollout.”
Krank’s Tri-Sleeve Driver Adapter ensures the shaft in your driver can be adjusted on course during your round without turning the shaft in the clubhead. It allows for up to one degree of loft and face angle adjustability from the hosel in half degree increments. That way you can avoid a round of unnecessary mis-hit shots caused by equipment that is misaligned for the stiffness, loft, or face angle you need that day.
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Every shaft has a spine that results from the manufacturing process. The Krank tri-sleeve adjustable driver adapter allows for maximum adjustment during your round without having to have a clubmaker turn the shaft in the head to adjust the stiffness or loft. This allows you to stabilize torsional stiffness as well as clubface angles for all around better shaft performance for your Krank driver. Use this site’s Chat feature to Text Us your question or Contact Support at (480) 699-5041 for assistance.
