There is a big misconception in golf that women need to use high-lofted metalwoods. It’s driven by equipment experts telling us that with our slower swing speeds we need the extra helping hand to elevate tee shots and fairway woods off the deck. In reality, many women will achieve optimum performance from a driver that has between 9° and 11° of loft - no more - and it comes down to the combination of good coaching and modern driver designs.
The trend in drivers is to place the weight low and deep in the head as this helps give a more effortlessly high launch. Such designs marry perfectly with the modern coaching method of hitting tee shots ‘on the up.’ Consequently, women that adopt this style of swing don’t actually need a driver that has too much loft. A club with lower loft can achieve more roll out and overall distance. You only need to look to the LPGA Tour for evidence of this in action.
With launch monitors placed on various tees during tournaments, statisticians are able to gather driving data from the world’s best players and the stats show that women pros predominantly use an upward style of hit. In fact, the average attack angle on the LPGA Tour is +3°. Conversely, on the PGA Tour, it’s typically downward, averaging -1.3°. This is why many LPGA players actually use the similarly lower-lofted driver heads as their PGA Tour counterparts, despite swinging 20 or even 30 mph slower than the men.
I’m among the many women who have been taught to launch the ball with an upward strike with a driver. At a recent Callaway driver fitting my average launch angle was around 16°, some 5.5° more than the 10.5° loft of my driver. This, combined with too much spin from my slight over-the-top action, meant that my tee shots were ballooning up into the air too high, rather than powering forward with a more desirable penetrating ball flight. Switching to a 9° loft head gave transformational results. Drives that now hit the ground on a flatter angle and roll out, rather than stopping dead.
The problem with standard off-the shelf women’s drivers is that they are often too lofted - sometimes 14° or more - and very lightweight. I’ve witnessed the damage this does to many a game as I see women hitting a very high ball off the tee. Although it effortlessly launches up, it rarely rolls out upon landing due to the high trajectory of the shot. A lower loft can provide more energy transfer at impact because there’s less of an oblique angle. It’s why your 7-iron flies farther than your 8-iron.
So, as long as you can launch the ball with enough loft through your technique, a driver with less loft will consistently produce more ball speed, even if you have a slow swing speed. Some custom fit technicians suggest as much as 3mph ball speed gain for a 9-degree driver compared to a 10.5° or 12° model.
Use Less Loft If You Slice
The most common swing fault in golf is the ‘over-the-top’ slice, which adds dynamic loft to the driver, leading to a high launch and usually too much spin on the ball. This causes it to climb high and balloon into the wind. Club manufacturers have been targeting this mass market group of players for years by designing drivers to counteract the slice swing with more heel-biased weighting. Typically, forgiving designs locate the centre of gravity back and low in the head. This creates more dynamic loft and is why a lower-loft driver can really benefit a lot of women because it brings the launch angle down and leads to more roll out.
However, There's A 'But'...
Of course, the big but is not to assume that you have the right technique to make a low-lofted driver work. The only way to be certain is to be custom fit by an expert. Less loft isn’t the answer for all women, especially players who don’t have a positive angle of attack. But that’s the benefit of going through a driver fitting with an experienced fitter using a launch monitor to help identify the right loft to work with your unique technique.
