Your 9° driver might be costing you yards


Hi Reader,

⛳ The PGA Tour can't agree on driver loft. Neither should you.

There's a shortcut a lot of golfers reach for when they want more distance.


Buy less loft. But MyGolfSpy has just taken that idea apart.

At the top of the PGA Tour's Strokes Gained off-the-tee list, there's no agreed number anywhere. Gary Woodland plays as low as 6.5°. Scottie Scheffler sits around 8°. Neal Shipley cranks a 9° head down to 7.5°.

Cameron Young? An 11° head, played at 10° to 11°. His low-spin flight needs the help staying in the air.

Four of the best drivers currently in the world. Four different answers.


So we looked at the drivers of every top 100 PGA Tour pro to confirm the driver loft picture across more of the top players.

9° is the most popular loft, played by 37% of them. 10.5° is next at 15%. The full range runs 6.5° to 11.75°

Over 90% live between 8° and 10.5°. And many change that number tournament to tournament, depending on the course.


So it's clear. There's no magic best loft for driver distance.

And here's why that matters to you. Spin keeps the ball airborne. Cut loft too far and you drop launch and strip spin at the same time, so the ball can't hold its flight even when you've hit it just as fast.


That's the "starts low, doesn't carry" drive you already know.

And the slower you swing, the more launch and spin you need.

🏌️‍♂️ So what driver loft should you play?

That’s where most articles leave you. Let’s close the loop.

The general rule first: one degree, on its own, rarely does much.

In a launch monitor test we covered on the channel, a steep swinger went from 10.5° to 9° and gained 27 yards. But not from the loft. The fitter also moved the centre of gravity and the internal weighting. Three changes, not one.

Reverse it and the logic holds. A shallow swinger launching too low was given more loft, and picked up 23 yards of carry.

Both gained distance swinging slower. That’s the principle.

And this is what it looked like in my own case.

My attack angle was minus 2.4°. On the bad ones, minus 4.4°. I was hitting down on the ball and didn’t know it.

Moving the ball forward in my stance was the fix. It gave me close to 20 yards.

But then it handed me a new problem. I was launching it too high.

So I got fitted, and went from a 10.5° driver to 8°. That pulled my launch back into range and added roughly another 20 yards.

Two changes. More than 40 yards, in my late forties.

Now the honest part. It took two changes together, not the loft alone. My dispersion to the left got worse and I’m still working on it. And your swing isn’t mine, so I can’t promise it repeats.

But here's a rough starting point when it comes to driver loft, before you ever see a fitter:

  • Under 80 mph → roughly 12° to 15°
  • 84 to 96 mph (most amateurs) → roughly 10° to 12.5°
  • 100 mph and up → roughly 8° to 10.5°.

Then get the number checked by someone with a launch monitor. It’s the best way to know which end of the window is yours.

From Us

Most golfers chasing more distance chase the wrong thing. A new driver. A change of loft based on a guess. A faster swing they haven’t got the time or body to build.

That’s why we made Distance Decoded.

It finds the yards already sitting in the swing you’ve got, then tells you the one change most likely to give them back. No swing rebuild. No range marathon.

It starts by showing you where your distance is leaking. Find your lost yards now.

And finally and most importantly we hope you are enjoying your golf!

Play well 👍

Graeme Hay

Founder, GolfingFocus.com

Golfing Focus Limited, 73 Maple Road, London, KT6 4AG
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