Do you know what the loft of your driver is? Do you know if it’s the correct loft for your golf game?

Loft is kind of a misunderstood concept in the game of golf, and we are here to clear that up. Most modern golf drivers have an adjustable loft, therefore making it easier to fine-tune the performance that you need.

Whether you are a beginner or a more accomplished player, you will still need to understand what loft in the driver is and how it will impact your golf game.

What is The Loft on a Driver?

The loft is the angle of the clubface of a driver. Most drivers have a loft between 8 and 13 degrees. The 8 degree driver will have a much lower launch than the 13 degrees, and it will also impact overall distance and forgiveness.

Many players think that the loft on the driver will impact only the launch angle of your golf shot, but there is quite a bit more to it than this.

How Driver Loft Affects Your Ball Flight

The interesting thing about the loft of your driver is that it is not just about how high you hit the golf ball. In addition, the loft will help you with distance, accuracy, and forgiveness.

Distance

The total distance of the golf shot is impacted by the club’s loft. One of the myths of the game is that when you can keep the ball lower, you will get more distance. For some golfers, a lower lofted driver does maximize distance, but that is more about their path and their speed than the driver.

Many professional golfers can hit a driver with 8 degrees of loft and get it to fly 300 or more yards. When you watch the ball flight of this drive, it is still quite high. The higher lofted shot allows the ball to stay in the air for quite some time. The air provides less resistance than the ground.

However, slower swing speed players often struggle to get the distance they need with the lower lofted driver. The lower a loft gets on a golf club, the harder it is to get the ball up off the ground.

High lofted drivers that are 11 or 12 degrees offer great distance for the slower swing speed players.

Forgiveness

In addition to golf driver loft impacting distance, it will also impact forgiveness. The forgiveness of a golf driver is considerably higher when it has a higher loft. The higher the loft, the easier it is to get the ball straight down the fairway.

You may be wondering why golfers don’t want to use higher lofted drivers all the time.

The reason here is that for certain swing speeds, you will eventually hit the ball so high that it costs you the distance.

Golfers need to find that perfect combination of loft and launch angle to ensure maximum distance. Luckily with modern fitting equipment, this is easier than it ever has been.

I have always played with a 10.5 degree driver. Most recently, I tried to adjust the loft down to 9.5 to see if it would give me a more piercing ball flight, something that I thought would be helpful.

The ball flight was more like what I thought I needed, but the total distance from my golf shot was lacking. This just further proves the point that the best loft is the one that works the best for your speed and your angle of attack to the golf ball. For me, that is 10.5 degrees of loft.

Accuracy

Forgiveness and accuracy can go hand in hand. When golf drivers are the right loft for your swing speed, you should have an easier time controlling them. For instance, a player may find that with an 11 degree driver, they can be more accurate than they can be with a 10 degree driver.

The way to fine-tune this is to test your accuracy while setting the club to several different lofts.

You will quickly be able to see that at certain lofts, the slice and hook start to come out. The club feels considerably less forgiving, and your dispersion rates increase. Better players can hit their drives within a few yards of a target.

I found that the difference between swinging a 9 degree driver and a 10.5 was enough to make the sport incredibly frustrating!

How Much Difference Even 1 Degree of Loft Change Can Make on a Driver

When I’ve tested the difference that one degree of loft change makes on a driver, I’ve found the results to be within 3 to 5 yards. Where you really see the difference is when a player who was using a 12 degree driver switches to a 10 degree driver.

If you are not careful about this, you could see differences of up to 10 yards, which significantly impacts the approach shot you will have to the green.

PGA Tour players will tell you that in addition to the difference that loft makes in their shots, it is also crucial to consider the shaft in the club. The shaft can increase launch, have an impact on spin rates, and even make it so that you have a faster swing speed.

Is a Higher Loft Driver Better?

A higher lofted driver is almost always better for a golfer with a slower swing speed. When you use a higher lofted driver, the ball will stay in the air considerably longer. With a golf ball that has plenty of time in the air, you almost always see more distance.

However, if you are a fast-swinging golfer that has a steep angle of attack, the higher launch angle can create problems in your game.

You may notice that the ball goes too high, and when it lands, there is almost no forward roll. This is where you will need to work on lowering the ball flight a bit by adjusting the loft or the angle of attack.

How to Figure Out What Loft You Should Be Using on Your Driver

Now that you can see how important it is to have the right loft in your golf driver, let’s take a look at a few ways you can determine if your golf driver loft is correct.

Go to a Golf Club Fitting

A golf club fitting is a great way to narrow down which golf club driver loft could be best for your golf game. When you go to a fitting, you will work with a professional that gives you information on the perfect angle of attack and the way that impacts the actual loft of the club.

With a golf club fitting, you will tap into some great technology but also the advice of a fitting professional that understands the science of the game.

I like to go for golf club fittings where I can see the tee shot. Even though simulators are incredibly accurate, there is something about seeing the complete ball flight that makes it easier to pick the proper loft for the driver.

Get a Portable Launch Monitor

If you don’t want to go for a fitting, you can always conduct your own! Portable or personal golf launch monitors have come a long way and are now more affordable than ever. For less than $500, you can hit golf balls on the range and get some accurate information about the shots you are hitting.

Portable launch monitors may give you less information than you get during a complete custom fitting, but this is a great place to start.

I like to hit 5 shots with a certain loft and collect measurements, and then switch to another loft and collect some more data. You will quickly be able to see which golf club is the one that could work for you.

Test It Out The Old School Way

If technology is just not your thing, feel free to pick a target on the range and experiment with different lofted drivers to see which gives you the best results.

I highly recommend testing on the course and the range so that you get a better idea of how the ball spins and how accurate it is. Sometimes, with a wide driving range, we assume the strike was relatively good, but it’s just a bit off. The golf course gives us more accurate results.

Use an Arccos Grip

The Arccos Grip may be something you already have in your golf club. Many Ping and Cobra clubs have this grip in place, and it will essentially track information about your drives as you play.

With the Arccos Grip, you can experiment with different driver lofts and get concrete evidence as to which is the right fit for your game. These grips work for slower swing speeds, average swing speed golfers, and even fast swing speeds.

The grip is less accurate than something like a Trackman golf simulator, but it’s a good step toward getting you some information.

Brittany Olizarowicz

Britt O has been playing golf since the age of 7. Almost 30 years later, she still loves the game, has played competitively on every level, and spent a good portion of her life as a Class A PGA Professional. Britt currently resides in Savannah, GA, with her husband and two young children.

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Golf would be much simpler if every club had a specific loft and it stayed consistent. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The 3 wood in your bag may have an entirely different loft than the 3 wood in your friend’s golf bag.

In addition, the loft of the 3 wood may vary even more because of adjustability in fairway woods. Essentially, you need to understand what loft is standard for a 3 wood and how that compares to what you play.

If you think a 3 wood can only be 15 degrees, think again!

What is The Loft of a 3 Wood?

The standard or average loft of a 3 wood is 15 degrees. However, some golfers play a 3 wood as low as 13 degrees, and others may play a 16 degree or even 17 degree 3 wood. At some point, when the loft gets a bit higher, you will be looking at more of a 4 wood than a 3 wood.

The 3 wood is designed to bridge that gap in loft from the driver to any other fairway woods in the bag. If you have a 5 wood that is 19 degrees, it is often best to have a 3 wood around 15 degrees.

This loft gap tends to make the most sense and incorporate varied performance when you need it the most.

How The Difference in Loft Changes Your Shot

The loft of your 3 wood is going to impact a few things. These things include total distance, forgiveness, and ball flight.

Total Distance

The lower the loft of your 3 wood, the further you should be able to hit the ball. Total distance is impacted by the loft on your golf club. For players seeking the furthest shots, the 13 degree 3 wood is likely the better choice.

However, as the loft of a golf club lowers, you will see some additional issues with the forgiveness and spin.

Forgiveness

The higher the loft of a fairway wood, the more forgiving it will be. For higher handicap golfers looking for added forgiveness, the 3 wood loft is certainly better in the 16 degree range.

To be honest, the 3 wood is not a very easy club to hit, especially from the fairway. It can make sense even for better players to have slightly higher lofts on their 3 wood.

Another troubling thing about the 3 wood is that the shaft lengths are long, much longer than a 5-wood or 7-wood. Therefore you have to ensure that your swing speed can handle the length of this club and still allow for straight and accurate golf shots.

Ball Flight

The ball flight factor is another important impact that loft will have on your golf club selection. A higher lofted 3 wood will often have a higher trajectory. The loft angle of a lower loft 3 wood will produce a lower trajectory and sometimes a bit more roll.

Overall the ball flight of a 3 wood is considerably lower than that of other woods in the bag. You will not have to worry too much about keeping the flight down when you have this club in your hands.

How to Determine Which Loft You Should Use on Your 3 Wood

The loft you use on your 3 wood is determined by a few different factors. Golfers have to pay close attention to the loft gapping in their golf club set. If your golf clubs are not properly loft-gapped, expect to see large distance gaps in the game. Here is how I would decide which 3 wood is best for your game.

Handicap

Lower handicap golfers tend to have an easier time hitting a 3 wood well. It takes a bit more precision and swing speed to hit a 3 wood well, and for some players, it makes sense to leave a 3 wood out of the bag.

Take the club out, put in a 5 wood, and use that as your alternative. If you hit it better, it’s not worth forcing the 3 wood to work.

Lower handicap players can go with the lower lofted 3 woods and use them for tremendous distance off the tee. The higher handicappers will need something with a higher loft to ensure it gets up off the ground.

Lofts of Other Golf Clubs

When choosing a loft for your 3 wood, you must also consider the lofts of the other golf clubs in your bag. For instance, you may want to consider what your current 5 wood is. Most golfers have a 19 degree 5 wood, while others will have an 18 or even 17 (sometimes considered a 4 wood).

If your 5 wood is already 18 degrees, you may want to choose the 14 degree 3 wood so that you keep the larger gap between these woods.

Loft gapping is becoming an even more important issue in the golfer’s bag because the clubs continue to get lower and lower to give golfers more distance.

Number of Woods in The Bag

Some players only carry one fairway wood; others will have two or even three fairway woods in their bag. If you only carry one fairway wood, it may make sense to have something more like a 4 wood loft.

This could be around 17 degrees, and it will bridge that gap between your driver and the hybrids or long irons in the bag.

For those with several woods in the bag, it typically makes sense to have a 15, 19, and maybe even 22 degree wood. Keeping that 4 degrees of loft between the woods allow you to have some variation in performance.

Area of The Game That Needs Attention

All golfers have areas of their game that need attention. For some, distance is a problem, while others struggle with ball flight or loft angle. Here are the 3 wood lofts based on what you are struggling with in your golf game.

Alternative Off The Tee Box

If you need an alternative to a driver, consider a lower lofted 3 wood. If you are one of those golfers that can hit it 30 yards left one day and 30 yards right another, try a 14 degree 3 wood from the tee. Chances are you will see a bit more accuracy.

Launch Angle Is a Concern

The launch angle is a concern with the 3 wood because of how precisely you must hit the ball to get it up in the air. Most golfers find that a higher launch angle with the 3 wood is best to get more carry distance.

If you have difficulty getting a golf ball up in the air, go with something like the 16 degree 3 wood to have that extra bit of ball flight.

Golfers That Need More Distance 

Ball speed is a major concern for some players. Without enough ball speed, you may notice that your 3 wood and 5 wood fly the same distance.

At some point, slower swing speed golfers should think about adding in another wedge or hybrid to the bag to focus on accuracy. Distance will max out with certain swing speeds, and it’s not worth pushing it.

If you have high swing speed and want more distance go with the lowest lofted 3 wood you can launch. In addition, clubs that are adjustable may give you some wiggle room when it comes to the combination of forgiveness and total distance.

Brittany Olizarowicz

Britt O has been playing golf since the age of 7. Almost 30 years later, she still loves the game, has played competitively on every level, and spent a good portion of her life as a Class A PGA Professional. Britt currently resides in Savannah, GA, with her husband and two young children.

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