Equipment & Fitting · Equipment Insight

Tee the driver to strike just above the center

Higher tees let the ball sit above the crown so you access the upper part of the head, but the instructor says on modern drivers it is not advantageous to hit it right in the top part of the head, where you lose a lot of ball speed. They note you actually get slightly more ball speed below the middle of the head than higher up, though hitting above center gives the gear effect. Their target is no more than about five millimeters above the middle of the head (the CG), keeping the strike within an eight-millimeter window from three below to five above.