Hitting the Low Spinner

Spin Loft is a shorthand metric teachers use, it’s the difference between the loft of the club at impact, and the direction of the clubhead.

It is one of the most important metrics to understand, and how crucial it is around the greens.

The lower your Spin Loft, the more ball speed you’ll have, and less backspin.

That’s great for long drives, but not so much around the greens. It’s something many amateur golfers struggle with, too. Slicers have too much off the tee—which is why they hit high, weak drives out to the right—and others don’t have enough around the greens. When that happens, the ball will run across the surface low and hot, with no spin. If that sounds like you, you could be struggling with a Spin Loft issue.

That, effectively, is what Viktor Hovland was struggling with a year or so ago too. His task became generating more Spin Loft, which meant swinging more down as he hit the ball. This is done by shifting weight more towards the target during your pitching motion —and yes, taking huge divots. That helps to hit the ball on a steeper, descending blow. The more you do that, the more you could create, and the more you will be able to hit solid, spinny chips.

As Quintin explains :

“The steep angle of attack forms the bottom of the Spin Loft angle, which slows the ball down, creates high spin, and also pulls the launch angle downward… It’s a high friction situation. It slows the ball down and it can help us spin the daylights out of it.”