Why a Driver Fitting Matters. Jeff Flagg personifies potential. The former minor- league baseball player got hooked on golf long- drive competitions a few years ago.

In the fall, he won the RE/MAX World Long Drive Championship, earning a spot in the final with a swing speed of 1. PGA Tour player).

That's a peek at the game's future, but Flagg says a key to achieving those numbers has been refining his driver and swing on a launch monitor. Flagg's methods for reaching his potential can work for the rest of us, too.

Trouble is, average golfers aren't taking advantage of the game's increasingly sophisticated technology. Our exclusive player test revealed that golfers across all ability levels are leaving an average of 2.

Golf Digest studied how 1. We measured swing speeds from 6. For the test, we used a Foresight Sports GC2 launch monitor that measured swing speed, ball speed, launch angle, spin rate and distance. We also asked dozens of America's 1.

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Best Clubfitters to share similar launch data from their customers. What we found is that the average golfer launches the ball too low, generates too much backspin and doesn't make solid contact with the center of the face. Specifically, we're not hitting it as far as we should given our respective swing speeds.

Nine out of 1. 0 golfers in our test hit the ball short of what we estimate their potential to be. What's a good estimate for your driving- distance potential? If you're not hitting it 2. This means if your swing speed is 7. If your swing speed is 1. But most golfers are woefully short of their potential. Two- thirds of the players in our survey weren't within 1.

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Here are the keys to more distance, and all of them are easily understood by working with a clubfitter who uses a launch monitor to analyze your swing and ball flight. First, there's how fast the ball leaves the clubface. Ball speed is dictated by your swing speed, but golfers can maximize their potential ball speed by contacting the center of the face more consistently. All launch monitors measure how efficient the relationship is between clubhead speed and ball speed, or what's known as . But the golfers in our test too often were miles short.

Eighty percent were below an ideal smash factor of 1. The second ingredient is launch angle, or the upward angle of the ball as it leaves the clubface. In our test, more than a third of the golfers had a launch angle below 1. Unless your swing speed is 1. Any lower, and the ball won't stay in the air long enough to maximize total distance. The third ingredient for distance is optimizing the backspin rate once the ball leaves the clubface. To max your distance, you want to launch shots relatively high with low spin.

Off- center strikes at a low launch angle often result in excessive spin: a perfect recipe for short hitting. Still, almost half of the golfers we tested had spin rates above 3,0. If you can get your rpm below 3,0. Our data suggests that many golfers would benefit from more loft on their driver and perhaps a softer flexing shaft. But what we all really need is a quality driver fitting.

With the feedback available from launch monitors and the increasing ability of good fitters to work with quality instructors, the right fitting can change your clubs and even your swing. We're not talking major reconstruction. Simple things like shifting the ball forward in your stance, teeing it higher and swinging slightly up on the ball can dramatically change distance. A recent test by Track. Man, whose launch monitor is used on the PGA Tour, found that a swing speed of 9. Our study indicates those yards are easily within reach of average golfers.

Plenty of fitters see those improvements every day, and not just for big hitters. Download Game Resident Evil 3 Nemesis Isohunt. A quality fitter can help you achieve your potential.

It's what Jeff Flagg embodies these days, and he says the feeling reminds him of his baseball career. It feels effortless.

And can have. Additional reporting by John Strege.