Where's your hot spot? Want to get the most out of your new driver? Hit it on the hot spot. Where's that? Think higher, not lower

EVEN TIGER WOODS IS GOING BIGGER. His new Nike Ignite driver, which he first used during his win at the WGC-American Express Championship in October, has a clubhead volume of 335 cubic centimeters, 30 percent bigger than the Titleist 975D he had switched to a couple of months earlier and larger than his previous 300cc Nike driver.

The new bigger driver, says Woods, gives him the stable feeling at impact he has been seeking and allows him to hit the "nice high draws" at will. But it also offers a characteristic any golfer can utilize, even those much weaker than the world's No. 1 player. The key to using such large, deep-face titanium drivers is to make contact higher on the face. That's where you'll find the hot spot, that area where the ball is launched on the ideal angle with the ideal spin. According to exclusive Golf Digest testing, the spot that feels the best might be near the center of the clubface, but the hottest spot is above that center line.

"Tee it high and let it fly is a message I still try to get across, even when I'm working with tour professionals," says Bob Thurman, director of R&D at Wilson Golf. "Even though center hits generate a slightly faster ball speed, the distance is greater when the ball is hit higher on the clubface. Hitting it above the center of the face really improves your launch angle and really gives you a much better spin rate."

Basically, what's at work with these new drivers is something called "vertical gear effect." Two key things happen in vertical gear effect. First, a ball hit slightly above the club's center of gravity is launched at a higher (better) angle because there is more loft higher on the face (a driver face is curved from top to bottom). Second, this gear effect reduces backspin, meaning shots are less likely to balloon. It's a powerful combination. But that's not all.

"Generally, the expansion in the hot spot has been top to bottom, not heel-toe," Thurman says. "There's more unsupported face area there. With the center of gravity moving lower, there's more room above that center of gravity than there used to be. That's why that spot has grown taller."

The Golf Digest test focused on eight current-model drivers. Gene Parente of Golf Laboratories Inc. in San Diego ran the test on his swing robot, set at 90 miles per hour, matching the average golfer's swing speed. It was similar to a test first detailed in the October 2001 issue of Golf Digest. Each driver was hit six times on each of 13 spots on the clubface. Those spots included three rows separated by one-third of an inch. Starting with the geometric center of the clubface, the club also was hit on two points in each direction above and below the center, two points toward the heel and toe and four diagonal points.

The numbers were analyzed by Golf Digest Chief Technical Advisor Frank Thomas and Mark Broadie of Columbia University. In the driver illustrations, the inner red area represents shots that traveled within 2.5 yards of the maximum total distance of that driver. The outer yellow ring represents shots that traveled between 2.5 and five yards of the driver's total distance. Together, the two represent a club's "hot area." (Note: Though the test was conducted at a swing speed of 90 mph, the results should hold true at slower and faster speeds.)

Of the drivers tested, the average vertical location of the hot spot was two-tenths of an inch above the face's midpoint. That means the new drivers need to be hit high on the face. And they will be easier to hit high on the face with long tees. As it did in 2001, our testing suggests hitting the hot spot is key to maximizing distance. If you miss it by just a little (one-third of an inch) in the vertical direction, the penalty is twice as severe as it is if you miss it horizontally. That means it's twice as important to hit that high hot spot.

"There are 500 to 1,000 [revolutions per minute] difference between the top of the club and the bottom," Thomas says. "Combine that with the lower center of gravity in these bigger clubheads, and you've got more dynamic loft, which helps average players get the ball on the ideal trajectory."

According to this round of driver testing, the relative location of the hot spot has not changed when compared with figures from our 2001 test. In both instances it is approximately two-tenths of an inch above the center line. But because driver face depths have increased another 10 to 15 percent since 2001 (and more than 50 percent in the last 10 years), the actual distance the ball is above the ground has also increased that much. Hence, the need for longer tees.

Of the eight drivers in our test, only one, the Cobra SS380, had a hot spot that was centered below the center line, and even then it was marginal enough to be statistically insignificant (just two-hundredths of an inch). The drivers in our test also tended to have hot-spot locations that slightly favored the toe more than the heel.