A driver is singularly designed to do one thing really well: hit the golf ball off a tee as far a possible. Lucky for us golfers, thanks to its size and forgiveness, a driver is one of the easiest clubs to hit, too, except in one scenario—off the deck.

When it comes to attempting heroic shots in golf, I’ve covered how “a lob wedge is a dangerous club for amateur golfers“ and after the open-face lob wedge, the next most difficult shot to execute is a driver off the deck. It requires a great lie, unique dynamics, and a lot of speed, and for that reason its best to leave it up to the pros.

The why

Like a lot of things in golf, the main reason hitting a driver off the deck has become so hard is the same reason so many other shots have become easier; modern-day equipment. Drivers today are all over 440cc’s and multilayer golfballs are not designed to spin when hit at high speeds and with little loft – perfect for hitting bombs off the tee but not from the short grass.

It wasn’t always this way. In the era of persimmon and transitioning into metal woods when a 300cc driver was considered enormous, hitting a driver off the deck, even for average golfers, was easier because the smaller heads with more loft allowed for more mass lower relative to the hight of the face.

When you add higher-launching, higher-spinning balata golf balls into the equation, it’s easy to see why the shot seemed much more attainable. Even the most spinny modern golf balls come nowhere close to creating the same spin numbers as wound balata golf balls off of metal woods.

The how

If the shot is to be attempted, the preferred shape is a low fade hit with an open face relative to the golfer’s swing path, this helps add loft to generally lower lofted clubs, and by the nature of the contact and the shot, it also helps add spin.

Not only that, but when you consider most drivers have 45-inch shafts compared to 43 inches for a 3-wood, trying to hit it off the deck makes the club play effectively more upright and if the heel catches even just a fraction before contact, the face will close and deloft which could take the driver loft down to the loft of your putter—not a good thing.

This low heel cut is exactly the shot we saw Tiger Woods hit this past weekend at the Northern Trust when attempting to get to a par 5 in two.

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Driver off the deck ?? birdie No. 5 for @tigerwoods. ????????

A post shared by PGA TOUR (@pgatour) on Aug 23, 2020 at 7:28am PDT

Now that we’ve explained why a fade is the “easier” shot to hit off the deck, the shot below from eventual Women British Open Champion Sophia Popov is even more outrageously impressive.

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???? DRIVER OFF THE DECK ???? @sophiacpopov converted this incredible eagle on her way to a third round 67 ???? #AIGWO @aigwomensopen

A post shared by LPGA Tour (@lpga_tour) on Aug 22, 2020 at 3:55pm PDT

They can’t all be winners though

So after seeing Tiger and Sophia make hitting driver off the deck look pretty easy, let us swing the success pendulum the other direction to watch multi-time world number one Justin Thomas toe-slice an attempted driver off the deck at the Valspar Championship. He did go on to make a birdie but only because the ball got a very friendly bounce off a spectator—sorry but there is no way I’m taking that shot off the rib cage for the chance to take home a signed glove.

To see more great and less-than-great shots, the European Tour added to its great “Challenge” series by getting some of its professionals to participate in trying to hit the green and get a ball within 8 feet on the 18th hole at Wentworth from 300 yards!

The winning shot is quite spectacular, but the real gold is in some of the even more spectacular misses.

Side by side – The real numbers

Last but not least, if you are curious to see the real side by side numbers in a controlled environment, our friends at TXG did a great comparison conducted at tour-level speeds.

The results speak for themselves—probably best to leave this shot up to the pros.