Which Golf Club is Designed to Hit The Ball With The Highest Launch Angle?

Launch Angle is the initial angle of a golf ball's trajectory relative to the ground after a club hits it.

Launch angle is highly correlated with dynamic loft, the degree of clubface loft a player delivers at impact. A higher dynamic loft should result in a higher launch angle.

The more loft a golf club has, the more dynamic loft a player will deliver when striking a ball with it, resulting in a higher launch angle. Therefore, the club with the highest loft should cause the ball to have the highest launch angle.

Which Golf Club is Designed to Hit The Ball With The Highest Launch Angle?

A lob wedge has the highest loft among any golf club, usually 58 to 64 degrees, meaning it's the club designed to hit the ball with the highest launch.

Less specifically, wedges as a whole have more loft than irons, woods, and hybrids. Therefore, all wedges are designed to hit the ball with a higher launch than any other type of club.

Tee Height Creates Exceptions to the Loft/Launch Angle Relationship

As discussed above, higher lofted clubs lead to higher launch angles. This should always be true when hitting a ball off the ground. However, hitting a ball off a tee changes things.

For instance, PGA Tour players launch their drivers (10.9°) higher on average than 3-woods (9.2°), 5-woods (9.4°), hybrids (10.2°) and 3-irons (10.4°) according to data gathered by TrackMan. This is despite the fact that a driver is the lowest lofted club of the 14 clubs in a bag, aside from putter.

PGA Tour TrackMan Data Averages - Source: TrackMan Golf

Driver shots are unique because the golf ball is almost always teed up 1.5 inches or more. This allows players to deliver the club with a less negative attack angle or, ideally, even a positive attack angle. The results is a higher dynamic loft delivered relative to the club's loft.

Learn more about the golf club lofts and learn more about club data jargon in our golf terms guide.