[BerntR]

I then started to hit closer to the middle and a little bit further down (not quite the sweet spot yet but closer). The amazing thing was when I did this I started gaining 30 yards on my drives with the same swing -- hitting close to the sweet spot makes a huge difference.

Keith

Maybe you hit the hot spot.

I believe it was Golf Digest that had an article about the hot spot on modern drivers a while ago. The hot spot isn't necessarily in the same location as the sweet spot. The sweet spot gives the sweetest impact while the hot spot produces the greatest distance. In the referred article, while the sweet spot was in the center, the hot spot was above center on most of - if not all the clubs they tested. The offset from the sweet spot was varying from club to club.

Slow replay of impact of modern top golfers (for instance Earnie Els) often shows that they hit the ball high on the face on the driver. It's very unlikely a mishit.

I am not a hot spot feienscmecker myself, but I've on several occations had "hot spot" like experiences with my driver. The ball shoots up with an unusual high launch angle and a low spin trajectory - and carries a long way.