Most drivers are lofted between 9° and 12°, and 10.5° is the most common loft sold. The full retail range runs from 7° tour heads to 14° high-launch builds, and nearly every modern driver adds an adjustable hosel that moves the stated loft by 1°–2° in each direction. The right number is set by swing speed and launch, not by preference — and for most amateurs it is higher than they think.

Standard range

8°–12°

Most common sold

10.5°

Beginners & moderate swings

10.5°–12°

Fast swings (105+ mph)

8°–9.5°

Typical hosel adjustment

±1°–2°

Driver lofts at a glance

Bands overlap on purpose: attack angle, spin and strike move the right answer within them. The swing speed guide walks through picking a number.

Stock driver lofts by brand

Generated from the LoftChart driver spec archive, last verified October 2026; the year is the model year of the line and the model link opens its full chart, including the hosel settings. Some lofts are right-hand only, and lightweight builds of the same heads are not listed separately.

Driver spec charts on file

Per-model pages with the stock lofts for every head variant and the full hosel adjustment chart — including discontinued lines whose spec pages have left the manufacturer sites.

How loft turns into carry

A driver flies furthest when launch angle and backspin match ball speed. For most amateurs that means launching at roughly 12°–16° with 2,000–3,000 rpm of spin. The slower the swing, the more loft it takes to get there: a ball leaving at 130 mph needs height and hang time it cannot generate from a 9° face, while a 175 mph ball off the same face rides its own speed on a flat, efficient trajectory.

The mistake almost always runs one way. Too much loft costs a fast swinger a few yards of ballooning; too little loft costs a slow swinger 15–20 yards of carry, because the ball never gets up. When a fitting is not an option, take the higher loft.

Adjustable hosels move more than loft

Most current drivers are sold in three or four stock lofts, and the hosel covers the gaps — typically ±1° to ±2° around the stated number. Two things are worth knowing before turning one. First, the stamped loft is the middle of the range, so a 10.5° head can usually play from about 9° to 12°. Second, adding loft closes the face slightly and removing loft opens it, which is why lofting up is also a standard slice fix and why a lowered driver can start drifting right.

Loft is not the whole story

Attack angle — whether the club is travelling up or down at impact — shifts the effective launch. A player who hits up on the ball 3°–4° adds that much launch for free and can play a lower loft; a player who hits down needs more loft on the face to compensate. This is why two golfers with identical swing speeds can be correctly fitted two degrees apart, and why the charts above are windows rather than single numbers.

Driver loft guides

Frequently asked questions

Next clubs down the bag: the fairway wood loft chart and hybrid loft chart cover the rest of the long game, and the wedge loft chart handles pitching, gap, sand and lob wedge degrees the same way.