The 12 most important categories in our fitting data are listed below. I call them the Dictatorial Dozen because they Dictate what out Distance, Ball Flight ad Accuracy will be. They are

 

Club Measurements       Club Head Speed

Club Path

Face To Target/Face to Path

Angle of attack

Efficiency/Smash Factor

Ball Measurements        Ball Speed

Back Spin

Spin Axis

Launch Angle

Launch Direction

Max Apex

Landing Angle

 

In this edition we are going to Discuss Club Head Speed.

It may go without saying but I am going to say it anyway. There is a direct corilation between club head speed and distance. If all things remain equal and head speed increases, the distance of flight also increases. This being the case, it stands to reason that we would want to fit our clients into the club which produces maximum club head speed. While this is true, which set up produces the most clubhead speed varies from player to player.

Some platers produce their best Swing Speed with a longer club while others max out with a shorter one. Although it stands to reason that a lighter club will always produce more swing speed, for many players a heavier club is faster. The golf swing is not a linear event, it is dominated by centripetal and centrifugal forces as the clubhead is simultaneously thrown with velocity while being restricted to moving on an arc by the shaft hand connection. Because of the non linear nature of the golf swing and Newton’s Third Law: Action & Reaction

For every action (force) in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. If object A exerts a force on object B, object B also exerts an equal and opposite force on object A,

We don’t always get the obvious result.

A common questions clients ask is how we can increase clubhead speed with equipment. Unfortunately, dialing in the proper specifications can increase speed to a point but this is  at best a mile per hour, maybe two. To see meaningful increases players need to work on mechanics and fitness.

Club head speed also varies little from swing to swing with the same club. If you swing 10 driver swings you’ll generally be within 3 mph of speed with all of them.  Because of this constant nature, club head speed is the most important baseline factor in club fitting.

For every unique club head speed, there is a theoretical ideal value for each other launch metric which will produce the longest and straightest shot. This is what all club fitting is based on. These values are established at the beginning of every Total Fit and are used to benchmark performance between various equipment set ups. Every change we make to a club is in effort to influence these numbers and bring them as close as possible to the ideal values for each golfer.

The changes we can make to affect these conditions will be addressed in our Influencer Series of articles where I’ll break down each equipment variable we can alter to affect our golf shots.

Although club speed is a constant when swinging the same club, swing speed changes from club to club with the driver being the fastest and the wedges being the slowest. This is because in a traditional golf set the clubs get progressively shorter and heavier as they progress from driver all the way down to lob wedge. A typical swing speed spread for a player and the yardage it generally produces looks like this

 

Driver:                 105 MPH            250 – 290 YRDS

3 Wood:             100 MPH            230- 265 YRDS

3 Hybrid:            95 MPH               200- 245 YRDS

4 Iron:                 91 MPH               185-215 YRDS

5 Iron:                 89 MPH               175-205 YRDS

6 Iron:                 87 MPH               165-190 YRDS

7 Iron:                 85 MPH               155-175 YRDS

8 Iron:                 83 MPH               145-165 YRDS

9 Iron:                 81 MPH               135-155 YRDS

Pitching W         :79 MPH             120-140 YRDS

Gap W                 : 77 MPH            110-130 YRDS

Sand W               : 75 MPH            90-115 YRDS

Lob W                 : 70 MPH            70-100 YRDS

 

You’ll notice there is quite a range of distance for each speed because swing speed is only one of many variables which influence our total distance. It’s possible for two players with the same club head speed to have a 30 yard difference in the distance they are hitting it because of poorly fit equipment or improper technique. You can see now why club fitting is so important, if you are hitting it 30 yards shorter than you can you are for sure going to shoot higher scores.

Players who practice using launch monitors daily are always shocked to find out just how much our swing speed can vary. Although my swing speed with a driver hovers around 108 on average, there are days I effortlessly swing 112 mph and others where I can’t crack 102 MPH. This is a big spread and can be up to 20 yards difference on strong or weak days. It’s important to understand this to play your best. Don’t always pick a club based on one distance reference. For me I will hit a 9 Iron from 155 yards on a strong day and 145 yards on a weak one. Pay attention to your distance when you are warming up and adjust accordingly.

Knowing what your Club Head speed is often a challenge in itself. Although the sophisticated launch monitors like ForeSight, TrackMan and FlightScope measure club head speed many basic Simulators found in golf stores and practice facilities don’t measure club head speed even though they give you a head speed reading. These systems use a guestimation of head speed based on the measured ball speed. Because of this the accuracy of which depends greatly on a player’s sweetness of contact and what average the manufacturer uses to program this. For this reason, you should never get fit for clubs using a golf simulator. You will need a proper launch monitor if you expect to see the same results on course.

Even when we have the most advanced tools there are still things we need to beware of when examining club head speed. Here at Total fit we often run both GC Quad and TrackMan units simultaneously during our sessions and there is always sizable discrepancy in club head speed readings.

This is not because either of these fine machines is inaccurate, its because they display the speed at different points in the golf swing.. Trackman’s stated club head speed is taken from the moment of maximum ball compression. This is after you have struck the golf ball and right before it leaves the face. Because the collision has already occurred, the club head has slowed down a bit in rection. The Quad club head speed measurement is from “First Touch” or the moment the club first contacts the ball. Th ball compression has not slowed the club face down and so the speed reading will be slightly higher.  This is why a players Club Head Speed on Trackman will always be lower than they read on the ForeSight GC Quad.

Swing Speed is not affects how far players hit the ball but also what the distance gap between each club will be. The industry has long used an estimation of 10 yards between clubs. While this is a fair average the reality is that there might be as little as 5 yards between clubs and as much as 15 yards or more depending on the speed you swing. The slower you swing the smaller the gaps and the faster you swing the larger. A player with swing speed ranges in the example above would expect to see 12 Yard gaps at ideal launch conditions while a player swinging 10 MPH slower with each club would have 9 Yard Gaps. Because many players don’t understand this often under or overestimate how far their long irons go.

 

So we have only discussed our first fitting parameter in the Dictatorial Dozen and we already see how much each one of these critical factors can influence performance. Many in fact have a compound effect on multiple performance factors at the same time. For a successful club fitting, fitters need to possess an advanced understanding of not only each factor but also their compound effects on all of the shot influencers. They also must have a deep understanding of their tools and the specifics of how they gather data. If these are not present, then no club fitting can occur no matter how many shots are struck. Unfortunately there are many so called fittings which encompass none of this so it is up to you the consumer to demand it. We hope that this will help you get more out of your next club fitting, make sure to ask the right questions or better yet come on in and Have a Total Fit.