I figured this might be the best place to try a little experiment of mine, but I need volunteers!
For those that know me, I am a little obsessed with swing speed. Don't get me wrong, I know that its not everything, but I have a philosophy of sorts, so if you want to know what that is, I would invite you to read my other thread below. If you don't care or already have read it, then please read on.
My theory:
Golf clubs get harder to swing well with increasing length. This is due, I think, to our swing flaws and inefficiencies showing more in those longer clubs, as well as the inertia of the club increasing. My theory is, that if you can measure the swing speed with a very short club (which I believe negates most of a person's swing inefficiencies due to low inertia and length), you can easily calculate what your swing speed potential is with any other club.
The experiment:
In order to find out if there is any validity to this, I ask for volunteers that are able to, to perform the following experiment.
Get on a Trackman, or use any device that you know measures swing speed accurately (or at least consistently and with known offset to an actual speed). Take your shortest club and choke all the way down to the bottom of the grip. Proceed to hit balls, but hit them with as fast of a swing as you can produce. Do this many times, and note your fastest swing speed (take an average as well if you want). Make sure you throw out any obvious outliers. Next, measure your club from the heel to top of your left hand where the butt of the grip would be if the club was really as short as your choking down is making it seem (if you are a lefty, measure to the top of your right hand). You can now take this number and use it to calculate what your potential driver swing speed could be. (Note: if you don't have a reliable way to measure swing speed, but have a Skytrack or GC2 and want to try this, I have a calculator I made that takes your ball numbers and converts it pretty accurately into a swing speed, just send me a PM with your numbers or I can direct you to the thread so you can download it)
I would ask you post your results along with your known current driver speed. Please don't worry about your ego and such in posting, nobody on here really cares how slow or fast you are compared to anyone else. The point of this is to hopefully show everyone they can do more than what they currently think they can.
An Example:
Fully choked down on my lob wedge, my effective club length is about 33.5 inches from heel of the club to where the butt of the club would be if I lopped it off just above my left hand. I can all out swing that club at a peak speed of 103 mph. Now, if I use some simple math, I can guess around how fast I could swing my driver if I had as efficient of a swing as I can produce.
103 mph/33.5 inch = 3.075 mph/inch, 3.075 mph/inch X 44 inch = 135 mph.
Currently, when I feel like I am swinging well, I can legitimately get 125 mph with my driver on Trackman. I know however that I do have some major flaws that could increase that another 4-5 mph and also make my speed more consistent. I would guess then, that for me, the increasing inertia of the longer driver lowers my max ceiling by about 5 mph. So, the realistic equation would be the following...
((Shorty Swing Speed/Shorty Club Length) X (Driver Club Length)) X 0.963 = Max Possible Clubhead Speed
This might differ more for different people, but I think this will roughly capture whether or not you are leaving speed on the table.
Why I propose you do this:
There is currently no good way to determine a person's peak speed and where it peaks at. I know that I can vary over 15 mph due to technique alone. I dump all of that speed a foot behind the ball, sometimes more, or I don't sync up my body and its even slower and is lost in wasted movement or some other thing. I theorize that nearly everyone can swing a short club to nearly max efficiency just due to the lack of inertia. As club length goes up, you can no longer get away with any inefficencies and it shows via loss of club speed and often in poor contact. With this, I think you will potentially open your eyes to how fast your body can actually go, or see that you are or aren't living up to your potential.
For those that know me, I am a little obsessed with swing speed. Don't get me wrong, I know that its not everything, but I have a philosophy of sorts, so if you want to know what that is, I would invite you to read my other thread below. If you don't care or already have read it, then please read on.
My theory:
Golf clubs get harder to swing well with increasing length. This is due, I think, to our swing flaws and inefficiencies showing more in those longer clubs, as well as the inertia of the club increasing. My theory is, that if you can measure the swing speed with a very short club (which I believe negates most of a person's swing inefficiencies due to low inertia and length), you can easily calculate what your swing speed potential is with any other club.
The experiment:
In order to find out if there is any validity to this, I ask for volunteers that are able to, to perform the following experiment.
Get on a Trackman, or use any device that you know measures swing speed accurately (or at least consistently and with known offset to an actual speed). Take your shortest club and choke all the way down to the bottom of the grip. Proceed to hit balls, but hit them with as fast of a swing as you can produce. Do this many times, and note your fastest swing speed (take an average as well if you want). Make sure you throw out any obvious outliers. Next, measure your club from the heel to top of your left hand where the butt of the grip would be if the club was really as short as your choking down is making it seem (if you are a lefty, measure to the top of your right hand). You can now take this number and use it to calculate what your potential driver swing speed could be. (Note: if you don't have a reliable way to measure swing speed, but have a Skytrack or GC2 and want to try this, I have a calculator I made that takes your ball numbers and converts it pretty accurately into a swing speed, just send me a PM with your numbers or I can direct you to the thread so you can download it)
I would ask you post your results along with your known current driver speed. Please don't worry about your ego and such in posting, nobody on here really cares how slow or fast you are compared to anyone else. The point of this is to hopefully show everyone they can do more than what they currently think they can.
An Example:
Fully choked down on my lob wedge, my effective club length is about 33.5 inches from heel of the club to where the butt of the club would be if I lopped it off just above my left hand. I can all out swing that club at a peak speed of 103 mph. Now, if I use some simple math, I can guess around how fast I could swing my driver if I had as efficient of a swing as I can produce.
103 mph/33.5 inch = 3.075 mph/inch, 3.075 mph/inch X 44 inch = 135 mph.
Currently, when I feel like I am swinging well, I can legitimately get 125 mph with my driver on Trackman. I know however that I do have some major flaws that could increase that another 4-5 mph and also make my speed more consistent. I would guess then, that for me, the increasing inertia of the longer driver lowers my max ceiling by about 5 mph. So, the realistic equation would be the following...
((Shorty Swing Speed/Shorty Club Length) X (Driver Club Length)) X 0.963 = Max Possible Clubhead Speed
This might differ more for different people, but I think this will roughly capture whether or not you are leaving speed on the table.
Why I propose you do this:
There is currently no good way to determine a person's peak speed and where it peaks at. I know that I can vary over 15 mph due to technique alone. I dump all of that speed a foot behind the ball, sometimes more, or I don't sync up my body and its even slower and is lost in wasted movement or some other thing. I theorize that nearly everyone can swing a short club to nearly max efficiency just due to the lack of inertia. As club length goes up, you can no longer get away with any inefficencies and it shows via loss of club speed and often in poor contact. With this, I think you will potentially open your eyes to how fast your body can actually go, or see that you are or aren't living up to your potential.
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