Need Speed

I trust that you’re already smart enough to understand that swinging wildly out of your shoes won’t do your golf game (or your back) any favors. Ask yourself, what good has it really done you if you connect on the ball with a full body blast and pound your drive 300 yards but with a nasty 75 yard slice.

Instead, what the pros, and any real veteran golfer will tell you, is that there is a big difference between “swinging hard” and “swinging fast” – the latter of which involves generating club head speed that’s controlled, well-timed, and highly effective.

There’s also a reason why pro golfers often look like they swing so slow, but yet their swing speed is 10-20 mph faster than the swings of amateurs. Essentially they understand, perhaps better than anyone, how to generate the most club head speed at exactly the right time. That time being at the very bottom of the swing, timed perfectly with impact.

So if you’re up there on the tee “swinging out of your shoes” chances are your wasting more energy than you think. The key to effective club head speed has more to do with tempo and timing at impact than anything else.

The best players on TOUR have an average swing speed of between 110 and 115 mph. Furthermore, some of the long drive champions have amazing club head speeds north of 140 mph, while the leading LPGA players have been measured between 90 and 100 mph. Contrast that to the average amateur male golfer with swing speeds closer to 80 and 90 mph.

That said, a relatively small increase in club head speed of just five or ten mph can translate to a significant amount of additional kinetic energy that helps the ball travel further, and often on a better trajectory.