How Solid Contact Affects Ball Speed with the Driver

Learn the 3 Tour Pro Consistency Secrets You've NEVER Heard!

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Published: February 17, 2014

When it comes to maximizing your driver distance, there is only one place to look first - contact. Where you are hitting the ball on the face of the driver is the NUMBER 1 determinant on how far you will hit the ball.

Below are three photos from the actual test discussed later that show just how little you can miss the sweetspot by and lose tons of ball speed:

hitting the ball in the center of the face ball speed and smash factor Click image to enlarge it.

Granted, without a fast clubhead speed you won't hit the ball very far, but you can have all the clubhead speed in the world and miss the sweet spot by a 1/4" and lose 20+ yards on your drive.

Hit the ball in the center of the club face with reasonable launch parameters, which I will discuss in detail throughout the series, and you can hit the ball very far with less speed. So, let's talk some science....

It's no secret that most golfers over estimate how far they hit the ball and how fast they swing the club, but you're going to be able to easily refute their claims from here on out with some cold, hard facts.

The next time your buddy claims to have hit one over 300 yards, throw down your Swing Speed Radar and get some hard numbers. Unless your buddy is hitting on to a firm fairway, downhill and downwind, he is going to need around 117 mph of clubhead speed to carry the ball that far. Observe:

300 yard driveClick image to enlarge it.

Now, this is of course, 300 yards of carry we're talking about, not including roll as roll varies from course to course and location to location. But, what you can see from this is that 300 yards of carry takes 117 mph of clubhead speed with the ball struck perfectly in the center of the face, launched very high and with very little spin.

For 99% of the golfing public, these numbers are simply not achievable. The 18 degree launch angle with only 2,500 rpm's of spin requires a very positive angle of attack and a low loft, low spin driver which are generally NOT what are sold at retail because most people don't swing at 117 mph.

Unfortunately for your buddy, 117 mph of clubhead is around the threshold for a 300 yard carried drive. Granted, he might have only hit carried it 270 and got 30 yards of roll, but again, every course differs when it comes to roll.

Now let's take a look at what is more likely. Most amateur's average clubhead speed is around 86 mph, so let's punch those numbers in and see what we get:

average amateur clubhead speed Click image to enlarge it.

Again, we're only talking carry here, but you can see that at the average amateur clubhead speed of around 86 mph launched with typical spin and launch angle numbers, the carry distance is only 189 yards, a little pitching wedge short of our ideal target of 300 yards!

Now this ball, which is a very typical shot for an average golfer is going to roll on most fairways because of it's very shallow Angle of Descent - a very important number you will learn a lot more about during this series. So, our Average Joe is probably going to hit this about 210-220 yards on average ASSUMING he hits it perfectly! Now, let's take it down and show what happens when he mishits it just a fraction:

golf ball speed Click image to enlarge it.

Now we've taken a slight mishit where the golfer has lost about 10% of his ball speed. This would equate to missing the sweet spot on a typical modern driver by about 1/2" according to our testing.

Joe has now lost about 35 yards of carry! Not good as this drive probably only went about 175 yards. On a slight mishit such as this, you can expect a 10% loss in ball speed and ball speed is the key determinant to your potential maximum driving distance.

On a more severe mishit, say low in the face and toward the toe, expect a 20% or more loss of ball speed! Joe can hit it 30-40 yards further by catching the center of the club face everytime and will find that he will hit it further with less clubhead speed everytime..

So, how do we know where we are hitting it on the face and find the sweet spot on the club? Simple. A dry erase marker. Yep, that's right, that's all you need to add 30+ yards to your drives on average - TODAY!

The $1 you spend on your dry erase marker will show you everything you need to know about where you are hitting it on the face and using this in conjunction with your Swing Speed Radar will let you know where you need to hit it on the face of your particular driver because every club is different as you will see in the video.

In this video, I go into detail about ball speed differences for different contact areas on the face and demonstrate how to effectively use the dry erase marker to gain more distance.

Below is some Smash Factor data that was taken to demonstrate the loss of ball speed on mishits from the video:

Note: These figures come from hitting old range balls which does skew the data toward lower ball speed. It is also using a Swing Speed radar for measuring ball speed which requires the ball be launched in the exact same place everytime for consistent data.

Therefore, the ball speed numbers, and thus, the Smash Factor numbers tend to be skewed toward the low side by around 2-3%. However, the same balls and setup were used for all shots, therefore producing consistent results.

The "Loss of Carry Distance" column is assuming that center struck hits were actually closer to a perfect 1.5 smash factor, so that is the baseline for the maximum achievable distance. The numbers used to determine total distance have been calculated by using Chuck Quinton's average launch conditions measured by TrackMan.

Type of Hit Avg Clubhead Speed Avg Ball Speed Avg. Smash Factor Avg. Carry Distance Loss of Carry Distance
Center Face 115.75 mph 169.75 mph 1.47 287 yds 0
Toe 119.5 mph 163 mph 1.36 260 yds 27 yds
Heel 118.7 mph 170 mph 1.43 275 yds 12 yds

There are two very important things to be gleaned from this data.

tiger woods impact with driver

First, in order to get enough center hit shots for the test to have reliable data, I slowed my clubhead speed down by 3-4 mph. In doing so, I was able to get my ball speed up to the same 170 mph that I had when hitting shots off the heel with 3 mph more clubhead speed.

Not only were my ball speed numbers the same, but the carry distance numbers were longer with less clubhead speed because the ball had less spin and was hit more at the target. In the end, the tortoise wins the race! Hit it solidly in the center of the face and out drive your buddies by a mile with less clubhead speed!

By using the tools and tests in this video, you can easily pick up 20+ yards on your drives, and do it today!

Video Transcription: Ball Speed Video

Welcome to the first article, the first video, in the series on "Bomb Your Driver" with the Rotary Swing. This is the most important one. That's why I'm starting with it.

The most important video that you're going to watch is "Learning More About Ball Speed." Ball speed is the number one determinant in how far you will hit the ball. It's more important than any other thing.

Measuring smash factorMeasuring smash factor

You can have tons and tons of club head speed, but if you don't efficiently transfer that club head speed into ball speed the ball's not going to go anywhere. That's why you can see Tour pros who don't necessarily have tremendously high club head speeds but still hit the ball a good distance, because they strike the ball squarely and launch it at the proper angles more consistently than an amateur.

That's what we're going to talk about today, is how do we get the most amount of ball speed out of our golf swing? One of the ways that that's measured is a determinant called "Smash Factor." What that is, is basically if you hit the ball perfectly - dead square, center of the face, very solid strike, square path - that ball should come off at 1.5 times your club head speed.

I've got two swing speed radars set up here, one measuring club head speed and another one that you can lay out three feet down the target line, that's going to measure ball speed. Between these two, I'm going to be able to determine very accurately what my club head speed and ball speed were, and determine my smash factor.

Let's use round numbers. Let's say I swung at 100 miles an hour. If I strike this ball perfectly and I get consistent, solid contact, my smash factor should go up to 1.5. What that means is at 100 miles an hour, the second swing speed radar should measure 150 miles an hour. That would be perfect energy transfer, with today's limitations on core, on club heads, etc., and a perfect strike, so 1.5 is the goal.

Anything above 1.45 is very solid. A 1.4 is still solid, but you want to try and keep it above that 1.45 range. You're not going to do it necessarily every time; 1.4 is a good place to start.

Now here's the key: if you're below 1.4 - let's say your club head speed is 100 miles an hour but your swing speed radar for ball speed is reading 130 miles an hour - you're not efficiently transferring energy. You could actually swing a lot slower - say 90 miles an hour, which would feel significantly slower - and hit the ball just as far, if not farther.

That's crucial to determining how far you're going to hit the ball, because we need tons of ball speed. Ball speed is king. Club head speed is only part of the equation, but how efficiently you transfer the energy is what determines how far the ball is going to go, to a large extent.

Use two swing speed radarsUse one swing speed radar unit for club head speed, another for ball speed

Granted, spin and launch angle and those things are going to have a significant impact, but ball speed is where it starts. That's why we're doing this video first.

All you need to do to check this out is have a couple of swing speed radars set up. It's very inexpensive. I've got the blue swing speed radars here, that are $85 apiece for members. What you've got is an inexpensive version of a launch monitor, that's going to give you two key data points; club head speed, which is very vital, and ball speed, which is crucial.

Instead of spending thousands and thousands of dollars on a launch monitor, this is a good place for you to start. Now, the catch is, with the ball speed reading the ball needs to pass directly over the swing speed radar. If it passes over to the right a little bit, or to the left, it will read a little bit low. If it passes too high, it will also read a little bit low.

The good thing is, you can use it to get averages. If you see a number that's really skewed, say you're normally hitting 150 miles an hour ball speed and all of a sudden you see a 125, you might have hit it a little off center there.

Make a dot on the ballDraw a dot on the ball with a dry erase marker

It's not a perfect setup. It's not designed to read ball speed, but it is effective in doing so and it's great for getting averages. More importantly, it's vital to give you an idea of what you're actually doing. You may have no idea what your ball speed is, and this is going to give you a simple, inexpensive way to check that.

All you need to do to start to see how much farther you can hit the ball by just being more efficient, is spend a dollar on a dry erase marker. This is great, because it's basically going to give you the same reading as a piece of impact tape, but this thing's reusable forever, and you don't have to keep taking impact tape on and off your clubs, and you don't have to keep buying those things and keep wearing them out.

All you need to do to start to measure...you've got two swing speed radars. We need to see where we're hitting the ball on the face. I'm going to take my dry erase marker and just put a dot on the ball. All I need to do is just draw a little dot here. Then I just want to make sure that I set that on the tee directly pointing away from the target.

Set it down here so I can just barely see the top of the dot - it's basically halfway up the ball - then take a swing. What that's going to do is leave a mark on my face that's going to show me exactly where I strike the ball.

The dot faces away from the targetSet the ball on the tee with the dot facing directly away from the target

That's key, because if you're starting to hit the ball off to the heel, off to the toe, you're losing tons of ball speed. As you can see in the article, there's a massive difference in ball speed when you just miss the sweet spot by 1/4 of an inch.

Pay attention to those numbers, so that you can start to see, "Gosh, when I hit it in the center of the face I might have only swung at 90 miles an hour but my ball speed was 135-140," which might be a higher reading for you, so you've swung easier and hit the ball farther.

Ball speed, again, is the number one determinant in how far you can hit the ball. You can't hit the ball anywhere without a reasonable amount of ball speed.

All you need: A dry erase marker, some balls, and a couple of swing speed radars, and you can start to check your distances. That's going to be the first key in determining how far you're going to hit the ball.


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