Increase Driver Distance by Understanding Golf Ball Speed
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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. 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....
- Ball speed is more important than any other factor in determining how far you hit the ball
- "Smash factor" is the measure of how much club head speed is translated into ball speed
- Perfect smash factor is 1.5 - anything over 1.45 is great, over 1.4 is still good
- Measure yours with two swing speed radars - set up one for club head speed & another pointing straight up under the ball path
- Individual swings may vary, but the setup will be very helpful for calculating averages
- Draw a dot on the ball with a dry-erase marker to check where you're hitting on the club face
Welcome to the first article, First video in the series on Bomb your driver with the rotary swing.
And 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, and it's more important than any other thing.
If 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 is not going to go anywhere.
And 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.
So 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, and 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.
So what that means 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.
And 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.
So 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 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.
Now anything above 1.
4 is very solid or 1 .
45 excuse me.
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.
But 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.
Well, you're not efficiently transferring energy, and 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 further, and 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.
We We want, you know, club head.
Speed is only part of the equation, but how efficiently you transfer that energy is what determines how far that ball is going to go to a large extent.
Granted, spin and launch angle and those things are going to have a significant impact, but ball speed is where it starts.
And that's why we're doing this video first.
So all you need to do to check this out is have a couple swing speed radars set up.
It's very inexpensive that, you know, I've got the blue swing speed radars here that are, you know, 80 bucks a piece, $85 a piece for members.
So what you've got is a 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.
So, 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, it needs to.
the ball needs to pass directly over the club head speed or the swing speed radar.
So if it passes over to the right a little bit or to the left, it'll read a little bit low.
And if it passes too high, it'll also read a little bit low.
So but the good thing is you can use it to get averages.
You You know, 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 it 125.
You know, you might have hit it a little off center there.
So 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.
And, more importantly, it's vital to give you an idea of what you're actually doing.
So if you, you may have no idea what your ball speed is, and this is going to give you a simple, inexpensive way to check that.
So all you need to do to start to see how much further you can hit the ball by just being more efficient is spend a dollar on a dry erase marker.
All you need to do 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.
So all you need to do to start to measure, you know, you got two swing speed radars.
We need to see where we're hitting the ball on the face and so I'm going to take my dry erase mark and just put a dot on the ball.
So all I need to do is just draw a little dot here.
And then I just want to make sure that I set that on the tee directly, pointing away from the target.
So all I need to do set her down here so I can just barely see the top of the dot.
It's basically halfway up the ball and then take a swing.
And what that's going to do is it's going to leave a mark on my face.
That's going to show me exactly where I strike the ball.
That's key, because if you're starting to hit the ball off to the heel or off to the toe, you're losing tons of ball speed.
And as you can see in the article, there's a massive difference in ball speed when you just missed the sweet spot by a quarter of an inch.
So 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 swung easier.
And hit the ball further, because ball speed, again, is the number one determinant in how far you're going to hit the ball.
You can't hit the ball anywhere without a reasonable amount of ball speed, so all you need you need a dry erase marker, some balls and a couple swing speed radars.
And you can start to check your distances and that's going to be the first key in determining how far you're going to hit the ball.
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