DRIVER DISTANCE
TUCSON, ARIZONA
WHY GUESS, WHEN WE CAN MEASURE?
The NUMBER 1 issue that I hear from golfers is, "if I could just get another 10 or 20 or even 30 yards from my driver, my golf game would be so much better."
I understand that at times that this issue is related to off-center hits, too steep of an attack angle or launching the ball too high, but for the most part the truth is:
DISTANCE IS DIRECTLY RELATED TO CLUB SPEED and
THE FASTER YOU SWING THE GOLF CLUB THE FARTHER THE BALL TRAVELS.
Now to prove this, I personally hit over 1,100 driver shots on TrackMan. These shots included club speeds from 45 to 105 miles per hour. Once I eliminated all shots that were hit poorly (off-center, off line, poor lauch angle, etc), I was able to create the chart that is shown below. You can clearly see what happens to total distance, carry distance, launch angle, spin rate, and height with different club speeds. It's not exact, but the rule is:
FOR EVERY 1 MILE PER HOUR ADDITIONAL CLUB SPEED,
YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO ADD 3 YARDS TOTAL DISTANCE WITH YOUR DRIVER.
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CONCLUSION
For most golfers, if you want to hit your driver farther, you need to swing the club faster. As I like to say, the faster the club is moving when it strikes the ball the faster the ball moves as it is explodes off the club face and the more distance the ball travels in the air before gravity takes it's inevitable toll and brings the ball back down to the ground ---- "IT'S JUST PHYSICS."