What Is The Minimum Clubhead Speed For A Tour Pro? Who Has The Slowest?

I understand that a lot of the big-name Tour pros swing at about 120 mph. Is there a minimum swing speed to be good enough to play with the big boys? Another question is if it is possible to be a Tour pro swinging only 100 mph, or even under 100 mph. If anyone knows, is there a big-name pro who swings under 100? Finally, if anyone happens to know: who on the PGA Tour, past or present, has the lowest clubhead speed?

Slowest average speed on the tour in 2019 was David Hearn at 105 mph. Brian Gay second slowest at 106 mph.

David Toms was a hair over 100 right before he switched to the Champions Tour in 2016.

Relatively slow swingers listed above have earned over 70mm collectively on tour. Not too shabby.

Not at all, but they are the exception rather than the rule. If you're at a disadvantage off the tee, you better have an advantage in another part of the game.

John Curran had to swing pretty low. What was Corey Pavin? It wasn't long ago he was in a playoff with Bubba.

No one on GolfWRX has a swing speed under 130, that's for sure.

That's with a 5 wood right? LOL.

Yeah, I just hard step my 3i and bunt cuts 315. That works for most tracks; )

Even our wives carry it 280.

Patrick(@rangersgoalie) would probably be the best to speak to who were the slowest guys that he Played with on Tour that had the card and were competitive, or at least cashed checks.

As Dave stated above, while the shorter hitters obviously had/have to have an insane, not good, not great, though insane area of the game to make up for comin in with mid/long irons when the big dogs are comin in with wedges/short irons.

The one area that doesn’t get talked about much however being a shorter hitter and putting all that pressure on yourself BEFORE you hit your first drive is the mental game. Not that the long ballers can afford to throw away shots, however puttin it out there where they do, they can put themselves in positions to make up strokes in gobs, and a short hitter has virtually ZERO margin for error or an errant shot or missed putt.

THAT take a toll on even the strongest mind, drive after drive, shot after shot, putt after putt.

All the Best Gents?
RP

Great thread.

2019 PGA Champions Tour stats have Chris Dimarco, at age 50, averaging 265.2 off the tee. Made around $400,00. Maybe a good iron and short game still have merit.

That's probably why even the really good "short" knockers (relatively speaking of course) eventually get chased off the tour when a wave of young guys come through. It seems like it's a clean quick cutoff also. One day Justin Leonard is relevant, the next day he's just gone. Same with Luke Donald. It's like one morning they wake up and it's over. There doesn't seem to be a gradual decline with those guys. You can only keep it together so long with that much pressure on the rest of your game. When that dam finally breaks, you realize that it takes way too much work to try an stick around or get your game back to that level. I could be wrong of course, but that's what I think when I see those guys and think, "what happened to him"

Was it 2018 that Francesco Molinari won The Open and was tearing it up on the European and PGA Tour. He is not the longest hitter by far but was deadly with his irons and around the greens.

That was 10 years ago (2010 Travelers which was Bubba’s 1st PGA Tour win). I will say that watching them play 18 was interesting as they were complete polar opposites. Pavin’s drive was ~230 down the middle and Bubba’s hit the cart path crossing the fairway ending up over 350. Both would go on to hit the GIR and 2-putt for par.

Smash factor is huge. Accuracy means alot, david toms won tournie maybe 2004 or 05..best iron play ive seen. He was hitting 6..7..8 irons and always close to flag.

I think Kuchar's SS is 108 mph. He hasn't done too badly.

Kooch at 108? He's lagging behind us! I heard Cameron Champ cruises at 126, and if he leans on it he can tee it up with us.

I was thinking that there has to be a minimum speed because to consistently birdie par 5's you need distance from both the tee and the second shot to have a chance in getting it close for birdie. It is very difficult to be consistently in the red on the 5's swinging at 90, and you will have nothing to offset bogeys on the 3's and long 4's.

Smash factor doesnt mean shit. Sergio was #1 in strokes gained off tee while being last place in smash factor. All that matters is where the ball ends up.

Totally incorrect. DRIVER EXAMPLEGolfer A has a club speed of 100 mph and a smash factor of 1.40. Golfer A’s ball speed is 140 mph.

Golfer B has a club speed of 100 mph and a smash factor of 1.50. Golfer B’s ball speed is 150 mph.

The 10 mph difference in ball speed between Golfer A and Golfer B equates to approximately 20 yards in distance between the two golfers even though they have the same club speed.

I think he was trying to say that driver efficiency is less important for the those that are above average in driving distance. Sergio is an example of a player who is long off the tee but fairly inefficient from a ball speed standpoint vs peers but it does not look to have a strong impact on his scoring (although it does show that he has more room for improvement vs others). Strokes gained off the tee has a much stronger correlation to score than any of the other distance stats.

All I'm hearing is that what used to be moderate is now considered slow and that if you're in that category, you basically ain't winning anything and are instead probably fighting to keep your card or to actually pull it out when you happen to get in contention.

Long story short, the game has changed and if you're not capable of swinging 120 you're probably not a big name in the game.

I did a fitting today for a guy who swings it 104 and was able to get a high power fade out to about 290

that’s not the end of the world

Isn’t Furyk 107-108?

He was 52nd in driving distance and 8th in SG off the tee in 2018 so not exactly short either

I do....

I am not sure what Jim Furyk's SS is or was, but it certainly wasn't fast by any standards and he is a Major winner

He has also shot both 58 and 59 on tour which is an incredible achievement

Then your membership needs to be revoked, but we will reconsider this if you play X-100 (X7) or PX7.0 both tipped one inch of course!

Average Swing Speed on tour last year was 114.50 mph. 67.6% of the PGA tour had a swing speed between 118.65 mph and 110.34 mph.

Of the 28 players who swing below 110.34 mph, that includes 5 players in the OWGR Top 100: Webb Simpson - 9, Matt Kuchar - 18, Chez Reavie - 39, Brandt Snedeker - 51, Jim Furyk - 84.

Webb is the fastest of the bunch at 110.26 mph and still ranked 162nd on the PGA Tour in swing speed. Kuchar is next, ranked 172nd at 109.12 mph. With both of these players being fictures in the world top 100, I'd think it's safe to say that as swing speed of 110 mph is more than fast enough to be one of the greatest players in the world.

In the past 13 years of tracking on the PGA Tour, the slowest Swing Speed was David Toms in 2016 at 100.91 mph. He earned almost $775,000 that year and finished 124th in the FexEx standings.