Tour Player swing speeds

[AndrewMe]

IMO, substantially less accurate than a trackman Obviously..... I would not put much weight in that number... great video but not specifically designed for ballflight, designed for slow motion video

 

I mean long drive guys with extra long shafts and ONE purpose in life are swinging at just over 140... so tiger at 139 in a tournament doesnt even make sense logically

[brettcra]

Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!

 

Those figures are out of sink. I was swinging at 118mph and generating ball speed of 176mph on a Titleist launch monitor last year. That was a pretty close to the 1:1.5 ratio between swingspeed and ball speed that the pro's aim to achieve through endless optimisation of launch data.

 

The BBC had a trackman device in operation at the Open this year, measuring ball speed. Tiger came in consistently at 183-185mph, which puts his swingspeed at 122-123mph. Sergio was getting to 175-178mph, meaning his swingspeed was 118mph-119mph.

 

Note however that Tiger can crank it up to 130mph SS and that Sergio's driver shaft is only 43.75"!!

If those numbers are accurate, then Tiger's normal swing is 94% of his top speed. I guess that dispels the notion that these guys have 20% in reserve.

 

Not exactly, I think many of you are misunderstanding what players mean when they say "I swing at 80%." They are talking about effort, not clubhead speed. It is a subjective feel measure of their effort. Interestingly, because the kinetic energy of the clubhead is proportional to the square of it's velocity (the old E = MV²/2, it only has 88% of it's energy when it's at 94% of it's maximum velocity to use your example. From a kinetic energy perspective 107 mph would be 80% of 120 mph. However, that's just the clubhead. Clearly the player cannot transfer 100% of his energy expenditure into the clubhead (if he did, his body would come to a complete stop at impact), so from an effort/energy perspective, I think players who say they normally swing at 80% effort are pretty darn close to being correct. Would make a very interesting research project IMO.

I agree that it is quite subjective when people talk about effort. It's difficult to measure and I think people just throw out the number 80%. But when you think about it logically, these tour guys swing very fast, and it would be very difficult to believe that they have another 25% in reserve. That's actually quite a lot, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they look like they're swinging easy, even though they aren't really. As far as the kinetic energy, I'm not a physicist so I can't debate that, but I don't think it is really relevant to the effort in the swing. If Tiger swings at 130 at top speed, and 122 normally, that's a 6% difference. The kinetic energy displaced may be different, but I believe that's the energy between the clubhead and the ball. If Tiger is taking practice swings and not hitting a ball, the difference is still 6%. It doesn't suddenly become 25% when he makes contact with a ball. Probably a 5-10% reserve seems more logical to me.

 

Or I could be totally wrong.

[hoganfan924]

Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!

 

Those figures are out of sink. I was swinging at 118mph and generating ball speed of 176mph on a Titleist launch monitor last year. That was a pretty close to the 1:1.5 ratio between swingspeed and ball speed that the pro's aim to achieve through endless optimisation of launch data.

 

The BBC had a trackman device in operation at the Open this year, measuring ball speed. Tiger came in consistently at 183-185mph, which puts his swingspeed at 122-123mph. Sergio was getting to 175-178mph, meaning his swingspeed was 118mph-119mph.

 

Note however that Tiger can crank it up to 130mph SS and that Sergio's driver shaft is only 43.75"!!

If those numbers are accurate, then Tiger's normal swing is 94% of his top speed. I guess that dispels the notion that these guys have 20% in reserve.

 

Not exactly, I think many of you are misunderstanding what players mean when they say "I swing at 80%." They are talking about effort, not clubhead speed. It is a subjective feel measure of their effort. Interestingly, because the kinetic energy of the clubhead is proportional to the square of it's velocity (the old E = MV²/2, it only has 88% of it's energy when it's at 94% of it's maximum velocity to use your example. From a kinetic energy perspective 107 mph would be 80% of 120 mph. However, that's just the clubhead. Clearly the player cannot transfer 100% of his energy expenditure into the clubhead (if he did, his body would come to a complete stop at impact), so from an effort/energy perspective, I think players who say they normally swing at 80% effort are pretty darn close to being correct. Would make a very interesting research project IMO.

I agree that it is quite subjective when people talk about effort. It's difficult to measure and I think people just throw out the number 80%. But when you think about it logically, these tour guys swing very fast, and it would be very difficult to believe that they have another 25% in reserve. That's actually quite a lot, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they look like they're swinging easy, even though they aren't really. As far as the kinetic energy, I'm not a physicist so I can't debate that, but I don't think it is really relevant to the effort in the swing. If Tiger swings at 130 at top speed, and 122 normally, that's a 6% difference. The kinetic energy displaced may be different, but I believe that's the energy between the clubhead and the ball. If Tiger is taking practice swings and not hitting a ball, the difference is still 6%. It doesn't suddenly become 25% when he makes contact with a ball. Probably a 5-10% reserve seems more logical to me.

 

Or I could be totally wrong.

 

Work = Force x distance. Work and and Kinetic Energy are synonymous. So in order to produce a 20% increase in clubhead kinetic energy, you'd have to increase the amount of work performed (all else being equal) by the same amount. The work that a golfer performs in executing a golf swing translates to him as "effort" from a feel perspective. Why? For example, if you bench press 100 lbs and lift it one foot you've performed 100 lb-ft of work and (if you have 100% efficiency) have expended 100 lb-ft of energy to do so. If you only lift 50 lbs. you've expended 50 lb-ft of energy but only producing 1/2 the force (assuming no substantial accelerations, aka a slow, smooth lift). Since most good golfers don't increase the length of their swing with a driver when trying to "give it a little extra" they have to increase the amount of force they apply by the same percentage increase as the increase in clubhead kinetic energy, not speed. Of course, my example is highly simplified, since the force application is not constant throughout the swing.

[brettcra]

Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!

 

Those figures are out of sink. I was swinging at 118mph and generating ball speed of 176mph on a Titleist launch monitor last year. That was a pretty close to the 1:1.5 ratio between swingspeed and ball speed that the pro's aim to achieve through endless optimisation of launch data.

 

The BBC had a trackman device in operation at the Open this year, measuring ball speed. Tiger came in consistently at 183-185mph, which puts his swingspeed at 122-123mph. Sergio was getting to 175-178mph, meaning his swingspeed was 118mph-119mph.

 

Note however that Tiger can crank it up to 130mph SS and that Sergio's driver shaft is only 43.75"!!

If those numbers are accurate, then Tiger's normal swing is 94% of his top speed. I guess that dispels the notion that these guys have 20% in reserve.

 

Not exactly, I think many of you are misunderstanding what players mean when they say "I swing at 80%." They are talking about effort, not clubhead speed. It is a subjective feel measure of their effort. Interestingly, because the kinetic energy of the clubhead is proportional to the square of it's velocity (the old E = MV²/2, it only has 88% of it's energy when it's at 94% of it's maximum velocity to use your example. From a kinetic energy perspective 107 mph would be 80% of 120 mph. However, that's just the clubhead. Clearly the player cannot transfer 100% of his energy expenditure into the clubhead (if he did, his body would come to a complete stop at impact), so from an effort/energy perspective, I think players who say they normally swing at 80% effort are pretty darn close to being correct. Would make a very interesting research project IMO.

I agree that it is quite subjective when people talk about effort. It's difficult to measure and I think people just throw out the number 80%. But when you think about it logically, these tour guys swing very fast, and it would be very difficult to believe that they have another 25% in reserve. That's actually quite a lot, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they look like they're swinging easy, even though they aren't really. As far as the kinetic energy, I'm not a physicist so I can't debate that, but I don't think it is really relevant to the effort in the swing. If Tiger swings at 130 at top speed, and 122 normally, that's a 6% difference. The kinetic energy displaced may be different, but I believe that's the energy between the clubhead and the ball. If Tiger is taking practice swings and not hitting a ball, the difference is still 6%. It doesn't suddenly become 25% when he makes contact with a ball. Probably a 5-10% reserve seems more logical to me.

 

Or I could be totally wrong.

 

Work = Force x distance. Work and and Kinetic Energy are synonymous. So in order to produce a 20% increase in clubhead kinetic energy, you'd have to increase the amount of work performed (all else being equal) by the same amount. The work that a golfer performs in executing a golf swing translates to him as "effort" from a feel perspective. Why? For example, if you bench press 100 lbs and lift it one foot you've performed 100 lb-ft of work and (if you have 100% efficiency) have expended 100 lb-ft of energy to do so. If you only lift 50 lbs. you've expended 50 lb-ft of energy but only producing 1/2 the force (assuming no substantial accelerations, aka a slow, smooth lift). Since most good golfers don't increase the length of their swing with a driver when trying to "give it a little extra" they have to increase the amount of force they apply by the same percentage increase as the increase in clubhead kinetic energy, not speed. Of course, my example is highly simplified, since the force application is not constant throughout the swing.

Most of this is over my head, but I still don't see how a 25% increase in effort produces only a 6-7% increase in clubhead speed. Can you show the math with real numbers? I'd be interested to see it.

[TEConnor]

Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!

 

Those figures are out of sink. I was swinging at 118mph and generating ball speed of 176mph on a Titleist launch monitor last year. That was a pretty close to the 1:1.5 ratio between swingspeed and ball speed that the pro's aim to achieve through endless optimisation of launch data.

 

The BBC had a trackman device in operation at the Open this year, measuring ball speed. Tiger came in consistently at 183-185mph, which puts his swingspeed at 122-123mph. Sergio was getting to 175-178mph, meaning his swingspeed was 118mph-119mph.

 

Note however that Tiger can crank it up to 130mph SS and that Sergio's driver shaft is only 43.75"!!

 

Here is the data from the Open (which is accessible at the Open site under "Live Scoring" by clicking on an individual's name and then "shot data"):

 

Tiger - (ball speed mph / carry yds) 3 drives on Hole 6: 181/311, 182/295, 181/295; 4 drives on Hole 10: 181/274, 185/264, 171/263, 180/282. Avg ball speed: 180mph; Avg Carry: 283yds.

 

Garcia -- (ball speed mph / carry yds) 4 drives on Hole 6: 175/293, 172/295, 177/274, 176/276; 3 drives on Hole 10: 176/261, 179/246, 176/281. Avg ball speed: 176mph; Avg Carry: 275yds.

 

Cheers,

Tim

[sundevil]

I have never hit higher than a 1.49 on smash factor and my driver face is littered with dimples on the sweetspot. Clubhead speed is overrated, the numbers to look at are ballspeed, launch angle, and backspin.

 

 

100% correct. Swingspeed is relatively difficult to measure accurately compared to ballspeed and really pretty meaningless. The latest version of the Trackman software and hardware is finally producing reasonable measures of clubhead speed and I've never seen it report a smash factor over 1.5. The previous post explaining the physics (using the momentum equation) is also spot on and the 1.5 factor is pretty much the theoretical limit with the COR limits for conforming drivers.

 

The question should be what are tour players ballspeeds (or better, their launch #'s) and how do I compare?

[thehobbit]

At only 24 years old, I still have the flexibility to hit the ball quite long. I played proffessional ice hockey briefly and my swing speed is consistently in the 115-117 range. I am usually the longest player on the golf course, unless i am playing in a high caliber tourney. I played with Gary one time by coincidence. I was hitting the driver well and long all day, (290-310 consistently). I only out drove Gary one time and that was because he hit one 350 and 40 yards left of the fairway, so my line made me closer to the hole. I witnessed him carry a ball 385 and hit drives of 330-360 hitting 3/4 fairways. Then on one hole he decided to carry 350 yards of crap at a 400 yard away green. After I saw this swing, he couldn't of been swinging harder than 80% the entire day, because this swing was just outrageous. Green side 400 yards out with just a monstrous but beautiful swing. I cannot picture anyone swinging in control with higher swing speed than Gary. played with many tour players, never been that impressed or taken back. Gary is a different story, truly a humbling experience to watch:

 

This article is from golf digest

 

Gary Woodland sound so grand you wonder where the truth ends and the urban legend begins. Like the one about him hitting a driver 430 yards on the practice range at the school's home course, Alvamar GC, last fall. Or how he recently went on a launch monitor where technicians measured his clubhead speed at 135 miles per hour and ball speed at 195 mph (for comparison Tiger Woods' numbers are 125 and 179, respectively). Or how this spring he has been fine-tuning a 5-wood "stinger" shot that travels 250 yards while getting no higher than 20 feet off the ground. Gary Woodland's clubhead speed has been clocked at 135 miles per hour.

Sounds unbelievable, admits Jayhawk coach Ross Randall, only to vouch for them all -- while insisting when people tell you Woodland consistently carries drives between 330 and 350 yards off the tee they aren't exaggerating either

[golfmonke]

[quote name='AndrewMe' post='730142' date='Sep 24 2007, 10:01 AM']Very good post... I agree 100%... I think the principle is there, as in, they swing very much within themselves, but no, they dont have 20% of clubhead speed on reserve.[/quote]

I don't know, I swing at 110 mph when i'm on the course, choked up on my driver.

I can max out my swing speed at 125 mph, of course not my on course swing, but rather a long drive swing.

That works out to 88% , so I have 12% swing speed in reserve.

[piston088]

[quote name='golfmonke' post='1923987' date='Aug 30 2009, 11:05 PM'][quote name='AndrewMe' post='730142' date='Sep 24 2007, 10:01 AM']Very good post... I agree 100%... I think the principle is there, as in, they swing very much within themselves, but no, they dont have 20% of clubhead speed on reserve.[/quote]

I don't know, I swing at 110 mph when i'm on the course, choked up on my driver.

I can max out my swing speed at 125 mph, of course not my on course swing, but rather a long drive swing.

That works out to 88% , so I have 12% swing speed in reserve.
[/quote]

I would say that's probably a little more in reserve than most of of have, but at the same time more than likely good for accuracy.

[pinhigh27]

[quote name='cap217' post='723600' date='Sep 18 2007, 04:41 PM']Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control![/quote]

I don't agree with the 80 percent thing, I don't swing at 80 percent and I very much doubt any of you do. Your telling me you can add another 10-15 mph easy to your swing if you want to? I sure can't and I don't think the pros can ever. If they were swinging at 80 some of them wouldn't spray the ball so hard.

[Doc420]

The fairways are jacked up. I have played a course the day after us open qualifying and I was getting my driver to bounce 10 feet up in the fairway, and roll out. I was getting between 15 to 20 yards extra from where I normally hit it on that course. My skycaddie avg. on this track is around 275, and it was more like 295 on this day and a long of 347 that carried a hill and rolled out.

I have seen Funk with around 108 swing speed.

[wfrogge1]

[quote name='nkubes12' post='725453' date='Sep 19 2007, 10:16 PM']Swing speed means little to nothing on how far you can hit it. Compression is the reason that the ball goes for touring professionals. The smash factor is often more reliable than swing speed.[/quote]


Dont forget launch angle and hitting the ball square and on the screws.....

[BigPete]

About this 80% business - I believe it's just a turn of phrase.
Think about if you hit a pw 120, a "half swing" pw will go 90 probably.
My mates joke about "giving it 107, maybe 108% on this one" (yes I know)

I'm off to a fitting this week - would be interesting to see actual numbers on swing speed and all. I consider myself to be around 100mph atm with a nowhere near 1.5 SF but who knows...

[schmatt]

I think the confusion is coming from the exaggeration of distances from golf announcers. Everytime they show the numbers on the telecasts, they are right in line with what the majority is saying here. They are ranging from 110-120mph. I do believe the avg is 112. As far as the <100mph SS, that's just ridiculous. If they had that kind of SS, they wouldn't be able to hit half of the par 4s in two. I'm just an average golfer, and my SS is 100-105mph (don't have a really accurate number). I hit my drives, with roll, on the bottom third of driving distances for the PGA tour.

Also, keep in mind that you are typically seeing the bombers on the telecasts. This is because everyone loves to watch them, and they are typically the stars of the tour. If you look at the rest of the tour players, they will typically hit it a lot shorter than those guys.

[dbren1]

[quote name='cap217' post='732409' date='Sep 26 2007, 09:03 AM']QUOTE(cap217 @ Sep 18 2007, 03:41 PM)
Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!


I know you will not believe this but I have actually seen Sergio on a TM monitor being fit. Also, he was on the TM ball marketing launch comparing the Red to the V1x and they were right on. Then I saw the #'s at the Open and they were on a again.

Sure, these my not be 80% I am sure 90-95% but we can NEVER prove this. I did see Rory hit at the Golf Galaxy monitor and he had a 120 SS around a 170 ball speed.

You have to remember this as well.... they hit the sweet spot almost every time. I am a good 2 hdcp and hit the sweet spot half the time! And for smash factors, who knows! [b]I have been at nowhere over 1.40 ever[/b].[/quote]
Seriously? You must have a great short game or a ton of power. I'm a pretty average 11 h'cap at the moment, around 100MPH w/ driver and I get 1.45-1.49 consistently on the Trackman (though the resultant drives aren't all as consistent). My irons, I've never had more than 1.40 (though, the lower smash doesn't result in less erratic results).

[teeituphigh]

I just tested my swing speed using a little swung speed measuring device and i swung as hard as i could, flat out and got to 123mp and was averaging 118mph. I found it very interesting!

[djduran]

i know that at the Presidents Cup this year, Steve Strickers iron speed through the 4 days was 92mph. and his driver was topping at 105.

even Tiger with irons avg that week was 101 for irons and 116 for driver.

[petter7]

Here's some links to check out. The Trackman website has some revealing videos to watch.

[url="http://trackman.dk/Media/Videos/Skins-Game-2008.aspx"]http://trackman.dk/Media/Videos/Skins-Game-2008.aspx[/url]

[url="http://www.pgatour.com/2008/r/02/04/radar2008/index.html"]http://www.pgatour.com/2008/r/02/04/radar2008/index.html[/url]

[url="http://www.pgatour.com/2008/tournaments/r003/02/04/radar/index.html"]http://www.pgatour.com/2008/tournaments/r0...adar/index.html[/url]

[url="http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HFI/is_5_54/ai_101967369/?tag=content;col1"]http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HF...ag=content;col1[/url]

[url="http://www.deeprough.com/index.php/2007/11/24/ball-speed-carry-distance-smash-factor/"]http://www.deeprough.com/index.php/2007/11...e-smash-factor/[/url]

[robbie91]

[quote name='hoganfan924' post='726018' date='Sep 20 2007, 01:24 PM'][quote name='Young04' post='725954' date='Sep 20 2007, 12:42 PM'][quote name='swanry30' post='725920' date='Sep 20 2007, 12:08 PM']i'm suprised you didn't bring "without pictures this thread is pointless" to the table. let's agree to disagree. i live in at redtail and am on the trackman quite a bit, they have properly set their computers - what more can i say?[/quote]

1.6 smash factor? can i buy your driver off of you?

i don't doubt what you saw on your machine. i doubt it's veracity. my understanding is that it's impossoble to get a smash factor that high with today's equipment.
[/quote]

That trackman is not giving accurate readings. Here is a great article on this subject:

[url="http://probablegolfinstruction.com/PGI%20Newsletter/news02-12-04.htm"]http://probablegolfinstruction.com/PGI%20N...ews02-12-04.htm[/url]

Here's an excerpt:

The physics of the interaction between club and ball is quite well understood. At play are the laws of momentum and energy. A given player (let's say you) is capable of swinging a club with a some maximum speed. The more massive the club, tthe slower will be this maximum speed. The speed of the ball is a result of the mass of the clubhead and its speed. So, as the mass increases, so will the resulting ball speed. But, since the clubhead is more massive, its maximum speed is less. There is actually an optimum mass for each golfer that produces the greatest ball speed. For most golfers, that mass is about 200 grams. A physics equation that determines the resulting ball speed is:

V = U*(1+e)/(1+m/M)

where U = clubhead speed, m = mass of ball, M = mass of clubhead

In the past 10 to 15 years, club and ball manufacturers have made great leaps in increasing the e of the collision due mainly to the hollow, metal faced drivers whose faces can "spring back" upon collision. So much so that the USGA has put in place a legal maximum which is about 0.83. Club testers have found that e decreases with increased clubhead speed. Tiger Woods' drives, therefore, are not as efficient as yours or mine. He makes up for this by having significantly more clubhead speed.

Let's take the example that your clubhead speed is 110 mph (48.9 m/s), which means you are a relatively long hitter. A typical value of e (exact value depends on the club) would be about 0.83. According to the equation above, the resulting ball speed (assuming a solid hit) would be:

V = 110*(1+0.83)/(1+46/190) = 110*1.47 = 162 mph

assuming a 190 g clubhead hitting a 46 gram ball. The ball speed ends up being
[b]1.47[/b] times the original clubhead speed.

So what would it take to achieve a 1.6 smash factor?

Let's solve for M with a SS of 100 mph, COR of 0.83 and a ball mass of 46 grams. I created a formula in excel and [b]it would take a 320 gram clubhead[/b]. So did you put 120 grams of lead tape on your FT5? Good luck swinging that at 100 mph!

I'll assume you didn't put 120 grams of lead tape on your FT5 so lets solve for COR using a 200 gram head weight:

It would require a COR of [b]0.968[/b]

So either you have an ultra heavy clubhead, a non-conforming one (or non conforming ball), a combination of both, or the trackman data is wrong. Which one do you think it is?
[/quote]

wow that was really really impressive -- and quite interesting -- thanks!!!!!!

[daniel@dk]

113 as an average PGA tour player sounds right. But what you all have to remember is that those guys don't have their equipment fitted to maximize their distance, but their accuracy. By this I mean that Tiger is using a 80 gram shaft +/- a bit, Scott is using a 90 gram shaft +/- a bit etc. The stock shafts in the retail drivers are 65 grams +/- a bit, so imagine Tiger with a 65 gram shaft, he would increase his ss big time, but he would miss the fairway big time too...

Just my opinion..

[chiphunt]

http://www.pgatour.com/r/stats/info/?02401

[buckeye2782]

[quote name='cap217' timestamp='1190148103' post='723600']
Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!
[/quote]

yes, that's crazy

[MatthewNGolf]

[quote name='buckeye2782' timestamp='1340917165' post='5185530']
[quote name='cap217' timestamp='1190148103' post='723600']
Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!


[/quote]

yes, that's crazy
[/quote]

It's also not true. I have the trackman data for several tour players. All of them swing slower than wharvthe guys on TV and pga tour.com says.

[Borbor]

Sergio is at 122 with a 173 ball speed, tiger is a little more than that. Remember, these are at about 80% and under control!

 

 

 

yes, that's crazy

 

It's also not true. I have the trackman data for several tour players. All of them swing slower than wharvthe guys on TV and pga tour.com says.

 

173 ballspeed @ 122 clubhead speed and you guys actually believe that? rofl. That's a 1.418 smash.

 

Sergio's trackman report with a driver, over a spread of 21 shots

 

[kellygreen]

Average hitters=113 mph.

Long-hitters =120-125 mph.

Bombers=125 mph+

Tiger in his prime was probably about 130-135mph.

Much above that it becomes diminishing returns. Smash factor becomes less efficient in turning increases in clubhead speed into increases in ball speed. Plus accuracy starts to become a problem. You start to have to become more and more precise a ballstriker, simply to keep your ball on the golf course.

So don't sacrifice center-face contact in the quest for additional swingspeed..