Connor Powers ( yes that really is his name) can create a club head speed of up to 153 mph and the golf ball leaves the face of his driver at 222 mph and the ball travels over 400 yards.
The average golfer will have a club head speed of about 90 m.p.h.
One of the worlds most powerful trucks is a Caterpillar 797B. It has a top speed of 42 mph and has a 3,550 brake horsepower engine. One of the fastest cars in the world is Bugatti Veyron. It has a top speed of 253 mph and has a 987 brake horsepower engine.
The Caterpillar797B has three and a half times more power than the Bugatti but only moves at 42 mph compared to 253 mph for the Bugatti.
You may be wondering what this has to do with the distance the ball travels but it is important that a concept of speed and not power is understood and how club head speed relates to the distance the ball travels and not power. I am very reluctant to use the word power in my lessons as it creates an illusion that strength is the dominant factor in creating distance and whilst being strong has advantages it is not as important as creating club head speed.
One would not describe the former world’s No.1 lady golfer Lorena Ochoa from Mexico, as being strong or muscle bound but she consistenly created enough club head speed to be able to hit the ball far enough to be the wold’s best lady golfer. Interestingly she retired aged 28 and this was the same age the great Bobby Jones ceased playing competitive golf in 1930, having won, as an amateur , the British Open three times, the British Amateur once, the US Open four times and the US Amateur five times. I show all of my pupils Bobby Jone’s swing as he produced his club head speed from a beautiful sequence of movements – a golfing genius.
The speed of the club head is related to the weight of the golf club and the length of the shaft. The longer the shaft the greater the club head speed and the further the ball will travel. Hoever if the shaft is too long, especially with a driver, you will lose control of the club and miss the centre of the club head, and actually lose distance.
One of my assistants, Ryan, once experimented by adding a 12″ extension to his driver. I can still recall this very capable scratch golfer attempting to hit the ball with his super long driver and miss hitting almost every shot and even missing the ball completely on one occasion. He soon abandoned the experiment but it had taught him a very valuable lesson.
Over the centuries golfers have experimented with longer and shorter clubs and a length of 43″ became the accepted length of a driver as it combines distance with control. I would encourage all golfers to visit a club-fitter who will be able to ascertain the correct length and loft angle for YOU.
We need to create club head speed but where does this come from? I have heard many thousands of times ‘ let the club do the work’ but in reality, the club does absolutely nothing as it is a static object. ( see Myths of Golf 11 ) The golfer has to do all of the work. A good address position and a good back swing are essential if the club head is to be moved at speed through the ball leading to a balanced finish.
Good balance is important in directing the club head at the correct angle to the ball so the ball is hit in the centre of the club face. A club head moving at 100m.p.h. at the wrong angle will not send the ball as far as a lesser club head speed at the correct angle. Your feet are your only contact with the ground and they need to be in the correct position to allow your body to be able to move the club head back and through the ball.
From the top of the back swing your hips, chest and arms should all move down together but at different speeds. There is simply not enough time to move one part of your body and then another as there is only about one tenth of one second from starting down to hitting the ball. I have a super slow-motion swing of Tiger Woods, winner of 14 Major Championships, on my excellent GASP Lab teaching system and I show my pupils his swing from the back swing to impact and ask them what moved first and the answer is always the same – everything moved together.Tiger Woods said in the October 2008 edition of Golf World ‘photographs of my through swing show my shoulders and hips reveal are uncoiling simultaneously. This tells me neither will have any catching up to do at impact.’Spot on Tiger.
We are all different and there will always be a huge difference between the longest and shortest hitters but the excellent handicap system allows everyone to compete.<
The longest hitters incidentally are never the best golfers. I had a discussion with one of my pupils who had just scored a gross 65 - 6 = net 59 in a medal at the Canford Magna Golf Course ( now sadly not in existence) in Dorset UK about the longest hitters on the US and European Tours. I quoted the names of the five longest hitters on each tour and of the ten names he had only heard of three of them.It is not a good idea to strive for more and more distance. If a magic formula existed to enable everyone to hit the ball 10% further then a drive of 200 yards would become 210 yards and a drive of 300 yards would become 330 yards so the longer hitter would be even further ahead.CONCLUSIONThink speed and not power and use the image of a Bugatti Veyran rather than a Caterpillar 797BSee Teaching Video 27.
