Ball speed is king – by Andrew McHardy
For this week’s article, I have decided to discuss “ball speed”. If you happened to watch any of the PGA Tour golf from the Bahamas at the weekend, you would have noticed they talked a lot about Tiger’s ball speed.
When a golfer asks why he or she is not hitting the ball as far as someone else, there can be many reasons. One reason is that their ball speed is not high enough. Previously club head speed used to be the big thing in golf, but now I hear ball speed being discussed just as much.
What is ball speed? It is the speed the ball travels immediately after leaving the club face through impact. This is a combination of club head speed, swing speed, where the ball has struck on the face of the club, along with the type of club being used (driver, 3-wood, 7 iron etc).
All the above factors affect ball speed. For instance, a heel strike tends to produce the slowest ball speed and there are arguments to say the toe may even create faster speeds than those generated from the centre of the clubface.
The calculation is your maximum ball speed is 1.5 times faster than your swing speed. So, if you swing a club at 100mph, the maximum you can expect would 150 mph ball speed. So, for Tiger to produce 180+ mph ball speed you can imagine how fast he is swinging his driver.
This ratio is only achievable with a driver or possibly a fairway wood, as the strike with these clubs are more level, where as an iron is a more descending blow, causing the club to only glance the ball creating more spin and therefore a slower ball speed.
If you picture a tennis player hitting a slice shot, effectively the harder they swing the racket the more glancing the blow is, therefore the more spin generated. If you now imagine them hitting a serve, the contact is flusher, which creates the ball to release off the strings at a much faster rate. The face of a golf club acts very much like the strings of a tennis racket.
Read on...
Are all 7 irons the same? - By Ross McDonald “What club did you hit there?” “6 iron” “Well I’m only hitting a 7 iron!” Is that conversation something that you’re familiar with on the course?
The person hitting the 7 iron might feel like they are the bigger hitter, but let me explain why that might not be the case. For example, you may have a set of Titleist AP2 irons, and your playing partner a set of Callaway Apex. The loft on the 6 iron of the AP2 is 30 degrees and the 7 iron in the Apex is 31 degrees. That’s only a difference of 1 degree but your playing partner believes he is a longer hitter than you because he is taking a club “less” than you. I recently hit a selection of 7 irons from Callaway, Titleist, TaylorMade and PING. In the chart below are my results. The distances and height are an average over 5 balls with each club. I also used the same KBS Shaft in each club to give a fairer reading.
Read on... If you’re interested in a new set of clubs or want any advice at all feel free to pop in store for a chat or drop us an email info@noahsarkgolf.com |