Have you ever thought about the role of speed in your game? We bet that many people, especially beginners, neglect its importance and impact on success. However, it is hard not to stress the importance of this factor! If you have ever watched a professional golfer playing on the course or in a tournament, you should know that most of the great players have much more swing speed than it may seem.
Why Is It So Important?
Although small swing speed can be beneficial in certain cases, we can observe many players attempting to add more speed to their shots, and there are quite a few reasons for that!
First of all, greater speed is known to contribute to success. However, this point is a bit controversial. Of course, most professionals have high speeds, but there are also many excellent players who prefer to take it slower. Thus, it is not always about the speed, but rather about your overall technique.
Still, there is quite a lot a speed can give you:
- Length – increasing the speed is a sure way to make your golf ball cover larger distances off the tee. In addition, in most cases, fast-swinging players tend to hit further with all types of clubs.
- Clubs – players with speeder swings can get the most benefit from safer and shorter clubs, and cover similar large distances with them.
- Approach shot – such players, have a big advantage during their approach hits as well.
- Trajectory – the larger the speed, the higher trajectory and more spin a player can get during his hits.
- Lies – higher speed enables you to recover from thicker rough and difficult lies easily.
- Courses – in general, players whose swing is faster, tend to show consistently good performance on all types of courses whether they are difficult or easy, long or short.
- Hard pin locations – higher speed enables you to reach to more difficult locations with less effort.
- Shots – apart from a distance, it is also easier to curve and shape shots.
- Greens – if you need to hold the ball better on firmer greens, higher speeds would allow you to do this.
These are some of the main pros of having higher swing speeds. However, there is much more to it than it seems. Now, let’s take a look at different types of speed in golf.
Ball Speed Vs. Clubhead Speed
Although high speeds give players so many benefits, it is vital to understand the difference between different types of speeds and how each complements your style of play.
Most often, beginners confuse the terms ball and clubhead speed. However, they are completely different. While the speed of your club’s face indicates the exact speed delivered during the impact, it is exactly what influences the quality of your shots, which is why so many players are wondering how to increase clubhead speed. Ball speed, on the contrary, indicates the speed after the impact. It also has a significant influence on your scores and to improve it, golfers need to adjust their swing technique. Ideally, to get the best results, you should strive for balancing out both of these indicators.
1 comment
Speed is great, but don’t forget about balance too. If you watch top professionals in action, not alone do they have speed but they are in balance. OK, some of them may have their mannerisms and move about after impact, like Bubba Watson or Gary Player, but they are consistently where they need to be at impact and so can transfer their speed to its maximum effect.
Also, don’t forget what Moe Norman used to call “the purity of technique”. In other words, hitting the ball off the dead center of the club face time after time. If you forget that, then you’re really only practicing Long Drive, not golf.