For a ‘standard’ full shot. How fast does a typical tour pro swing?

[anotherdouble]

Just before I finished as JLO I took some of our “better” Juniors to a County introduction/training day.

The mantra from the coach’s was very much one of encourage the kids to hit their Driver as hard and as fast as they can, the idea being that they (the coach’s) would and could add control at a later date.

When questioned about this they said modern thinking was that it was more difficult to add speed to control than control to speed.

Was that a drag act persona as I very much doubt it’s a lookalike. Hope it was a lucrative gig

 

[PaulMdj]

Was that a drag act persona as I very much doubt it’s a lookalike. Hope it was a lucrative gig

Just call me “Jenny from the block”

 

[Swinglowandslow]

How on earth are we supposed to work out if we have a 3:1 ratio or not by the way? I've always wondered this when people reference it.

My Garmin watch, Approach 60, has that ability. You set the speed you roughly swing at, say “fast amateur”, or slow amateur “ etc , and then when you swing it shows whether it was a 3:1 ratio swing, or where it was different and how it was different.

 

[sunshine]

That's another one I've never understood either. That makes it sound like the time for backswing and downswing should be the same, since both names have four syllables! So that's totally different to 3:1.

Agree, I don’t see how this equates to 3:1. By the way, Severiano has 5 syllables.

Personally it sounds too complicated to me. I can understand trying to speed up or slow down, but trying to target a specific swing speed or ratio seems nuts.

Imagine trying to adjust the speed you take your foot back before kicking a football

 

[rulie]

Agree, I don’t see how this equates to 3:1. By the way, Severiano has 5 syllables.

Personally it sounds too complicated to me. I can understand trying to speed up or slow down, but trying to target a specific swing speed or ratio seems nuts.

Imagine trying to adjust the speed you take your foot back before kicking a football

But some will keep working at it, thinking it's part of the holy grail! Hopefully, I'll play one of them in a match (and I'll keep my distance in case they start talking about it)!

 

[sunshine]

That would be a great piece of gamesmanship in a match: “I’ve noticed the timing of your swing doesn’t follow a 3:1 ratio. Have you deliberately adjusted your tempo to be out of sync?”

Then just leave them to get lost in swing thoughts (or laugh it off)

 

[Orikoru]

That would be a great piece of gamesmanship in a match: “I’ve noticed the timing of your swing doesn’t follow a 3:1 ratio. Have you deliberately adjusted your tempo to be out of sync?”

Then just leave them to get lost in swing thoughts (or laugh it off)

I think that would mostly just earn you a blank stare.

 

[Springveldt]

This made me ponder two things.

Although pros say they’re playing at 80%, that’s a feel. I’d bet that in terms of actual measurable speed and muscular effort they’re over 90% of their full-out effort. The feeling of drop in effort when dropping from 100 to 95% will feel large while the feeling of drop in effort in a drop from 50 to 45% will barely feel different, but they are the same amount of effort change.
(You could express that last sentence much more clearly using calculus rather than English but that’s a bit beyond my abilities )

Also; do pros play closer to the edge these days now that clubs are more forgiving? I suspect so; a lot of distance gains may be due to more forgiveness in clubs rather than more energy conversion (increased distance from the properties of the club itself) which allow pros to go pretty much all out with their swings knowing a bad hit won’t be that bad; while in the 80s and earlier control was everything as any off centre strike was brutally punished, so pros were playing at maybe 85% rather than 95% in order to retain really fine control?

It's definitely this. If you watch the YouTube video Rory did with Grant Horvat a little while ago when he was teaching him to speed train, Rory said his flat out swings get the driver ball speed to 192mph. Watching the Players last week, Rory's driver had a ball speed of 189mph a lot of the time, maybe he's got a little faster since that YouTube video but it won't be much more, maybe he maxes out at 196mph now. He's definitely not swinging driver at 80 or even 90%.

I'm guessing it's the same with irons, they are above 90% effort, you just need to look at the ball speeds they are getting with irons now, some of them are over 140mph with their 7 irons, that's not an 80% shot. Wedges would be the only club they are at 80% of imho.