shaft regulations? are they needed?

[USER1999]

Ok, you are driving well, hitting the ball with that nice easy swing, the ball is flying today. So you get to the next tee thinking I’ll really give the next one a bit of stick, see how far I can really hit it. So you swing like a strimmer, and it goes nowhere. Why?

It is said that the distance a golf ball travels is mainly related to club head speed. This seems fairly obvious. Hence the faster you swing, the faster the club head speed, the faster the ball goes, and the faster it goes, the further it goes. Optimise the ball spin, and the launch angle, bingo, you hit it miles.

So, why does an easy swing go further than when you lash it?

Now the theory goes that you hit it ‘with better timing’ if you swing easy (ignoring for the moment the effect of finding the sweet spot). Why should this matter? What are you timing?

If we are talking weight transference, what difference does this make to club head speed? I doubt if you are moving your body at more than 10 mph, and yet the club head is doing 100+. Surely the act of swinging your arms faster would have way more impact than the addition of any weight transfer. Do heavier people hit it longer?

Hitting the sweet spot helps, and maybe if you swing easy then you middle it. However, Cobra, among others is telling us that the whole face is sweet. Therefore, however fast you swing, you must be hitting it sweetly.

Smash factor is a way of measuring this. A factor of 1.5 is about the best you can get. This means that a club head speed of 100mph, produces a ball speed of 150mph. Therefore a faster swing should produce a faster ball, by 50%. Where does weight transference (or timing) come into this? It is just speed.

Spin? More than 3000rpm on a drive and it will balloon, less and it will not carry. 3000 seems to be the optimum. However, spin is not swing speed related, it is path related, and so whilst it will affect overall distance, it won’t make a difference between an easy swing and one which is lashed, provided the swing plane remains unchanged.

So, why does an easy swing go further?

The shaft.

Swinging at a speed which correctly unloads the stored energy in the shaft at impact creates the club head speed needed to hit it long. All the weight transfer, timing, etc is all designed to load the shaft at the start of the down swing, and then release it at precisely the right time to launch the ball long. It is not so much the speed of your arms that matters so much as the storing and release of the energy in the shaft. Hence when you try to thrash it, you get out of sync with the shaft and the ball goes nowhere. Your increased arm speed is negated by the poor use of the shaft.

Much of the development in golf clubs is now in the shaft, as both the ball and the driver head have stringent laws, which will pretty much limit how much more can be done to increase distance by developments in this area. The shaft is not currently regulated at all.

So, If so much of the club head speed is down to the shaft, should the shafts be regulated in some way?
Perhaps limit how much energy they can transfer for a given swing speed in order to limit the effect of the multiplier?

 

[medwayjon]

Makes total sense and a very, very good post indeed.

 

[Twire]

Sometimes Murph you come out with some Gems..and this is one of them.

I've never thought of it in this way, but it makes perfect sence to me now...mid kick, low kick, high kick..one shaft doesn't suit all. With all the advances made in graphite manufacture, I think one day the shafts will have to be regulated.

 

[birdieman]

Re: shaft regulations? are they needed? *DELETED*

Post deleted by birdieman

 

[GRAEMBO]

Quite alot of that went over my head. How do you regulate a shaft though? And different people as you have said have different swing speeds, therefore are able to hit it further dependant on the shaft, right?

Do you make it like a clothes pole and therefore inhibit the slower swinger? Or like the timing leadbetter shaft and make it brutally hard for someone who swings it fast?

I like the idea of making golf harder for the pros, but what about joseph and josephine bloggs.....how does this affect the 'normal' everyday golfer?

 

[mono217]

That really made a good read great post murph the best I have seen on here thanks for the information.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

An interesting thought but not one I can see being adopted in any facet of the game much less on the amateur scene where club golfers need all the help technology gives.

I can see where you are coming from in terms of the pro game but again its not something I can see happening. It would be much more likley that the top ball manufacturers come up with a number of balls that were restricted in terms of length and the pros use these instead to reduce their increasing length. Again I can't see it happening real soon

 

[mikeyh]

If they regulate the shafts, won't the manufacturers just improve something else on the club to make us hit it the same if not better???

It happens in most sports. They have regulated the size of the heads 460cc yet with each new club comes new development. Look at F1, new regulations this season, yet lap times the same if not better.

It will make the golf companies think though!!!

 

[Imurg]

Used to get this when I played cricket. And you hear it in the commentaries. You hear that the batsman hardly seemed to hit the ball but it went like a rocket. It's timing. Even footy players can take advantage of it.

Not sure regulation is a necessary though. In the pro game (unless you are Corey Pavin) most of them are knocking it within a few yards of 300 most of the time. And they're still missing a lot of fairways. And is this distance remarkably different to a few years ago? Maybe 10 yards or so but that's not a biggie is it?

 

[USER1999]

Maybe ban x flex shafts? Not many normal golfers use them, but nearly all the pro's do. A simple bend test would suffice.

 

[USER1999]

Oh yeah, it kind of is a biggie, as they keep lengthening courses, and talking about introducing a pro ball. Just some other idea in the melting pot.

 

[viscount17]

good one murph' it's got me thinking.

could it be that most of my driving woes are down to trying too hard? possibly with the wrong shaft (for me)?

I know I had a smash factor of 1.43 with the Nanospeed off a swing speed of 92.5.

oh dear, I feel a trip to driver wonderland coming on!

as to regulation, it would be nice if first we had some standardisation but I think it inevitable that it will one-day be introduced (this time possibly to the detriment of the amateur).