At this point, no one should be surprised that swing weight had a large impact on accuracy. We had testers go from painting flag sticks at one swing weight to missing the target by 15 yards at another. Most of the changes were significant — approximately two degrees — and one was an amazing eight degrees! Predictably, face to path changes followed the same pattern: four were more right fades and slices , two were more left draws and hooks. Again, all of the changes were noticeable, and a couple were extreme.
The results for angle of attack were mixed. You might expect that the heavier head would lead to steeper, more negative angles of attack, but only two players showed that trend.
The other players had somewhat erratic patterns, but three of them registered their shallowest AoA with the D9 club. This myth was busted very early in our testing. Though the change from D0 to D3 only represents six grams of added head weight, each of our testers found it immediately noticeable. Not only did they comment on the change in feel without prompting, but the data shows that their swings knew the difference, too. If you look at the data, you can see that any given change, whether it was from D0 to D3 or D6 to D9, can make a huge impact on the way the club performed.
Whether you measure strength in terms of club speed or the ability to pick up heavy things, this myth is busted. Our fastest swinger hit the lightest club the farthest and hit a relatively light club the most accurately. Similarly, our strongest tester had his swing go to pieces with heavier swing weights. So what should you do with all this information? Find the swing weight of your favorite club and see if you can dial in the rest of your set to match.
You might also consider doing some experimenting: see what happens when you bump up the swing weight of your clubs a few points or drop the swing weight a bit by adding weight to the butt of the club. This also gives you one more factor to consider when being fit. How does changing swing weights affect the overall weight of the club and how does that affect performance?
Love this article, thank you. I realize this took a lot of work is there any chance of getting a similar report on a driver? Matt, Srixon has the Z irons out. They have made the head heavier than most but, counterbalanced the shaft so, you are swinging a sledge hammer but, it feels like a feather.
Is this hype or does it really work. Whether or not all else will be equal depends on the individual. This is a super interesting article. Awesome job! I think some of the variation in results i. Higher handicaps may be less sensitive to minor fluctuations. You could have controlled for this variance to some extent by 1 only including testers with a handicap in a a set range i. Maybe it is totally subjective, but doing a more controlled study would remove all doubt. Anyway, just a few thoughts to consider.
I read this article and it made me think. In doing so, the swing weight decreased from the D1 range down to B7. After cutting the clubs I noticed a distance or gain although i made all the clubs the same swing weight of C2. My initial theory was that if i had each club at the same swing weight, the yardage gaps should be consistent. However, that was not the case. Can you provide a rationale as to 1.
I would think that if your ideal swing weight was say C2, that if every club weighed C2 it would function at the optimal level. Thank you for your insight. Swing weights getting heavier in the shorter clubs and longer in the lighter clubs is very typical. With the longer clubs, a heavier head can be hard to swing fast and it can also make the shaft behave differently.
As to a single ideal swing weight, it will depend. Some players do like the same weight throughout. Others prefer an ascending or descending weight as I just described. Your experiment sheds some light on why a high level club builder is so important. There are so many factors in how a club feels and performs — not just weight, but the placement thereof.
Moving weight changes feel and shaft dynamics. The list goes on and on. If you are careful with your swing, I. Old adage. Any thought on the correlation of swing weight to the swing tempo of a golfer? When you say tempo, are you referring to the proportion of time between back swing and down swing or the overall time the swing takes? In either case, it was not something that we measured in this test, so I could only guess. Matt, I think you have this backwards, though it is a generality and everyone has a preference based on a lot of factors.
Tom Wishon states that heaver shafts and higher swingweights help quick tempo players. In I was 52, I retired and moved to golf paradise in Florida. He now gets new shafts with the same grip strength. We only adjust the swing weight to match the heavy test club. The actual swing weight ranges roughly between C-0 and D While C-0 is a swing weight that is recommended for senior women and ladies, D-8 is pretty much the maximum that is played on tour.
This swing weight can usually only be achieved with heavy heads, heavy shafts and light grips. Few tour pros actually play longer shafts so this is rarely an option. To achieve a swingweight of C-0, the exact opposite is needed: very light clubheads and shafts. Heavy grips and shorter shafts are often not an option because, for example, ladies cannot play thick grips.
In short: both a very heavy and a very light swing weight can only be achieved with a special construction - at least if you build the club "correctly". With incorrect construction, as we have seen in this test, it is indeed very easy to achieve such a swing weight. In particular, a grip that is too heavy or a shaft that is shorter or longer will quickly cause the swing weight scale to swing in a certain direction. The entire Beres concept is designed with light shafts and club heads for such a swing weight.
Most so-called ladies' clubs from other manufacturers have a heavier swing weight - and as our fittings regularly show: too heavy a swing weight. They need a relatively light swingweight and overall weight to maximise their clubhead speed.
While it is always very individual, most amateurs with maximum average club head speed, should barely be above that in terms of swing weight. Truth be told Ive never had it done, never figured it out nor really cared to. I tend to just stock it out. It was also never something discussed in any of the fittings Ive ever had maybe 4 or so ever. Joined Sep 5, Messages 9, Reaction score 1, I do best with what seems to be most companies standards - D2 or D3 in irons steel , D3 in fairways, D4 in driver.
Anywhere from D4-D6 is fine with me for wedges. Though, I do think head weight is really important. I want as heavy as I can get without losing distance control on longer putts grams. Jman Golf Writer Guy. Staff member. Mine was a bit of trial and error, but more my goal was to get to where I could feel the head in the swing.
That, combined with LM numbers, I arrived at my best consistency being D5. Vader Professional lurker. Also played around with weights during my fitting. Already knew I like heavy, but when the club felt perfect in hand, is when I found out exactly what that was.
Ended up D5 in irons, D7 Driver. Can't say its ever come up in any fitting I've done. Only time I ever noticed it was going to a counterbalanced shaft where the head felt really light so needed some weight added back to the head. Et Tu Brute? Well-known member. I've had a swingweight scale for almost as long as I've been playing golf.
It's mostly useful when I buy a used set of irons. Quite often a couple of them will be substantially underweight, maybe the rest of the set are all D1 and D2 while the PW is C9 and the 7-iron is C8.
I'll use a little lead tape to make them all consistent. But in recent years I've found I can do the same thing just by weighing them on my gram-weight kitchen scale. The clubs that are C9 instead of D1 or whatever will usually weigh several grams less than what you'd expected from the pattern of the others. Club Champion is where I figured it out. We definitely tested out swing weights both times I've had fittings there.
It was basic use of lead tape on the end of the club, but still a good measure I think. I order the clubs with the shafts and grips I like. Is that correct? Or should they be the same? Tom, Great article. I grew up with traditional loft and lie theories that have been blown out of the water and proportion for that matter. Love the way they feel as I always wanted a little lighter club, similar to the Cobra cavity backs I played years ago with graphite shafts, but know that I lost significant swing weight.
Played a few rounds and love the overall weight but am probably getting a little quick. Is lead tape the answer? I recently bought a set of Cobra amp cell pro muscle back irons. The clubs are factory swing weight D3 I also have big hands, and have the Lamkin Oversize R. By referencing another thread on this site see below , I figure the longer, heavier shafts and heavier grips mean my clubs are 9 SW points lighter than factory, or about a C4.
I also see that better players with faster swings might want a heavier swing weight, which means my ideal may be heavier than D3.
That same thread suggests I need 2 grams of club head weight for 1 SW point. The way I read this, I need to add at least 18 grams to club head to get back to D3, and more if I want heavier than D3.
That seems like a lot of lead tape. Tom Wishon. Once a golfer begins to use very heavy grips or a substantial counterweight in the butt end of the shaft, you pretty much have to throw swingweight measurements out the window and rely strictly on experimenting with the headweight until you reach a point that the head does not feel too light or too heavy during the swing.
And once that point is found, then for future reference you can take a swt measurement. When you use a very heavy grip, more times than not if you keep adding weight to the head to get the swingweight back up to what it was with a normal weight grip, the head weight feel will be too heavy. Hence the reason you have to go with a trial and experimentation process to add weight to the head until you get to a point the head weight feel is not too light or too heavy and not really aim at a specific swingweight measurement.
This by the way, is one of the ways that MOI Matching of clubs can be better than using swingweight. The idea would be to install the heavy grip, then start experimenting with adding weight to the head to set the MOI at the level it was in the clubs before the heavy grip installation.
And in this case, you would not be adding all that much weight to the head to get to that same MOI level as before. Tom, thank you so much for responding.
I will say that, having yet to experiment with adding weight, my clubs actually feel pretty good without any added weight on club head, which would confirm what you are saying in your reply.
Thanks Tom keep up the great work!! SAM Absolutely we and many clubfitters see a very high percentage of golfers improve with the PUTTER when using a heavier counterweight in the butt end of the shaft, one that is most typically 80g to g. No question about this.
But with regard to use in full swing clubs, here is really is a trial and experimentation, hit or miss thing. No question some golfers have improved their clubhead speed and release with counterweights in the realm of 20 to 40g in the butt end of their full swing clubs.
But we cannot really find a common thread in terms of what swing types are more prone to improvement with a counterweight in the full swing clubs. Due to physical ailments, I have recently switched to ultralite graphite shafts in all my clubs with a heavier swingweight and am loving it. I take the club back slow with a slight pause at the top, and then just let gravity do the rest. Just effortless, pain free power. Even accounting for the stronger lofts on the new clubs, I have still picked up an honest 4 yards carry with the irons, and about 8 with the driver.
My accuracy has not suffered either. I had actually tried swingweights down in the mid C range at first, but that seemed to required more effort to keep on target. TIMCK Absolutely a perfect example of how finding the right head feel does contribute to better swing timing and from it, the ability to maximize clubhead speed potential and shot consistency!! I would love to see an article giving suggestions on what shaft profile is best for which type of golfer.
Nowadays we often hear about butt stiffness, middle of shaft stiffness, and tip stiffness yes, I realize it can get much more complicated than just measuring at three areas, but I mention these three simply because shaft manufacturers often describe shafts in this manner rather that listing points all along the shaft.
I think most of us know that a stiff tip shaft will give a lower ball flight and is generally for the faster swinging player who does not need help getting the ball into the air. I was wondering if you could offer some thoughts on the other two areas, the butt and middle profiles.
For example, would a slower tempo player who still has decent swing speed like a soft butt, medium butt, or stiffer butt profile. Likewise for the mid point profile of the shaft. Some discussion on fast tempo players vs slower tempo players on these two aspects butt and mid stiffness of shaft profile would be quite interesting.
Or are these areas simply personal preference, trial and error? I realize that not everybody fits into the same boat, and that there are exceptions to every rule, but it would still be interesting to hear your well-informed opinion on such matters as far as what the findings are in general for the majority of golfers.
Always appreciate your articles. The next article in this series is about fitting for flex and bend profile of the shaft. The info there will answer all your questions. And on and on. This is a good explanation.
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