What swing speed to carry 250 yards?

Not So Fast! The Swing Speed Study

Everyone wants to hit the golf ball farther, and add swing speed. A lot of it has to due to what we see on TV in the professional game. There is no question that at the pro level, golf has evolved to a power game, and it all started with Tiger Woods rising to the top.

The name of the game is to hit it as far as possible off the tee, keep it in play, and be proficient enough with your wedge and putter to convert birdies.

The stats back it up too. Mark Broadie’s revolutionary strokes gained analysis, and his book Every Shot Counts clearly shows distance can be king. Golfers can separate themselves more from each other in their ability to score lower by hitting the ball farther.

I’m not against any golfer trying to figure out ways to hit the ball farther. But I want to see them do it properly.

If you want to hit the ball farther I think you have three options:

1. Increase your swing speed – I recommend SuperSpeed Golf and physical training with golf-specific exercises
2. Improve your ball speed through strike efficiency
3. Make sure you are playing with the correct equipment

In this article, I want to focus on swing speed. I’ll let you know what reasonable expectations amongst recreational golfers, and steps to help you hit the ball farther are.

What is Reasonable?

Tour pros swing speed with their drivers anywhere from 110-125mph. These are the speeds required to launch the ball 300 yards and farther. Any time they can add a few miles per hour to their swing, it could mean the difference of making cuts and cashing bigger paychecks. Their livelihoods are at stake.

This website is for everyday golfers, and my goal is to help filter out all of the noise out there and get you thinking realistically about your game. You are not playing golf to cash a paycheck. Hopefully, you are playing first and foremost to have fun and enjoy yourself, and have a secondary desire to lower your handicap over time.

Looking at the average swing speeds of male golfers with drivers you’ll see much more reasonable numbers:

Most golfers can’t crack 100mph with their driver!

To add speed to your swing and hit the ball much farther, you will likely need to start some fitness regimen. If you are short on time, one training aid I recommend is SuperSpeed Golf.

It’s the only solution in the entire golf industry I entirely trust (I’ve tested the junk). If you want your best opportunity, combine SuperSpeed with strength and flexibility training.

Swing Speed by Handicap Level

I was interested in finding out the relative swing speeds of golfers based on their handicap level, so I had my friends over at Swingbyte run an analysis.

We took driver and 7-iron swing speeds (around 800,000 shots total) and separated them by handicap level. As you can see, there is an obvious correlation between playing ability and swing speed. As the handicap goes down, swing speed goes up.

This is not a complete surprise at all.

The good news is that you don’t need superhuman swing speed to play golf effectively. Small to moderate gains in speed can lead to tangible results.

With players in the 0-5 handicap range, drivers are topping out at about 95 mph, and seven irons are about 75 mph.

Wait for a second, that’s not that fast?

When Shot Scope analyzed millions of drives from various handicap levels, they found that most players were driving the ball 230 yards and below. There was undoubtedly a correlation between longer drivers and lower handicaps.

Distance is Nice, but…

Again, I will never dispute that hitting the ball farther can help you lower your scores. What I can argue is that you don’t need tremendous distance to reach your golfing goals.

I have seen plenty of players who can’t hit their drives more than 230 yards shoot in the 70s without breaking a sweat. What you see on TV is not realistic, and you should stop using that as a benchmark for your game.

I hope seeing the data will help you realize that some of the best amateur golfers are not swinging as fast as you think they are. If you want to set a goal for yourself to add 3-5 mph to your swing, I think that is extremely reasonable and can be within your reach. However, going from 90mph with your driver to 110mph is probably not going to happen unless you are willing to go to some extremes.

Most golf courses are going to be in the 5800 – 6500-yard range, which does not require 275+ drives, or 170 yard 7-irons to score well. If you were playing on a 7300-yard professional setup, then yes, I would tell you to start thinking about working on swinging the club much harder.

If you want to increase your swing speed, then check out SuperSpeed Golf – you can get 10% off their system using this link. This is a excellent system that works if you put the work in. If you are interested in finding out some ways you can add distance without increasing your swing speed, check these articles out:

How to Get More Swing Speed in Your Golf Game

How to Get More Swing Speed in Your Golf Game Much has been made about the importance of clubhead speed and trying to improve your driving distance off the tee. The fact is that increased clubhead speed really does lead to greater distance on your drives, so you really will get a bigger bang for your buck by trying to improve clubhead speed. This article will discuss how you can calculate your current swing speed, and provide you with some tips on how to improve that swing speed right at home. What is a Good Swing Speed? The reason that swing speed is so important in the game of golf is that there’s a direct correlation between swing speed and the distance traveled by a golf ball. If you can build up really good swing speed, you can count on hitting the ball further on a consistent basis, and when you can consistently hit the ball further, it will give you a much easier approach shot, which means your scores should reflect your improved distance. It’s a huge advantage to be able to take a short iron into the green, as opposed to being far back in the fairway and having to hit a hybrid to the green. You’ll be much more accurate with a short iron than you could possibly be with a hybrid, and that means you’ll hit more greens in regulation, and you’ll probably have shorter putts as well. All this adds up to a much improved golf game, with lower scores and a great deal more self-satisfaction. So what is considered good swing speed for an amateur golfer? The answer to this will depend on several factors, one of which is your age. A 12-year-old golfer will not have the same swing speed that a 65-year-old golfer does, nor will a 30-year-old golfer have the same swing speed as someone who is much younger or much older. In other words, age does play a major role in developing optimal swing speed. Swing speed charts which have been developed by industry experts show that average golfers tend to develop swing speed which usually does not reach 100 mph, and that will generally result in an optimal carry distance of somewhere around 210 yards. Once you do get to a swing speed of 100 mph or even slightly above that, your drive distance can reach 250 yards and more, so from this, it’s easy to see the direct relationship between swing speed and driving distance. How Can I Measure My Speed at Home? Not everyone has access to the sophisticated equipment used by professionals to determine the swing speed of a golf club. However, there is a way you can estimate swing speed right at home, so that you can have a pretty good idea of what kind of clubhead speed you build up during your swing. You’ll need to go to your local driving range, or if you have your own golf club mat, you can do it at your residence. For the first step, you’ll need to hit 20 golf balls with your driver, and record how far each one of them goes. You can disqualify any of those drives which you hit poorly and don’t really go anywhere. Then add the total distance of all those drives together, and divide by the number of drives you hit, leaving you with an average drive distance for the whole group. Now you need to subtract the amount of roll from your average drive, so that you’ll know how far your ball traveled on the fly, without roll being added in. As a ballpark figure, subtract 5% of the drive average from the average itself, and that will eliminate the roll factor. Now you can divide the average drive distance by 1.75, and that will give you the ball speed at the moment of impact. For example, if your average carry distance is 230 yards, the ball speed would be slightly over 130 mph. Lastly, divide the ball speed by 1.5, so as to get an estimate for your swing speed. Another method you could use is to divide the carry distance by 2.3, so as to have an approximation of your swing speed at impact time, although this method is not generally as accurate. What Exercises Can I Use to Increase My Swing Speed? Since increasing clubhead speed is the fastest and most reliable way to achieve greater distance with your driver, this is probably where you should focus most of your attention in order to get more distance from your tee shots. However, you need to avoid the popular misconception that swinging harder will generate more clubhead speed and give you the distance you want. The reason for this is that swinging harder will almost always cause your swing to be degraded, and it will lose its purity and simplicity. The net effect of swinging harder will generally be an overall decrease in swing speed, because the breakdown in mechanics will cause you to slow down. One of the best ways of practicing at home is to use a weighted club, so that you will feel naturally freer and lighter when you use your normal club. Another contributor to clubhead speed is the total absence of tension, and there’s a good drill you can use to relieve tension in your swing. Without using a ball, just swing your club on a horizontal level, which enables you to control the club simply by using your hands and arms in a very relaxed manner. This is the same kind of feeling you should have during your actual golf swing, completely free of all tension. A third way of practicing at home is to widen your stance slightly and make a relaxed but aggressive swing, while avoiding any kind of swaying in your stance. That swaying will not only take you off-line, but it will also operate against getting longer distance. If you can perform this exercise correctly, your clubhead will automatically pick up speed as it passes the core of your body, and it will generate greater clubhead speed. Increasing Your Speed The main takeaway from this article should be that you can get much better distance with your tee shots by increasing your clubhead speed. You can check your progress by estimating your clubhead speed using the formula given above, before you begin your exercises, and then after you have been working on it for a while. You can do all of your practicing at home if you have a high quality used golf mat from the Rawhide Golf Ball company. Contact us today so we can let you know about our industry-best prices, and have one of our popular golf mats shipped to you right away, so you can get right to work on your golf swing.