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Distance...Club Head Speed, or Technique..?


Hammer 4
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For the most part, yes. @Hammer 4, the one swing is far more likely to have synced up than for you to have swung 10 MPH faster.

So what does "synced up" mean, if it doesn't mean extra clubhead speed? Does it mean delofted by 6*?

And, if you know Hammer's game somewhat, what's your estimation of the limits of variation in his clubhead speed?

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That ball is a good indicator that you're working on good things (and doing reasonably well).

Thanks to you, Mike and Dana.

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So what does "synced up" mean, if it doesn't mean extra clubhead speed? Does it mean delofted by 6*?

And, if you know Hammer's game somewhat, what's your estimation of the limits of variation in his clubhead speed?

Erik has never seen my swing. Mike has, when I took a lesson from him. But a lot has changed since then, and for the better, as I can see it when I practice, and play. and yes, I work VERY hard on my swing everyday.

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So your point then is what (seriously)? Cuz I'm going with what I know, and I've said that stuff already. It doesn't include 4-5 MPH variances on swings that are supposed to be the same. Haven't seen it.

If you've seen it using crappy measuring equipment, then you probably haven't seen it either, truly.

I didn't look hard for this, and there might have been even better evidence if I could be bothered to dig, but here you go.

This is an amateur recording a variation of 4 or 5 mph on iron shots (PW and 5 iron respectively) across a small sample size of less than 20 shots. http://thedanplan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Dan-Plan-2013-04-21-Multi-Group-Report.pdf

My point? If you see variation like that on a small number of driving range swings, it's perfectly reasonable to expect occasional larger variations.

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Good to hear things are going well @Hammer 4 , keep doing the same things when you practice.  As you know you had a tendency to hit the irons a little thin and the more you improve what we worked on, you'll catch more of the center of the face, resulting in higher shots and higher ball speeds.  Unfortunately for this 9 iron that went 152 yards, you didn't swing 10 mph faster, you just made a good swing and pured it. :-)

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Good to hear things are going well @Hammer 4, keep doing the same things when you practice.  As you know you had a tendency to hit the irons a little thin and the more you improve what we worked on, you'll catch more of the center of the face, resulting in higher shots and higher ball speeds.  Unfortunately for this 9 iron that went 152 yards, you didn't swing 10 mph faster, you just made a good swing and pured it.

Meat of the clubface, a bit more shaft lean, and blammo, extra yardage.

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Good to hear things are going well @Hammer 4, keep doing the same things when you practice.  As you know you had a tendency to hit the irons a little thin and the more you improve what we worked on, you'll catch more of the center of the face, resulting in higher shots and higher ball speeds.  Unfortunately for this 9 iron that went 152 yards, you didn't swing 10 mph faster, you just made a good swing and pured it.

Haha, yeah, I hated those thin shots, don't get nearly as many now. I find that slowing Way down on my shots, while concentrating on good technique helps a bunch, I'll take a 75-85% swing every now and then just to see how my progress is coming along. Thanks

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To be fair though, it's been pointed out that Dan is probably closer to a 12 than single digits in reality. Either way, I think you see those kinds of anomalous long balls less and less as your swing gets better. I can still crank iron shots 15 yards extra or so if I wanted to but it's because I swing a lot differently and deloft the club, not because I create a vortex with my swing in which the laws of physics are suspended. I don't think I've flown my yardages by much in a while actually, so I chalk that up to improvement. Consistency is one of the best things to have in golf.

As for the swing speed radars, I haven't told this to anyone before, but I remember an experience I had with it the last day I had it. I could always get into the high 100s and low 110s with driver, but after I improved a bit I was getting into the 115-120 range, my correct driver speed. Predictably, one day I was trying to increase it more and I got several readings including 124, 128, 130, and 131. My swing was getting more Bubbaesque and I was basically jumping and doing crazy things to try to get a high score. That same day, by perhaps a slight coincidence, I missed the ball so badly that I hit the unit 3-4 inches away and broke the LCD screen. That was a poignant moment for me in my golf career. I wondered how I'd missed the ball so badly, then I realized I wasn't focusing on the ball really.

It's embarrassing but true. I spent all last year hitting at targets and focusing on my ballflight and I now hit more pure shots per bucket than I think I did the entire time I practiced with the radar. And I might have had plenty of swing speed to have a 300 yard drive 2 years ago but I didn't actually get one until last year when I had 2 in one round. I wish I had spent that 100$ on something else.

And I don't believe the thing was terribly accurate; it would generally work OK and I believe the consistent readings I was getting are correct, but there were plenty of high and low errors. I also got 114 with a 4 iron, which is a bit high I think. So trust Trackman but don't worry about the SS units unless you're willing to completely lose focus on your game. I didn't break 100 until after I got rid of the damn thing personally. I'd considered replacing it but it's a waste of money at this point because my clubhead speed is fine where it is.

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To be fair though, it's been pointed out that Dan is probably closer to a 12 than single digits in reality. Either way, I think you see those kinds of anomalous long balls less and less as your swing gets better. I can still crank iron shots 15 yards extra or so if I wanted to but it's because I swing a lot differently and deloft the club, not because I create a vortex with my swing in which the laws of physics are suspended. I don't think I've flown my yardages by much in a while actually, so I chalk that up to improvement. Consistency is one of the best things to have in golf.  As for the swing speed radars, I haven't told this to anyone before, but I remember an experience I had with it the last day I had it. I could always get into the high 100s and low 110s with driver, but after I improved a bit I was getting into the 115-120 range, my correct driver speed. Predictably, one day I was trying to increase it more and I got several readings including 124, 128, 130, and 131. My swing was getting more Bubbaesque and I was basically jumping and doing crazy things to try to get a high score. That same day, by perhaps a slight coincidence, I missed the ball so badly that I hit the unit 3-4 inches away and broke the LCD screen. That was a poignant moment for me in my golf career. I wondered how I'd missed the ball so badly, then I realized I wasn't focusing on the ball really. It's embarrassing but true. I spent all last year hitting at targets and focusing on my ballflight and I now hit more pure shots per bucket than I think I did the entire time I practiced with the radar. And I might have had plenty of swing speed to have a 300 yard drive 2 years ago but I didn't actually get one until last year when I had 2 in one round. I wish I had spent that 100$ on something else. And I don't believe the thing was terribly accurate; it would generally work OK and I believe the consistent readings I was getting are correct, but there were plenty of high and low errors. I also got 114 with a 4 iron, which is a bit high I think. So trust Trackman but don't worry about the SS units unless you're willing to completely lose focus on your game. I didn't break 100 until after I got rid of the damn thing personally. I'd considered replacing it but it's a waste of money at this point because my clubhead speed is fine where it is.

The swing speed radars did nothing to increase my distance. 3 lessons with Mike and Dana got me the distances I feel adequate for my goals. They are collecting dust. . .

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I highly doubt that sometimes a player just randomly swings an iron 10 MPH faster.

Then again, I've seen very good players vary 4 - 5 mph in the course of only a dozen swings, so the occasional spike somewhere between 5 and 10 mph doesn't seem outlandish to me, even for a pro.

So again, what's your point exactly?

Cuz mine remains: players don't randomly swing 10 miles an hour faster when the swings are supposed to be the same. There are other reasons they occasionally "catch one."

For the most part, yes. @Hammer 4, the one swing is far more likely to have synced up than for you to have swung 10 MPH faster.

This is an amateur recording a variation of 4 or 5 mph on iron shots (PW and 5 iron respectively) across a small sample size of less than 20 shots. http://thedanplan.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Dan-Plan-2013-04-21-Multi-Group-Report.pdf

My point? If you see variation like that on a small number of driving range swings, it's perfectly reasonable to expect occasional larger variations.

I disagree that it's "perfectly reasonable." It's closer to the opposite - you see a bunch of swings, and they're almost never even 4 MPH different, let alone 5 - far more commonly 1 or 2 MPH different - and you conclude that the random leaps of 10 are MORE possible despite NO evidence that they can exist.

Who is more likely to shoot 75 in his next round? Or ever: Tiger Woods, or Phil Mickelson? If you had to pick one of them to have a shot at 59, which would you pick? You'd pick Phil, because his scoring is all over the place. Tiger has a horrible day and shoots 73. Tiger has a great day and shoots 67. His bell curve is very small.

The bell curve on clubhead speed is very narrow, and shrinks the better the player.

Furthermore, Dan is not a good player. Good players don't randomly hit the ball 20 yards farther than they intend to with their irons unless they misjudge the lie or something.

You may very well find some example somewhere on a Trackman report or something, but I am here to tell you that both a) it's an exception, b) we don't know what the player was doing at the time, and c) it wouldn't mesh with what we've seen in testing hundreds of players, thousands of shots on Flightscope and Trackman. C is just my anecdotal evidence, but I've got a good amount of it.

I've never seen a random 10 MPH jump on any iron. I don't even know that I've seen 6 MPH… which is why even 5 MPH jumps from swing to swing are incredibly rare. They're already at the edges of the bell curves. 10 MPH is well outside almost every bell curve.

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150yds is a stock 9 iron shot for me. I once hit one great that went 175-180 yards carry with no roll (winter conditions and no wind either). No idea how or why it went that far as I hit it great but have never it that far before. I had to double check on google maps that the marker was 150yds since I completely flew the green, and sure enough it was.
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I have to admit that my full shots don't really differ that much anymore. I used to have many that went really short because of toe shots, I only go longer on the wedges/9i because I might thin one.

My partial, half and 3/4 shots are an entirely different story. I have to practice a lot to get the distances consistent on the course.

Not entirely sure how to build consistency at non-full club distances yet.

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Went to the range again today and tried to come close to duplicating my 9i shot....to no avail. A couple of positive things though, my irons are getting more consistent, i.e. better contact, and I tried one of Mikes drills for the driver, tilting my right foot (for rightys) so I had more weight on my left (lead) foot, along with keys 1 and 2, and low and behold, my driver went further, and straighter, I was blocking shots earlier, and hitting high slices. so now they are straight, or baby fades..Thanks Mike !

Now if I could just get my 3 wood off the deck under control..lol

Lihu, the only way I can control distance is by the length of my swing, i.e. 3 O'clock for 40 yds, 1 O' clock for 75, ect..

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Haha, yeah, I hated those thin shots, don't get nearly as many now. I find that slowing Way down on my shots, while concentrating on good technique helps a bunch, I'll take a 75-85% swing every now and then just to see how my progress is coming along. Thanks


Actually that 75-85% swing is what you want on the course, rarely do professionals go all out on an iron shot, I think Johnny Miller said he swings his irons right around 75% so he has better control.

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Went to the range again today and tried to come close to duplicating my 9i shot....to no avail. A couple of positive things though, my irons are getting more consistent, i.e. better contact, and I tried one of Mikes drills for the driver, tilting my right foot (for rightys) so I had more weight on my left (lead) foot, along with keys 1 and 2, and low and behold, my driver went further, and straighter, I was blocking shots earlier, and hitting high slices. so now they are straight, or baby fades..Thanks Mike !

Now if I could just get my 3 wood off the deck under control..lol

Lihu, the only way I can control distance is by the length of my swing, i.e. 3 O'clock for 40 yds, 1 O' clock for 75, ect..

There is a feel aspect to it as well.

I can use a 1 o'clock swing to get anywhere from 30 to 80 yards with my lob wedge, but can't repeat the exact the right feel every time I want a 30 versus a 50 yard shot, and a delofted 3 o'clock swing can get same distance ranges as well.

It's really hard for me to get the right feel for each shot, without practicing the short game a lot more than I do.

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So, we always hear club head speed determines distance to some extent, providing you make good contact with the ball.

I was at the range today working on keys 1 and 2 as usual. I also work on 2 things that Mike provided for me when I took a lesson from him. I always try to work on things going at about 50%, but as we all know, sometimes you goof and speed up. Well I had my 9i and made a big effort to combine keys 1,2 and the things Mike told me to work on. I made a decent back swing while counting 1001, 1002 then I began my down swing and absolutely pured my 9i that resulted in a slight draw, that hit the 152 yd marker.. I did a double take to make sure that WAS the 152 yd marker. I tried to duplicate that shot to no avail..

Now for my question, I know my swing speed couldn't have been over 80 mph if that, yet that's the furthest I've ever hit my 9i, also I have the older lofts, i.e. PW is 47*. So what caused the ball to go that far, I figure it must have been the technique, because as I said, I swung really easy, maybe I got luck and everything was in sync..

I would appreciate some knowledgeable comments on this. BTW, hitting that shot was to say the least GREAT!

The question is can you carry a 6iron 200 yards with the same swing?

It takes exceptional technique to be able to do that, not exceptional swing speed.

The sound coming the clubface should sound different too, more like a "click" than a 'thud"

Think "strike" and not 'hit".

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Actually that 75-85% swing is what you want on the course, rarely do professionals go all out on an iron shot, I think Johnny Miller said he swings his irons right around 75% so he has better control.

Right, unfortunately my 75% shots still aren't as consistent as I'd like them to be..Yet. I'm now hitting 10 yard draws, along with some pulls, so I need to get those worked out.

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The question is can you carry a 6iron 200 yards with the same swing?

It takes exceptional technique to be able to do that, not exceptional swing speed.

The sound coming the clubface should sound different too, more like a "click" than a 'thud"

Think "strike" and not 'hit".

I don't know as I have never experienced the same swing with my 6i, normally it goes about 170 with a decent swing, so I doubt 200 would be doable..lol Yes the  "click " sound is what I'm after.

Thanks for advice re: strike, not hit..

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