Trackman Figures from Some Tour Players

I'll tell you something that stands out:

Take a guess.  What is the difference between Luke Donald's and Rory McIlroy's driver clubhead speed in mph?

About 2 miles per hour.  .  Also Luke's is really detailed.  I wonder if he requested that level of detail.  I'd suspect he did!

I guess another thing that really stands out are the driver numbers for Boo Weekley.  Which of these would you think went farther:

Ball Speed: 167.6 

Launch: 8.5

Spin: 2534

Ball Speed: 167.8

Launch: 9.0

Spin: 3811

I would have guessed #1 because of the "low spin" mantra, even though the launch is a touch low.  The one at 3811 spin carried 8.3 yards further.  That tells me that maybe the spin isn't as important in determining distance as the marketers think.  It makes me think it's better to focus on the launch angles and spin axis than the total spin rate first for optimizing for distance.

This is very interesting information...a couple of things that I noticed.

Swing Speed - These guys (except for  Dustin Johnson but even him) don't consistently swing their drivers as fast as many think.  I saw a lot of 110-113 swing speeds in there....Luke Donald was as low at 106mph and Rory was a low as 110.

Carry Distance - Again, TV broadcasts make it seem like these guys hit it 300 yards every shot when this data clearly shows that they average anywhere from 270-280 on the fly.  And from the details to the weather conditions during this trackman testing, there was 0 wind.  So why do us amateurs try to hit is 300 yards every swing...?

Attack Angle - I was surprised at Rory's attack angle on a couple of shots 4deg to 8deg.  But for the most part, they were all around 0.5 - 3deg attack angle...some were barely in the negative attack angle which surprised me (thought some would've hit down more).  Davis love was around 6deg for the most part.

Accuracy - What's up with Jason Day...man was he wild on his shot graph!  Besides that, these guys can hit 15 drives all within 5-10 yards of each other "shot dispersion wise"....impressive.

Max Height - Not many were getting over 45 yards max height with the driver.  That equates to boring laser"ish" ball flights..

That's what I quickly noticed..I woudl type more but am at work and about to run into a meeting.  Curious to hear what others noticed.

Topics like this make this site the most interesting golf site around, or at least, to me. And heck, I should know - I've been an admin and mod, and have ventured around over the last 10 years.

Thanks.

Going to look at this more later, but interesting to see that one of the best drivers on tour hit's down the most (Boo Weekley)

I went right to Ji Furyk because I think of him as a short hitter and I thought, "I could do that."

Can I?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvmac 

Going to look at this more later, but interesting to see that one of the best drivers on tour hit's down the most (Boo Weekley)

I would take his trackman numbers anyday. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by B-Con 

From the 4th page of Luke's, it looks like he was battling a pull-draw or decided to experiment a little. Two almost identical shots separated from the rest of the group out at driver distance. From page 5, there are more fades than anything else, but those two pull draws stand alone.
It's interesting that he averaged about 255 of carry with his driver. He got about 21 yards of roll out on average.

Luke's data is from May 2010, which I think was not long after after the end of the period where he'd been working to get more distance out of his driver. He's said since that the effort really screwed up his swing and it took him a good while to get his consistency and confidence back on the tee.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvmac 

Going to look at this more later, but interesting to see that one of the best drivers on tour hit's down the most (Boo Weekley)

Quote:

Originally Posted by poser 

I would take his trackman numbers anyday. 

So would I, he finished #1 in GIR this year.  Can't tell you how many battles I've had on forums where instructors have told me  you can't hit down on the driver and be effective.  Definitely works you're swinging 116mph.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvmac 

So would I, he finished #1 in GIR this year.  Can't tell you how many battles I've had on forums where instructors have told me  you can't hit down on the driver and be effective.  Definitely works you're swinging 116mph.

 

It's interesting how low his spin numbers are despite how much he hits down with his driver. 

Wow! This is a lot of data to take in.

I need more time to study these .pdfs, but one thing that did jump out at me was Boo's low smash factor. He still hits it far but he's giving up quite a few yards by simply not maximising his ball speed. Could it have anything to do with how much he hits down on the ball? Perhaps he just had a poor ball striking day. Would like to see his impact tape.

Furyk is longer than I thought, McIlroy is shorter than I thought, and the best in total driving hits down with driver.  Looking at this data feels a lot like when I learned that what's going on "now" on the other side of the universe depends on how fast you are moving.

What's most depressing is how far Davis Love hits the ball at 47.  He is 4 years younger than me and about 70 yards in carry past me with a driver.  His swing always looks so effortless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by boogielicious 

What's most depressing is how far Davis Love hits the ball at 47.  He is 4 years younger than me and about 70 yards in carry past me with a driver.  His swing always looks so effortless.

It's technique.  There is nothing saying that with an improved technique, you couldn't improve upon your distance?  Being depressed is a waste of energy and time.

The spin number varies with all the other factors but it can be too low as well as too high.

I had a new driver fitted earlier this year and the main focus was to get my spin up from 2050rpm to closer to 2700rpm.

Tried a couple of different heads, ended up with Adams Speedline 4G Ultra-Lite, but still spin was on the the low side.

I learned that most of these guys would have a hard time keeping up with the typical Internet drive average.