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Friend who swings at 144mph


Working at a golf course, you meet all sorts of golfers with different goals and aspirations.  Jay started out by working as a cart kid and played golf a little bit.  A taller fellow who just wanted to rip it.  It was always funny looking at his clubs.  It was a bunch of different club makers and irons and wedges, because he kept braking everything quickly from swinging hard and hitting turf or sand or something.  He also went through drivers super fast.  One day working he got injured and tore his hamstring which put him out for a few months.

Now, he's back at it.  I gave him my old set of Apex Pro irons, of which he has 3 clubs left, because he broke the others.  Biggest change though is his driver.  He bought a Krank Driver 48in, 3X-Stiff shaft and like 4 or 5 degrees of loft.  He also bought a swing speed monitor to use at the range.  On weekends, he's out there swinging away now and I can't help but try to swing that thing and give him some advice on technique.  I can't swing that darn club; it's swing weight is off the charts for me and I hit a wicked slice.  I did manage to hit 131mph with it, which is cool.  But that's all I got (my average with my own driver is 117mph).  He rips it but wants to get a bit more consistently in the mid 140's for speed (his top speed is 148mph I believe). Take a look for yourself on one he was at 144mph...
 

 

12 Comments


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  • Moderator
billchao

Posted

Is he interested in competing? 144 is damn good; what's his ballspeed?

  • Moderator
phillyk

Posted

27 minutes ago, billchao said:

Is he interested in competing? 144 is damn good; what's his ballspeed?

He wants to eventually compete.  He says there are a lot of mini events around here that he'll participate in.  His device doesn't have a ball speed measurement so I'm not sure what it's at.   At a local track, he said he had at least one drive go over 400yds from a slightly elevated tee.

  • Moderator
phillyk

Posted

Just now, David in FL said:

More importantly, what's his handicap?

He doesn't keep an official handicap.  If I had to guess, it would be about 14 or 15.  His lost strokes are all off the tee as you would imagine.

  • Moderator
nevets88

Posted

Bat signal to the sky, baby

 

  • Administrator
iacas

Posted

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

144 ball speed? :-P

Clubhead speed. The theoretical max would be about 216. 144 * 1.5.

Hardspoon

Posted

Yikes...that's crazy.

I'm surprised you increased your own swing speed by 10% with that driver - is that typical?

 

  • Moderator
phillyk

Posted

41 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

Yikes...that's crazy.

I'm surprised you increased your own swing speed by 10% with that driver - is that typical?

 

I use my driver at 44in.  So add in 4in plus swinging as fast as I can.  It wasn't consistently 131 that I got.  And it was most definitely not straight. 

  • Moderator
billchao

Posted

19 hours ago, phillyk said:

He wants to eventually compete.  He says there are a lot of mini events around here that he'll participate in.  His device doesn't have a ball speed measurement so I'm not sure what it's at.   At a local track, he said he had at least one drive go over 400yds from a slightly elevated tee.

He should do it and see what the competition looks like. If he can hit the grid at 144mph he's probably got enough to win.

19 hours ago, David in FL said:

More importantly, what's his handicap?

Why is that more important? The guy wants to compete in long drive.

  • Moderator
phillyk

Posted

Update:  I talked with him a bit today and he mentioned that today he maxed out at 152mph club head speed.  He didn't drop below 146mph either.  His thought on what he is doing is that he is bringing the club back more vertically and wider, and feeling more of a whip for his downswing.  Next, I'm going to bring him to a simulator to see some numbers on launch angle, back spin, and peak height to see what adjustments should be made.

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