Heavier club head = ball goes farther?

[iacas]

Case closed.

Hardly. Can you swing a heavier hammer at the same speed? No.

[Hardballs]

Read up the review and design of the geek golf "no brainer" one of the heaviest club heads I believe!

[iacas]

Read up the review and design of the geek golf "no brainer" one of the heaviest club heads I believe!

It's 206 grams - that's hardly a "heavy" clubhead, even for a driver.

[Hardballs]

Well it's the heaviest club I've swung! I Had to get a stiffer shaft fitted to allow for the weight! I was under the impression this is heavy for a current modern driver?? Can you find a heavier one?

[iacas]

Well it's the heaviest club I've swung! I Had to get a stiffer shaft fitted to allow for the weight! I was under the impression this is heavy for a current modern driver?? Can you find a heavier one?

It's the same weight as virtually every other driver out there. And I hope you're not confusing swing weight with static weight.

[Hardballs]

It's 6 to 10 grams heavier than most club heads! Doesn't sound much but ya can definitely feel the difference! Don't think you'll come across a head heavier than 206 that hasn't been tampered with!... Just saying! But as for the original question, heavy club head = slower swing speed, and therefore not always more distance, it's a trade off!

[billchao]

Swinging at the same speed and rhythm, a 32oz hammer will drive the nail further than a 24oz hammer............

True, a 32oz hammer will drive a nail farther than a 24oz hammer, but it takes more effort to swing the 32 at the same speed as the 24. Mass is not the only thing that's important, or you'd outdrive everyone with a 12lb sledge.

[iacas]

It's 6 to 10 grams heavier than most club heads! Doesn't sound much but ya can definitely feel the difference! Don't think you'll come across a head heavier than 206 that hasn't been tampered with!... Just saying!

But as for the original question, heavy club head = slower swing speed, and therefore not always more distance, it's a trade off!

I checked the weights of several relatively recent models. The R1 clocks in at 205g, for example, off the shelf (no modifications). So let's just let people do their own fact-checking on this type of thing and get back to the topic, as you suggested.

[Mike Boatright]

I would say loft and clubhead speed has the most to do with it because a golf ball is so light and only compresses so much meaning a 10 pound weight plate at 9 deg loft traveling at 130 mph hitting a golf ball dead on probably wouldn't go much farther than a thin titanium clubhead going 130 mph based on the ball itself.

[Patch]

Many years ago, I recall seeing a demonstration put on by some club maker. I want to say Taylor Made, but I am not sure. They used an "Iron Byron" machine, and the test had to do with kinetic energy, and inertia. (sorry I am not that kind of engineer) I had know idea what they were trying to do. It was the first time I had ever seen Iron Byron, and is the only reason I continued to watch the demo.  One thing I do remember was they used the same club, but they were weighted differently. Iron Byron swung both clubs at the same speed, and the results were the balls went just about the same distances. Just +/- a couple of yards. I also recall the reasoning was that swing speed had more value to distance than anything else. It was also brought up that the heavier club absorbed more energy from the ball, which also took away any gain in distance.

With that said, I remember in my baseball playing days that bat speed told the ball how far to go, even though some felt that weight of the bat also added to distance. Our coach showed us other wise.

Side Note; Thanks to OP for jogging my foggy memory.

[cowboydave1967]

I am by no means a good golfer nor am I even close to an engineer or a physicist. But there is a pendellum effect in a golf swing. There is an arc with optimum ball striking occuring at the bottom of the swing arc, thus delivering maximum compression of ball and clubface. I realize that speed is a very large factor in distance but as stated previously, there are many factors. Golf is a game with such a wide variances that it is sometimes difficult to even think some of the discussions are about the same game. I am currently an 18 - 20 handicapper. I have been playing off and on for 15 yrs. I am presently 47. I don't have a great deal of time to practice. I really enjoy playing. I want to play the best I possibly can, but I play to relax, have fun and enjoy time spent with friends and family. I have a swing speed of 87mph on a driver. I have tried many different ones. I went with an Adams speedline super S. Super light and 46" stock shaft in stiff flex. I hit an average of 235 yds. But controll was not good. Varied left to right badly. Ient to a Ping Rapture with stock 45" stiff shaft. I average 230 but 85% are right down the middle with missed being left of center. IMHO, if you can't control or feel comfortable with a club, doesn't matter how fast you swing it or how far you hit it, if it isn't in play, it is still stroke plus distance, hitting 3 off the tee.

[coolhand850]

No extra clubhead speed can be attained anywhere in the downswing. You can not move the head of any golf club faster than you can swing it. In what most everyone considers the perfect golf swing, nothing but something unattainable or mystical in nature is totally incorrect. Put 40,000 hours of study and practice in, like I have, and you will understand what I am saying. Their is such a thing as a perfect golf swing, and it is not different for every player, if you truly discover it. Due to the best professionals still not having unraveled the mystery completely, it seems from watching them, that it does not exist. I am here to tell you it does, and I can prove it. The pros have hit enough shots with all types of swings over the years, which they could repete to an extent of having the ability to make just enough necessary compensations to square the clubface correctly to achieve excellent results. If they had uncovered the perfect swing on their own through years of trial and error without the aid of some Hank Haney, or some other stiff like Sean Foley, they would realize these guys have no business being an authority on anything. If they had perfected the golf swing they could prove it, but they can not. It has taken me 30 years in seclusion to fully understand the swing completely. The perfect swing should be if acquired the same for everyone, except with the exception of body type, which would make the untrained observer think it was a different swing of course. Not the case. The closest anyone has ever come to knowing this fact is Ben Hogan, without a doubt. I am willing to wager before I am through, in all humility toward my hero, I will be more machine-like in my ability to hit golf shots than he. I only wish it was not such a confusing mystery to unravel. I relate revealing, and understanding it completely, in the same way Michelangelo sculpted. He said, " the masterpieces he created were already fully formed inside the blocks of marble he chipped away at. Until over time, all the imperfections were removed, and the true art he had envisioned was their asleep all along. It is no different with the perfect golf swing. The perfect golf swing goes against everything that we set out to do with the club intuitively from the start, and only through swing after swing, and thank God for Hogan videos and books as some sort of reference, we master each fundamental and one day it all becomes crystal clear, and as natural as walking or talking. Learning golf for nearly everyone is so unnatural, it is almost as if it is on par with Helen Keller learning to speak. I do not think the difficulty I have faced in this 30 year endeavor is nearly as important as what she accomplished, but I would argue it was every bit as hard.

On heavy clubs. The maximum length of a golf club by RandA rules and the USGA is specified at 48 inches maximum, however their is no specification for how stiff or heavy a club can be to my knowledge. That being said, I believe since no extra speed can be acquired in the downswing anywhere without alleviating the swing completely. Once any extra influence is exerted the swing ceases to exist and it becomes what we normally see of loss of timing, rhythm, and overall flow. Let me try to explain this a little better. I was never top notch in physics, but I do understand some basic truths. The mythical perfect swing can be made only by everything flowing in one piece correct to achieve maximum velocity, force, and squareness of contact. The secret lies in figuring out how to get into this position every swing with every club in the bag. From the time you decide on the shot you are going to play when you pull your chosen club it all is a sequence of steps, which we refer to in golf terminology as address and set-up. If any part of the sequence, and it is exact or it does not work, is left out it can not be accomplished. The problem is until you know what the swing is supposed to look like from all angles, and tougher yet feel like, you do not know exactly the correct order to get into position to swing the club back exactly on plane correctly. If you do get to this point which is unlikely, unless you are willing to dedicate your whole life to nothing but this pursuit like I have. I am truly an idiot savant, but it has been worth and I feel I will do some good with it before I leave this world I pray. If not I did it. Once you truly swing to the top, it is a turn/ pivot/ winding and storing of energy, no more speed can be added. The effort is all in the sequence of address and setup after mastering plane, grip, stance, ball position etc. Once you learn to swing as slowly as a true swing with rythm can be done, the hips do not actually even shift forward nor back, they turn back to the left and the club drops and follows the hip rotation all the way through impact with no outside exertion added. A true swing from the top is nothing but the club on a gradual free fall following the hip turn. It is automatic. The heaviest club on tour is about half as heavy as I use. I want my clubs to be only slightly lighter than a solid steel regulation horseshoe stake. The heavier something is the faster it falls correct, and the more force it imparts. So their you have it speed and force for compression equals maximum distance. The old adage also applies much easier to accomplish with the heaviest of heavy clubs. Nobody ever swung a golf club to slowly. Robert Tyre Jones Jr., Jack Nicklaus, and many other of the all time greats have stressed this point repeatedly. Pick up a heavy horseshoe stake with your normal Vardon or interlock grip and many good things happen. A heavy axe will work as well but the handles are not normally round. The heavy implement makes a slow backswing automatic and triggers all the elements of the correct on plane takeaway of the steel shaft era. Modern golf. It would have worked as well with Hickory also if the game had evolved as such at that time. A few pointers. The righ hand aligns with your target when coming in from behind and is the same motion as throwing a ball underhand but it will feel somewhat underhand and sidearm due to your body not being as open at address as you would be throwing a ball. Never ground the club until the stance and appropriate distance from the ball are taken care of. Affix your grip with your right forward, club in the air just above and behind the ball to start with I suggest the toe of the club above the inside edge of the ball. The swing is inside out and the grounding of the club after your right foot has been dropped back in line with your lead foot, only then can you gently ground the club and begin deliberate waggling. It took years for me not to move the lead foot forward to square the stance instead of dropping the right foot back thus I did not improve  for years until it finally dawned on me that the right foot being dropped back is the only way you can turn correctly because it allows your hips to move freely. Do it the opposite way and the hips will not turn period. Only in chipping and putting do I change the sequence because i want the opposite to happen. I am not making a turn, and do not want the hips to rotate so I move the lead foor forward toward the ball and leave the right rear foot where it was at, thus stopping all hip turn which is of no value on chips and putting with the reverse overlap grip. Also, it presets the majority of my weight on my front side which is correct in putting and chipping. Same one piece takeaway as full shots but it shortens the swing do to no hip rotation to speak of. A square clubface for all shots that are full, except for pitches of height and sand shots and putting. The clubhead should fell like it is looking skyward and to roll the ball on putts or slice under on pitches and sand explosions next to the green. I know I sound like a quack, and i have not won anything due to not doing anything but studying and practicing but I will. I know this sounds like some idiot, which I probably am, but I have spent in and around 40,000 hours in almost 30 years on what will end up as a meaningless quest unless my spirit comes back again reincarnated without losing what I have found out in this lifetime, and I somehow have all this know how at 25 instead of 43. The heavier the club the better. It automatically is going to move faster and create more velocity and compress the ball more with its added mass. Hogan used the heaviest driver known of to this day. He and I are nearly the same size except my hands are not as big, but thinner but just as strong. Thinner fingers is an advantage believe me. Strong hands not big hands are a necessity. They can be obtained I did it over time just from swinging clubs and other heavy instruments. I am 5' 8" and weight 135 lbs soaking wet, but I can swing a five lb ax at 110 mph without exerting any energy coming down. The club or object I am swinging does this automatically when I turn my hips back to the left and out of the way all the way through. The club simply gets a free ride and trying to manipulate the face at that speed due to an incorrect grip usually is pure folly. I know how my shots are going to turn out when I get to the top of my backswing, actually when I swing the club back. It is in the set up and address sequence that all golf shots are either perfected or foozled. lol   GOOD Luck Happy Hunting

[coolhand850]

You have a nice understanding and are very close to speaking all truth. I commend you. A feel is why golf is so difficult to teach. How do you teach someone the correct feel is the million dollar question students like me, teachers, and players have been trying to convey since the game was invented over five hundred years ago. Hogan videos and Five Lesson with some Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Ernest Jones, Harvey Penick, and Henry Cotton are of value. Hogan primarily is all you need. Figure out everything he was saying and doing and you will be close as you can get, but perhaps someone will take it further, like me. I am not forced to conceal any of my secrets or just provide clues because I do not make a living playing golf at this time. This was the double edged sword he had to deal with. Even I hate to reveal too much of what I have uncovered because it has taken so long, and so many dead ends, and breakthroughs, from callused hands, frustration, jubilation, and everything in between. It is truly the greatest game ever invented, especially for the worker. I love working at it.25 years of nearly eight hours averaged a day with nobody but me in obscurity. Not even competing against anybody really except myself. Although I am not easily beaten when I choose to play, if ever. But I am a scientist of the swing more than a pure scorer. I can hit perfect shots all day and not worry about holing putts. I enjoy putting, but I consider it a different game completely, which is not condusive to winning championships lol.

[Phil McGleno]

Nobody is going to read those posts and you did not quote anyone with your second post-So nobody knows who you're even talking to. Also this thread was last posted to in January, and before that, 2014, and then quickly 2013.

[coolhand850]

I disagree, and here two examples why. The greatest ball striker of all time without a doubt, Ben Hogan, used the heaviest and stiffest driver ever known to be used in major competition. I must add he was a small man in stature but hands like a vice. Second example, even in the edge of the dead ball era, when the home run was still a novelty, let alone 500 foot shots that went out of the stadium, the greatest sports personality IMO in history, Babe Ruth was knowm to have used a 40 oz bat for much of his career. Barry Bonds hit more home runs with the help of steroids that he could have acquire with a heavier bat, but he had not the swing technique of the great Ruth. Bonds used around a 32 or 33 oz bat, and his home runs did not leave ball parks, even with a ball that was modern and twice as hard and durable as the one's used in Ruth's day. The downswing has no velocity acquired from outside influence period. The backswing stores energy, and the club gets a free ride on the downswing completely, or it is not a swing by definition. An instrument can only move as fast as it can be swung. Give me a big sling shot and you get one half the size and we will put a rock in each. I will pull the large one back, like I would swinging the heavier golf club, and release the sling, which is all the golf swing is. That bigger heavier slingshot is going to propel that rock with more force with much more distance than one half the size. This is all relative to one's level of efficiency of truly swinging a golf club correctly. For somebody that has not devoted most of his waking hours to the game, and has not developed his golf muscles the lighter club is probably the best bet or only option, but if he or she had begun with the heaviest thing they could swing to start they would be far the better for it. Swinging a heavy golf club if physically possible by the player, makes it much easier to instill the proper way the golf club should be swung. The clubs all being manufactured too light IMO just compounds the difficulty of learning the most unnatural movement in all of sports. Period. I thought like you are saying for years, but I have changed my beliefs over time. It is only because I have put so much work in, and arguably as many hours as any human being since the game was invented. My whole life for some reason has been devoted to nothing but mastering the golf swing, with primarily Hogan as my model, but others have contributed as well. No regular teacher ever. I am self taught, and therefore I know everything about the swing to the T, not by what some other guy has told me and I applie but did not know why. I am the type of person that has to know why. That is why I am a practicer and student of the game more than a player, but I will win the US Amateur and British Amateur just to prove I can and my work and understanding will actually repeat time after time under tournament pressure. The better your swing, the better it should perform under the highest pressure, If it does not, it is not correct.

[Phil McGleno]

I disagree, and here two examples why.

Nobody knows who you are talking to. Please use paragraphs.-Is your return key broken? Heavier clubs only let golfers hit the ball farther if they are able to hit them more on the sweet spot-Which some players do with slightly heavier clubs. You are posting novels to questions that have already been answered.

[coolhand850]

Your point is. I am putting these comments down for my benefit. I am not forcing anybody to read anything. I am just doing it for my own benefit and amusement. If you don't like what I have to say don't read it. I could care less. I am not concerned what others think of what I wrote. I am merely killing time on a subject that is my area of passion period. Thanks for letting me know my mistakes about how old the post was, and how i did not address it to anybody. I had no intention of doing so.

[coolhand850]

Are you the site moderator?? I am going to be kicked off and my account suspended lol.