How to increase my smash factor?

[bankquant]

Moved to NY about a year ago and pretty much stopped playing golf completely but recently moved somewhere where I have access to a HDGolf simulator.  Prior to moving here I was about a 15 or 16 handicap. I started playing golf about 5 years ago when I was 27....am 32 now (5'10 ~165lbs)  I've always had issues with hitting my driver more than anything else (pop-ups, slices, snap hooks, etc). I normally just hit 3wood off the tee cause I can get it out about 250-260yds much more consistently than my driver. But now that I have access to this simulator I can get some interesting stats and hopefully I'll be able to fix my driver issues. 

I attached some screen shots of some of the shot data from my session today.  I normally range in club speed between 115-120mph but was working on dialing up the speed today.  My max speed today was 128.2mph. However I only got 154mph ball speed out of this.  As you can see from the attached screenshots my smash factor is really low throughout all my swings. When I'm not trying to smash it hard and swing about 115mph I am still only getting a smash factor of max 1.35 which translates to about 250-260yds of distance.  I probably took 100 driver swings today and it never went over 1.4 .  I can't figure out how to translate my swing speed into more ball speed. If off center hits were the problem you'd think that I would occasionally hit one in the sweet spot and get a high smash factor but that hasn't happened yet. And honestly a lot of these feel like I am hitting it flush.  I also have 2 different drivers, plus one cheap one thats available in the simulator and its the same for all 3.

So what gives? How can I improve my smash factor?

[saevel25]

I would use a dry erase marker and put a big dot on the ball. Then line up the ball so it faces the club face at impact. Then track where you are hitting the ball on the club face. 

Besides that, smash factor is your quality of contact. It could be the the launch monitor is inaccurately measuring either the ball speed or the club head speed.

[iacas]

Less loft (i.e. less spin in general) with more square impact hit more on the center of the clubface.

[colin007]

Somewhat related question - how much do you think impact tape affects ball speed/smash face on a driver?

[saevel25]

Just now, colin007 said:

Somewhat related question - how much do you think impact tape affects ball speed/smash face on a driver?

Probably not much at all. You are talking about a sticker. How much do you think a piece of paper would soften a blow if you were to punch a steel plate? 

You are probably not looking to care about smash factor when you are just seeing where the ball impacts the club face when using impact tape.  

[colin007]

1 minute ago, saevel25 said:

Probably not much at all. You are talking about a sticker. How much do you think a piece of paper would soften a blow if you were to punch a steel plate? 

You are probably not looking to care about smash factor when you are just seeing where the ball impacts the club face when using impact tape.  

True, but there are times that you look at a dead center strike on the tape but the smash says 1.42 and you're like

 

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, colin007 said:

True, but there are times that you look at a dead center strike on the tape but the smash says 1.42 and you're like

What was the swing path and club face angle? A golfer can hit a 70 yard slice and nail the center of the club face. Their smash factor will be much lower because the strike is still a glancing one. You are not lining up the COG with your swing path. 

[colin007]

11 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

What was the swing path and club face angle? A golfer can hit a 70 yard slice and nail the center of the club face. Their smash factor will be much lower because the strike is still a glancing one. You are not lining up the COG with your swing path. 

Woah woah woah...who's saying I'm not lining anything up?? Lol jk....I flip worse than a politician...but yeah, I feel @bankquant's pain....

[GolfLug]

You've got to be catching the ball very low on the club. If not at least the ones with slight draw or fade with that much clubhead speed ( which would mean not that glancing a blow) would have a greater ball speed and carry considering launch and spin.

Also try a different LM. 

[bankquant]

I'll add this video link for reference. This was about a week ago.  When I slow it down it looks like I might be hitting closer to the heel instead of center. If I remember correctly this went pretty straight per the simulator and probably had 250yd carry with about 115 swing speed.

I'll try to get a dry erase marker soon or dr. scholls foot spray to see where Im hitting on the face next time. 

[iacas]

2 hours ago, bankquant said:

I'll add this video link for reference. This was about a week ago.  When I slow it down it looks like I might be hitting closer to the heel instead of center. If I remember correctly this went pretty straight per the simulator and probably had 250yd carry with about 115 swing speed.

Uh, yes:

[VealCutlet]

I was recently fitted, and my smash factor went up as shaft length decreased. With my driver, I was getting lower clubhead speeds (-2mph), but better quality of contact, and higher ball speeds (+7mph) with a -.5" length shaft. Smash factors went from 1.39 average to 1.5. Saw similar results with irons, -.5" shaft length and moving from reg steel to stiff flex.

I don't want to blame the equipment to start with, but that may be a factor.

 

 

[Onehopstop]

Honestly imo you should try to slow down your swing a little bit. Remember 90% not 100%. From my experience averaging around 114mph swing speed, if I slow it down to 108-110 I hit the ball with a better smash factor and more often than not I hit the ball around 5-10 yards further. If you swing at max all the time you never have extra when your really need it. Just my opinion.

[bankquant]

So I probably should have done this before.  There are actually 2 golf simulators that I can use I just wasn't using the other one because it didn't seem to be working properly. I would always get way less distance that simulator #1.  However, I figured I'd try it and see what it was recording as my swing speed. Funny enough its giving me roughly the same speed as simulator #1.  Where my average '90%' swings are somewhere between 110-115mph and my full power swings at 120-130mph.  The big difference here is that I can almost never get a smash factor above 1.25 on this machine. Typically its sub-1.2 which translates to very low ball speed and shorter distance.   So now It has me thinking that niether machine is calibrated correctly. I'll probably try to call the manufacturer and get their opinion and see if there is something management can do or I can do to calibrate the machines.

 

Here are 2 swings from yesterday that I recorded after hitting the gym

Here is the result of that swing. 125.7mph swing with 149mph ball speed (smash factor of 1.18). Not great.

 

Swing 2 - face on

Swing 2 result:

124.8mph swing speed, 155.8mph ball speed (smash factor of 1.25).  My grip is super strong.  I've been trying to make this more neutral but for the higher swing speeds I can hardly ever get the club face turned over in time without this grip and then i slice it terribly. I can probably work a more neutral grip for my 90% swings.

[bankquant]

So I tried contacting HDGolf about the differences between their 2 machines but so far no response

However, I found a few videos online of pros using their machine and when they show the stats I never see the smash factor above 1.4 so I guess I should worry about it so much and just focus on making good contact and total distance.

At 6:50 in this video they show driver stats for Jerry Kelly

 

And then this one with Jamie Sadlowski, I don't think his smash factor ever reads above 1.35 but he gets a couple drives out to the 400yd mark.

 

Edited March 27, 2017 by bankquant

[1badbadger]

As some other guys mentioned, determine where you're hitting the ball on the face.  If you've typically been inconsistent with your driver, you might not be hitting it in the center of the face.

The other thing that comes to mind is the face of your driver might be cracked.  Sometimes it can be hard to see, but check closely to see if that might be the reason.

[phillyk]

Some simulators can't actually measure a good smash factor, whether its from not measuring off center hits or ball speed or what have you.  There's usually multiple cameras or radars that are needed to capture both speeds and off center hits.  OR, sometimes it's just a button in the options menu to change how the launch monitors present data.  Heck the simulator I've been playing around with has the opposite problem, it tells me I'm getting up to a 1.55 smash factor.

[DaveP043]

I was struck by the swing speed numbers, 120 mph is pretty uncommon outside of professional golfers.  Looking at the swing videos, I just don't see that kind of swing speed.  Is it possible that the ball speed numbers are accurate, and the clubhead speed is exaggerated?  The Jerry Kelly video shows a clubhead speed of 111 mph, I'd be really surprised if the OP had a swing speed that high, let alone 10 to 15 mph higher. 

On 3/11/2017 at 1:20 PM, bankquant said:

 I've always had issues with hitting my driver more than anything else (pop-ups, slices, snap hooks, etc).

Here's the other issue.  If the problem is a wide variety off offline and mishit shots, perhaps the best solution is to improve your swing.  Smash factor will come, if you're making center contact, with the club aligned in the right direction, and travelling in the right direction.  All the swings in the simulator won't fix a faulty swing, not unless you're getting some good instruction there too.  Improve your swing, THEN worry about smash factor.