This short article is part of my Swing Speed Training Guide. That article goes into detail about everything you need to know about embarking on a successful speed training journey.
Monitoring on course club and ball speed data can be very informative. It may sound obvious, but if you’re doing all this training with the goal of seeing progress on the course, shouldn’t we keep track of actual on course data?
You can get a good estimate of progress from where your drives are going on courses you know well, and you might have data from shot tracking apps like Arccos or ShotScope, but there’s something nice about seeing club and ball speed. Shot distance on any given day can be influenced by conditions. Club and ball speed are more stable. These are also the metrics you track in training, so it makes a simple like-for-like comparison.
It answers the question “How well am I transferring my training to the course?”
The Stack or PRGR Radars are absolutely perfect for this. They’re easy to fit in your golf bag and only take a few seconds to turn on and set up. I love doing this on a few drives in recreational rounds (you can’t do it in tournament rounds). It gives you a chance to see what difference, if any, there is between your training and on course speeds.
If there is a big difference between your training speeds and on course speeds, it could be a sign you are being too fearful and holding back too much on the course. In this instance using the radar as external feedback can be a great commitment tool.
”I know from training I can comfortably hit ____ mph, let’s see it here on the course!”
For example, if in your driver training you are comfortably hitting 105 mph club head speed and 155 mph ball speed, but on the course you’re seeing 97 mph and 143 mph, you know there is a big speed gap. It’s most likely down to comfort and commitment. Without measuring you may have been oblivious that you were holding so much back on the course.
It’s normal for there to be some difference between on course speeds and the speeds you see in your speed training. How much of a difference depends if we’re comparing “absolute max” or swings where we are hitting driver and ball and trying to slightly push the needle.
Over time, I think the gap between these starts to diminish anyway. Oftentimes, “trying harder” doesn’t actually result in higher club head speed. When we’re speed training and hitting multiple drivers in a row, we tend to get into a rhythm and move faster than when we swing a driver once every 15 or so minutes on the course. There’s also a small difference in intent and comfort. On the course we might sacrifice some speed for a little more control. This may change as coordination at high speeds improves though!
If you compare your on course speeds to your driver training swings (not max-effort swings, but fast controlled ones), there shouldn’t be a big gap. About 2 to 3 mph difference in club head speed is normal. Some see no difference, and some are faster on course due to adrenaline.
If you’re comparing on course driver swings to all out max speed training swings, a gap of about 5 to 7 mph is reasonable. If the gap is bigger, your training swing probably isn’t a good representation of what you use on the course.
In my opinion, speed training shouldn’t go fully down the hole of swinging in any way necessary just to get numbers up. I used to do this, and it wasn’t particularly helpful. Depending on the level of player, and mechanics employed, you may be working on something that you will never transfer to the course. This is again player and time of season dependent. There is a place for experimentation and exaggeration, but you also need to remember the purpose of your training.
Always ask yourself “does this provide beneficial transfer?”
To learn more about training for club head speed, check out Swing Speed Training – The Fit For Golf Guide.
