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Date Posted: 19:32:42 06/07/04 Mon
Author: Tom
Subject: Re: Club Length vs Swing Speed
In reply to: David Lake 's message, "Club Length vs Swing Speed" on 08:00:20 04/22/04 Thu

How are you measuring the golfer's arm length in your example? I am sort of average in size and build and measure no more than 23" from shoulder to wrist, which is about where the club starts when I grip it. That gives me a radial arm length of 60" using the 37" club, a foot less than in your example.

Tom

>A common misconception is that club length alone is
>the determinant of the radius of a golf swing.
>Regardless of how many hinging points and resultant
>secondary arcs/planes are involved, the true center of
>a golf swing is a point somewhere between the golfer's
>shoulders (this center point moves laterally between
>the shoulders during the swing). Hence, you must
>include the golfer's arm length into the radial arm
>length equation for any meaningful analysis.
>Therefore, assuming a 37” iron length and an arm
>length of 35”, the radial arm in the golf swing is
>72”. This means that a ½” increase in club length,
>which is the standard length increment between
>successive irons, results in a radial arm length
>increase of 1/144 or 0.0694%. A 2” increase in club
>length results in a radial arm length increase of
>2.77%. Since swing speed is determined primarily by
>the strength of the golfer and not the length of the
>club, you cannot just take a current swing speed and
>multiply it by the 2.77% for a 2" club length increase
>to determine any possible swing speed increase.
>Realistically, this percentage would be around 0.1% to
>0.2%. As you can see, a 2” increase in club length
>results in an insignificant and barely measureable
>increase in swing speed.
>
>In defining what a "significant" increase in swing
>speed means, and determining the resultant
>effectiveness of this increase, other factors need to
>be considered:
>1) If the average golfer swings a #5 iron five times
>he will record five different swing speeds varying +/-
>5mph.
>2) Each incremental increase in club length results in
>lessened average center-face contact, which results in
>decreased distance.
>
>Consequently, any increases in swing speed have to be
>analyzed in relation to decreases in solid ball
>contact for each incremental club length increase in
>order to produce effective data. Even then, as per
>above, the average golfer cannot produce a constant
>swing speed with any club. Our testing has shown that
>although a 2" increase in club length can minutely
>increase swing speed, it dramatically reduces the
>percentage of center face hits. It has been shown
>that clubface impact just 1/4" off center-face can
>reduce distance by up to 10 yards.
>
>David Lake

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[> [> Re: Club Length vs Swing Speed -- David Lake, 19:54:15 06/07/04 Mon

Tom,

Even with an arm length of 23" the total radial arm length in a golf swing would be 60". This equates to a 1/120th or 0.833% increase in radial arm length for each 1/2" incremental increase in club length. The point is that the club length increase will not affect distance.

David Lake

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