The post How cooler weather impacts your carry distance, per data appeared first on Golf.

The post How cooler weather impacts your carry distance, per data appeared first on Golf.

I really hate saying it, but after putting on a sweatshirt and jeans this morning, there’s no denying it: Fall is here, and, in many spots around the country, that means cooler weather’s to follow.

Despite my personal aversion to the shorter days and dropping temperatures, at the very least, we can still tee it up and play some golf — even if it requires some adjustments.

For one, the ground will likely be softer, meaning the ball won’t roll as much upon hitting a fairway or a putting green. There are also some different rules to know about while playing fall golf (like the “leaf rule”), which can help for when your ball may be covered by a loose impediment.

Instruction

The 'leaf rule' and 5 other fall-golf guidelines every golfer should know

By: Nick Dimengo

But one of the most critical adjustments players should make during fall golf is understanding how the weather impacts carry distances, which will go a long way in helping you decide which club to use on certain shots.

So how does cooler weather impact your shot distances? I dug up some data from Trackman to get the answer.

Trackman data shows how weather impacts carry distances in golf

According to Trackman, your carry distances will be impacted quite a bit with the changing temperatures.

The golf tech brand initially compared carry distances between morning and afternoon rounds, when temps can vary by 10 degrees or more. So if you had a tee time at six in the morning, you’d have to play a much different way than if you had a tee time at 11 in the morning. Likewise, you’d have to adapt even more to a tee time in the middle of the day when it’s typically the warmest part of the day.

Based off of the Trackman data, when hitting the same 9-iron at different times of the day, carry distances change as much as seven yards — which is about half a club when trying to land your shot on the green. Check out the results in the image below, with carry distances measured at 55 degrees (left), 70 degrees (middle), and 95 degrees (right).

Although seven yards may not feel like a ton of difference, it could mean landing in a bunker versus being in the center of the putting surface. So understanding what adjustments you need to make can help you play smarter, prepare better, and execute the right shot with the right club so not to be disappointed with the outcome.

Remember, this is just a guide to help you make the best decision for your shot. So while there are other factors to be considered — like whether the ball made center-face contact versus being just off the heel or toe, or if there’s any wind or rain — it’s good to have some basic knowledge to arm yourself with as you tee it up this fall.

The post How cooler weather impacts your carry distance, per data appeared first on Golf.

The post Maximize your distance with this nifty hockey stick drill appeared first on Golf.

The post Maximize your distance with this nifty hockey stick drill appeared first on Golf.

It’s no secret that golfers love themselves some training aids, which are great ways to work on simple fundamentals and get instant feedback.

But you don’t necessarily need to spend a bunch of money in order to reap the benefits of a training aid, with plenty of common products like water bottles or towels more than capable of doing the trick.

Putting

How this putting aid helped me read greens like a pro

By: Nick Dimengo

Another item that can actually help your golf game? A hockey stick, which can be used to help produce the feeling you need to generate more power in the swing.

But before you just go grab one and start practicing your slap shot, take a look at the video above — which comes from Peter Kostis and Gary McCord’s “Off Their Rockers” podcast, a GOLF Production — where Kostis walks through a simple drill to try when you’re hoping to maximize distance.

Try this hockey stick drill to gain more clubhead speed

As Kostis says in the video, every golfer seeks more distance, whether that’s with the driver off the tee or with irons on approach shots.

“Everybody wants to hit it farther and everybody wants more clubhead speed, but how do you get it? It’s a combination of learning how to swing the club faster and learning how to stop your body,” Kostis says.

So what’s that mean? Instead of swaying or improperly transferring your weight, Kostis says you need to learn how to distribute energy to the right parts of your body at the right time in the golf swing.

“If you can’t slow your body down to transfer the speed to the clubhead, you’re not going to get maximum distance,” he adds.

This is where using a hockey stick can be a beneficial training aid, according to Kostis. It’s actually something he accidentally discovered years ago while using his kid’s old equipment.

Driving

This amateur gained 5 mph of clubhead speed and 27 yards of driver distance. Here's how

By: Joe Plecker, Top 100 Teacher, Nick Dimengo

“I took one of my son’s goalie sticks, I cut it off, and I started using a wall,” Kostis explains. “I learned how to swing the stick back and come back to hit the wall flush. As I did that, I could start to feel my body jump up and rotate, but break, which let the whole hockey stick come flush against the wall — [which is] the key to maximizing your distance.”

Whether you use a hockey stick and a foam wall or something similar, Kostis says this movement is a great feeling drill.

“If you come through and hit the upper part of the hockey stick [against the wall], you’re not going to get maximum speed,” he adds. “So you don’t even have to have a hockey stick and a wall, you can use a cardboard box or an impact bag.

“The key is to learn how to get all the way back [in your backswing], turned, come forward, and then learn to break at impact. This allows my body to react to what I want to do with this stick, and then once I get that feeling, I can take a golf club and get the same sense of clearing, rotating, and breaking at impact.”

To hear more from Kostis and McCord, you can listen to the entire episode below.

The post Maximize your distance with this nifty hockey stick drill appeared first on Golf.

The post Golf is nearing another distance decision after pro blowback appeared first on Golf.

The post Golf is nearing another distance decision after pro blowback appeared first on Golf.

On a hazy June afternoon in Los Angeles, USGA CEO Mike Whan stepped to the podium and braced for impact. It was Wednesday at the U.S. Open at Los Angeles Country Club, and Whan’s annual state of the state had turned into a minefield.

By the time Whan reached the lectern, the number of third-rail topics in golf was nearing double-digits. There were battles with an elitist host course; the state of PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan’s leave of absence; and naturally, the landscape of professional golf, which had days earlier been atom-bombed by a truce between the Tour and LIV Golf — just to name a few.

One by one, Whan deflected golf’s mortar shells like mosquitos on a windshield — pausing poignantly to share his support for Monahan, striking a reasoned but uncontroversial stance on the merger, and offering effusive praise of the week’s host venue. But just when it seemed like he would escape unscathed, a question pierced his armor.

The reporter had wanted to know if, in the wake of golf’s recent rollback announcement, Whan had reconsidered his stance on player involvement in governing body decisions. In the weeks leading up to the Open, Whan and his R&A counterpart Martin Slumbers had been pilloried for the rollback, a “model local rule” passed by the USGA and R&A that would stem golf’s recent distance craze by introducing a lower-distance golf ball for pro events. Golf’s equipment stakeholder started an immediate and aggressive lobbying campaign against the changes, and many of their Tour ambassadors had rallied to their defense, calling the rule change short-sighted and harmful to the sport’s long-standing ideals of meritocracy.

The reporter’s question wasn’t really about the rollback, but after weeks of open criticism, Whan hadn’t heard it that way.

“Oh, you mean the distance topic as opposed to the rollback topic?” He shot back in a playfully chiding voice. “I just think it’s funny we call it that.”

He was kidding, but his message was serious: the governing bodies weren’t going anywhere. This topic, more than all the others, was a third rail worth touching.

Now, close to six months later, it appears Whan and Slumbers are on the brink of doubling down. In an excellent report by Golf Digest’s John Huggan, Slumbers addressed the lingering questions surrounding the distance issue, and hinted that golf could be on the brink of another distance development from the USGA and R&A.

According to Slumbers, it’s possible the governing bodies could pivot away from the MLR as it was originally presented, considering so much of the golf world has since criticized the bifurcation piece of its implication.

“The game was not happy with the Model Local Rule,” Slumbers told Huggan. “There was a view that it would create a bifurcated game at the elite level. It was a very strong pushback against that. The PGA Tour was very public about it. So was the PGA of America. A number of players spoke out. And our job is to listen.”

But will the governing bodies stop their pursuit of reigning in golf’s distance gains over the last several years? No, says Slumbers, not a chance.

“Our responsibility is to the long-term future of the game. Along with the USGA, the R&A is a custodian of the game,” he said. “We’re responsible for our period of time, something that has gone on for hundreds of years and will go on for hundreds more. So, we are listening.”

Slumbers and Wahn have repeatedly emphasized that the distance debate has more to do with sustainability than it does with equipment. The distance developments of the last several years have forced golf courses to grow considerably to meet the pro game. Consider Augusta National, which spent $30 million on a small parcel of land just to expand its 13th hole to meet the pro game; then consider the fact that nearly all other golf courses don’t have similar riches to combat distance growth. Similar changes on the macro could affect golf’s efforts at building towards a more environmentally conscious future, to say nothing of making many of the sport’s most famous courses extinct from tournament play. In short, it doesn’t take long to understand that golf’s current gains are at odds with its venues.

Of course, addressing this issue will require upending the golf equipment industry, which invests millions each year to design equipment that will maximize player performance, and would have to upend a multimillion-dollar production line in order to accommodate any changes. A golf ball rollback solely at the pro level, many manufacturers have pointed out, would cost an exorbitant amount for a very limited return on investment.

In his conversation with Huggan, Slumbers appeared keenly aware of these drawbacks, and suggested the governing bodies are considering amending their proposal in order to better suit the golf world as a whole.

“We have made a decision about what we are going to do,” Slumbers said. “We’re working that through at the moment and will make it public before the end of the year.”

Instruction

The golf-ball rollback will reward 1 kind of player, says Teacher to Watch

By: Nick Dimengo, Lucas Wald, GOLF Teacher to Watch

How might those changes look? Slumbers chose not to divulge. But that same U.S. Open press conference from Mike Whan might have provided some clues.

“We’ve got to balance over the next step of input whether or not one ball for all or model local rule is kind of a right approach,” Whan said then.

“I think the feedback process is important and it makes us better. Even when we don’t like the feedback we get, it makes us better.”

The post Golf is nearing another distance decision after pro blowback appeared first on Golf.

The post The 5 most efficient drivers on the PGA Tour (and the drivers they use) appeared first on Golf.

The post The 5 most efficient drivers on the PGA Tour (and the drivers they use) appeared first on Golf.

Golf is all about optimization. From club fitting to swing dynamics, being optimized to carry the golf ball a long way with your driver helps avoid hazards off the tee. It also helps with irons and scoring clubs, allowing you to stop the ball closer to the hole.

Regardless of whether you’re a moderate swing speed amateur or a tour-level golfer, we all have the ability to get ourselves optimized off the tee, and on the PGA Tour, these are the top-five most efficient drivers of the ball based on carry distance. We also included the drivers they use.

Keegan Bradley – 2.56 yards for every MPH

Keegan Bradley became an instant star on the PGA Tour when he won in his major debut at the 2011 PGA Championship in a playoff over Jason Dufner. Since then he has gone on to win another five times, including the 2022 Zozo Championship.

Although he’s right around the PGA Tour average in terms of clubhead speed, he makes up for it by being extremely efficient with his driver delivery. He achieves that using a TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus with 10.5 degrees of loft.

Austin Smotherman – 2.549 yards for every MPH

There is a very fine line between first and second on this list, but one thing that doesn’t separate Austin Smotherman from Bradley is their driver of choice, the TaylorMade Stealth 2 Plus.

Thanks to the low spin properties of this driver head, it’s interesting to see that two of the most efficient drivers of the ball use the same model and in a higher loft (10.5°).

Rickie Fowler – 2.546 yards for every MPH

2023 was a huge comeback year for Rickie Fowler. Between winning the Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, to having a very close call at the U.S. Open at LACC, one of the standout parts of his return to form beyond his putting was his driving.

Like many players on this list, Fowler isn’t one of the fastest players on Tour, but he makes up for those few extra miles an hour by delivering the club into the ball very effectively with his Cobra Aerojet LS. Also, if you look at the embed above, you’ll notice the tee marks (the white markings on the driver’s face) are near the center or slightly toe-biased, which is the most effective area to use when trying to create optimal high launch and low spin conditions.

Byeong Hun An – 2.543 yards for every MPH

Unlike the others on this list, Byeong Hun An isn’t just efficient when it comes to carry distance, he gets there by also being one of the fastest players on Tour and ranks inside the top 10 for driving distance (6th) and top 40 in driver swing speed.

With his higher swing speed, there is a requirement to better control spin, and Byeong Hun does that by using the lowest spin driver model from Titleist. The TSR4 also happens to be one of the few drivers on the market under the legal limit of 460cc.

Troy Merritt – 2.539 yards for every MPH

With more than 13 years of golf on the PGA Tour, along with 169 cuts made, Troy Merritt has built himself one heck of a career despite being one of the players toward the bottom in driver swing speed rankings.

He certainly makes up for his lower swing speed with efficiency in launch, spin and accuracy, which puts him at 25th on the Tour’s 2023 rankings. He gets it done with a Titleist TSR2 driver.

Want to overhaul your bag, or find your longest driver? Find a fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post The 5 most efficient drivers on the PGA Tour (and the drivers they use) appeared first on Golf.

The post The top 5 fastest golfers on the PGA Tour and the drivers they use appeared first on Golf.

The post The top 5 fastest golfers on the PGA Tour and the drivers they use appeared first on Golf.

Being able to hit the golf ball a long way — or in the case of the PGA Tour players on this list, a very long way — requires the ability to optimize launch conditions off the driver. One of the deciding factors in creating good launch conditions and generating distance is ball speed, and thanks to the PGA Tour and their Shotlink data we know exactly who the fastest players are on Tour.

These are the drivers used by the players generating the fastest ball speed numbers on the PGA Tour.

Cameron Champ – 190.36 mph

Since he shot to stardom by winning his first Tour event in just his ninth start, Cameron Champ has continued to be one of the fastest players in professional golf at the highest level by generating an average of over 190 mph ball speed off the tee.

Although most people assume faster swing speed golfers use lower lofts, Champ uses a Ping G430 LST 10.5-degree driver at a length of only 45″ and with a heavy swing weight of D8. It’s crazy to think that considering he is using a driver built for control, Champ has an extra gear he could unlock.

Brandon Matthews – 190.20 mph

With only a very small amount of speed separating Brandon from Cameron Champ, it’s interesting to see the difference in the way their drivers are fit for them.

As opposed to Champ who plays what is considered a low spin driver model, Matthews plays a slighter higher spin design in a lower loft to help achieve his optimal performance with a Srixon ZX7 MKII 8.5-degree head.

Srixon ZX7 MK II Custom Driver

$499.99 $349.99

Featuring a more compact, confidence-inspiring silhouette that delivers the complete range of clubhead adjustability—including two swappable heel and toe weights plus an adjustable hosel sleeve—ZX7 Mk II lets you easily produce the launch conditions needed for maximum workability and complex shot making. REBOUND FRAME Rebound Frame’s Dual Flex Zones focus more energy into the golf ball at impact, creating a purer energy transfer that instantaneously increases ball speed and distance on every strike. ADJUSTABILITY Two weight port locations allow you to adjust swing weight and Center of Gravity to favor a draw or fade shape. An adjustable hosel also provides the opportunity to vary loft, lie, and face angle. STAR FRAME CROWN A complex series of ridges and latticework provides the structural integrity necessary to feature a remarkably thin titanium crown and to place discretionary mass where it best suits each ZX Mk II Driver’s ideal launch and spin characteristics. VARIABLE THICKNESS FACE An intricate variable thickness pattern expands the high COR area across the entire clubface. These unique ridges enhance high COR from heel to toe by improving how energy reflects into the ball on off-center shots.

Buy from Fairway Jockey

View Product

Kyle Westmoreland – 186.42 mph

This list is populated with unique driver builds, and out of all of them, Kyle Westmoreland could have the most unique.

Unlike the players above or below him, Westmoreland uses a draw-biased Cobra Aerojet Max. It places more weight in the heel to help eliminate a fade (we don’t like to call it a slice around here) miss off the tee. Now even though it is a more draw-biased head, he plays a much lower loft than what is generally available to the average golfer — at 7.5 degrees.

This combination helps him achieve his potential off the tee, and this is a great example of the importance of getting fit for what truly works best for your swing.

Wyndham Clark – 186.28 mph

Beyond his putting performance, it was Wyndham Clark’s driving that helped lead him to his first major championship at the U.S. Open at LACC, and he did it with a previous-generation Titleist TSi3 driver.

“When it comes to gear, if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” as we’ve said many times before. And in the case of this year’s U.S. Open champ, we don’t anticipate seeing him making any changes any time soon.

Cameron Young – 185.99 mph

Cameron Young is the highest-ranked player in the world without a PGA Tour win, but that’s not stopping him from being one of the most prolific ball strikers and drivers of the ball at the highest level.

Similar to the other Cameron on this list, Young uses a 10-degree driver. It’s a Titleist TSR3 (set slightly lower with the adjustable hosel) to help achieve his incredible distance. This distance helps to create a huge advantage, and it’s a big reason why he ranked 9th in strokes gained off the tee, 17th in total driving, and 3rd on the PGA Tour for distance.

Want to overhaul your bag, or find your longest driver? Find a fitting location near you at True Spec Golf.

The post The top 5 fastest golfers on the PGA Tour and the drivers they use appeared first on Golf.

The post Which golf-course length best suits your ability? This handy chart will tell you appeared first on Golf.

The post Which golf-course length best suits your ability? This handy chart will tell you appeared first on Golf.

How far do you hit your 7-iron?

This is not a rhetorical question. The answer matters. It has implications for your enjoyment of the game as well as for your pace of play.

How do we know this? Let’s back up a bit.

According to the USGA, in a survey of more than 700 PGA and LPGA professionals, 92 percent said that it is “extremely common” or “somewhat common” for golfers to play courses from too far back. The average duffer bites off more than he or she can chew. That isn’t just opinion. Scoring data shows that roughly 75 percent of female golfers and 50 percent of male golfers play from distances that exceed their ability.

The consequences are two-fold: rounds become time-consuming slogs and golf itself becomes less fun.

No one in their right mind wants this. Surveys indicate that most golfers want to play from the proper tees, and that the staff at most courses are keen to help point players to the proper boxes.

But how do you know which distances are right for which golfers? Some courses offer recommendations based on handicaps. Others, like Bethpage Black, in New York, post warnings by the first tee alerting players to the challenges that lie ahead.

But those aren’t highly scientific systems.

Which brings us back to our question at the top, and a new data-driven initiative by the USGA that aims to help golfers select the proper tees. It is called, appropriately, Best Tees.

You can read more about the methodology here.

But the upshot is this: In collaboration with other leading golf organizations, including the PGA and LPGA, the USGA spent several years crunching numbers and surveying golfers — research that produced all kinds of insights about hitting distances, handicaps, player preferences and more.

Those insights, in turn, gave rise to guidelines as to where golfers should be playing, based…you guessed it, on 7-iron distances.

If, for instance, you fly your 7-iron 140 yards, the best course length for you is 5,900-6,100 yards. If your 7-iron only goes 125, you should move up and play from 5,400-5,600 yards. And so on. If you hit your 7-iron 80 yards or less, you should be playing from 3,500-3,700 yards. Or maybe you’re bomber and can bash your 7-iron more than 170 yards. In that case, feel free to take on courses of 6,700 yards and up.

Why not try it? You’ll probably have fun. You might play faster.

As for your putting, sorry. We can’t help you there.

The post Which golf-course length best suits your ability? This handy chart will tell you appeared first on Golf.

The post Golden Rules: How the harmonic oscillator can help increase distance appeared first on Golf.

The post Golden Rules: How the harmonic oscillator can help increase distance appeared first on Golf.

The post Golden Rules: How the harmonic oscillator can help increase distance appeared first on Golf.

The post Ditch this club for more distance and lower scores appeared first on Golf.

The post Ditch this club for more distance and lower scores appeared first on Golf.

There is a good chance your 3-wood is doing more harm than good for your golf game, and I’m here to help explain why.

The 3-wood is a unique specialty club in most golfers’ bags because it has to offer distance of the tee, but also be functional enough to hit a long shot high into the air off the fairway. It’s generally not overly difficult to find a 3-wood that does one of these two jobs well but to find one that does both can be an extremely difficult challenge. 

Why is a 3-wood hard to hit?

The less loft a club has the harder it is to get into the air with enough spin to maintain carry distance. For every Bryson DeChambeau using a 10.5° 3-wood, there are hundreds of other golfers that can’t get their 15° fairway to carry more than 200 yards. Club head speed creates launch and spin aka – lift, and the same modern golf ball that makes drivers easier to hit is the same one that makes 3-woods more difficult, especially from the fairway.

Another factor beyond loft is 3-wood length has increased from 42.5″ up to 43.5″ in some cases, and hitting a low lofted club at that length is extremely difficult… even pros struggle sometimes.

Change loft – change expectations

Just because a 15° 3-wood has less loft than a 5-wood (18°) or 7-wood (21°) doesn’t mean it’s automatically going to go farther. Distance is created by optimizing launch and spin the same way a driver or a set of irons is fit, and when it comes to loft there is a point of diminishing return for any club in the bag. It’s the reason a lot of golfers find that they hit a 4-iron the same distance as a 5-iron and make the transition to hybrids instead.

“Just like with driver fitting, there is an optimal loft that maximizes distance.  The center of gravity location, club mass properties, face shape, and impact location dictate different loft optimization to maximize distance in a 3-wood.  

As an example, we have a great player on our engineering team that has 165 ball speed, 10 launch and 3000 spin with a 15 degree 3-wood.  This is the perfect launch and spin to optimize his carry distance – given his club speed, angle of attack and impact location. 

With those launch conditions, he carries it 282 yards.  Both through experimental testing and simulation techniques, if we give him 2 degrees more loft, he loses 4 yards of carry. With 2 degrees less loft (a 13° 3-wood), the resulting 1.7 degree lower launch and 450 rpm lower spin nets a whopping 7 yards decrease in carry distance – even though his ball speed is higher.

There is a sweet spot to loft fitting that maximizes distance, assuming that is the player’s goal in their 3 wood, and this changes for every player.  This is the essence of custom fitting.”

— Marty Jertson, VP-Fitting and performance Ping Golf

Forget the name – go with what works!

The best way to find your next 3-wood is to start by eliminating the idea that you need one in the first place — instead, think about that spot in your golf bag as the “next club after your driver”. The golf ball doesn’t care what it’s called, all that matters is if you are creating the right type of dynamics to fit your game and swing speed.

This could mean trying out a 4-wood (a club with 16-17.5° of loft), or even an adjustable loft 5-wood (18-20° of loft) to dial into the ideal launch conditions based on your swing speed. The best part about an adjustable hosel fairway wood is you can adjust the club based on course or weather conditions; firm and fast — lower the loft for more roll, softer conditions on a course with forced carries — loft up for extra carry. 

Want to overhaul your bag for 2022? Find a fitting location near you at GOLF’s affiliate company True Spec Golf. For more on the latest gear news and information, check out our latest Fully Equipped podcast below.

The post Ditch this club for more distance and lower scores appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Looking for more distance? Here’s how to do it the right way appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Looking for more distance? Here’s how to do it the right way appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: Looking for more distance? Here’s how to do it the right way appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: The surprising downside of being one of the game’s longest bombers appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: The surprising downside of being one of the game’s longest bombers appeared first on Golf.

The post Off Course with Claude Harmon: The surprising downside of being one of the game’s longest bombers appeared first on Golf.