Maximize Carry Distance, hit it in the center


Many that know me would likely say that I take a common sense, but often perhaps overlooked approach to things.  Stated differently I don't like to make things more complex than they need to be.

Bryson DeChambeau among others have created a very real interest in hitting the ball farther; often the natural temptation is to figure out ways to increase club head speed to accomplish this goal.  While that isn't necessary a bad thing I would argue for most golfers hitting the ball in the middle of the face more consistently will produce much faster results. Examples of this might include swinging easier, getting a shorter driver, etc.

To keep things on the simple side it's important to maximize the ball speed, and a key to doing that is to maximize the smash factor.  Lets define that, smash factor is simply the [ball speed / club head speed]; the USGA limits the smash factor to 1.5, so our goal is to get as close to that as possible.   To get right into an example a PGA professional will have a driver club speed of around 120 mph and a 1.48 smash factor, this will translate to ~ 177 mph ball speed and a carry of ~ 297 yards.  However if that same player still produced 120 mph club speed but missed the sweet spot and thus had a smash factor of 1.35 that swing now results in a carry of 265 yards (huge difference).  Note table below.  Certainly hear me say there is more to maximizing the smash factor than hitting the center of the face, but I would argue nothing more important or significant.

One of my great friends David Erdy, is a PGA professional and golf instructor, he gives both remote and in person lessons and can help you lower scores and increase your distance.  He can be found at DavidErdygolf.com.  He can show you what a 1.48 smash factor with 300 yards of carry looks like too...  Check out his YouTube channel, here is a video that David recently did which nicely relates to this article.

Brent


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