Golf Secrets: Smash Factor

One of Trackman‘s laws concerning the “Smash Factor”….. Generally speaking, to maximize ball speed, it is more important to improve centeredness of impact than to increase club speed.

So in AGI terms, it is much better to find that fine line where you have high club head speed while maintaining center of the face contact. If this ratio starts to go haywire, then we need to back off the speed to get back to a preferred contact point.

Think about this for a second, according to Trackman, someone with a club speed of 90 mph and a smash factor of 1.45 can drive a ball so it has a carry of 200 yards. Increasing the club speed to 92 mph but reducing smash factor to 1.40 due to off center hit would result in a carry of 196 yards. Now take that same golfer and lower the club speed to 88 mph in order to swing under control with a smash factor of 1.50, we would achieve a carry of 204 yards. In the final analysis, we need to focus on more center of the club face contact, only when that is accomplished do we add more speed within the confines of your coaches instruction. We will all be much happier because we will be scoring better with more consistency.

AGI: play better golf.