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Club head speed mystery

I don't really understand what happened to my club head speed. Yes I am 66 years old now so I get that your swing speed "naturally" slows down as you get older, but to me it does not make sense. I am a very athletic 66 year old dude. I have lifted weights my entire adult life and still do like three times a week in my home gym along with some pretty intense cardio and a regular yoga routine to help stay flexible. I honestly feel like I can still swing pretty fricking hard, but it does not translate into fast clubhead speeds.

This past summer I did some speed training using my GC3 to measure my results and was shocked to see my base normal CH speed with the driver be around 84 mph. Are you kidding me.....84 mph? When I swung as hard as I could I could get it up to about 88 but that was it. After a few weeks of training I managed to get up to a respectable 98 mph max swing speed (just one time) but still - that was swinging as hard as I could and it was not pretty. I ended up pinching a nerve in my neck so had to stop the training but plan to go back to it when I am able. The science behind how your smaller muscle groups start to disengage as you get older is sound and speed training can reengage some of those ancillary muscles to help you achieve gains over time - it makes sense and I plan to work on it over the winter....but.....

What I don't understand is I see golfers in videos swinging pretty easy and getting speeds in excess of 100 mph. I am convinced it is more about "how" I am swinging than me just being older now. When I see golfers like Tony Finau take a short backswing and drive over 300 yards or someone like Fred Couples take a nice easy swing and do the same, it just reinforces what I believe is true - my technique is lacking.

Over the winter I am going to work on improving my technique and there are two areas I plan to focus on; using my legs more....kind of a power squat move and the timing of that move, and also get some more natural wrist hinge into my backswing so I can get that trebuchet effect when the club releases at the moment of impact.

Since I moved to the S&T swing I have been very focused on taking the variables out, so I keep my wrists sort of static and don't put much focus on my weight transfer. I am making very solid crisp contact with my irons so I am not complaining, but I want to get more out of my longer irons and driver especially.

Just wondering what over senior golfers may have experienced and what CH speed others my age are getting with their driver. Also, what you might have done to increase your CH speed.

Cheers,

8 comments

8 Comments

fish4197

Nov 26, 2022

Hello Alan, I am 58 and in pretty good shape and I agree with you it's more in the swing technique. Yes, like Tom said giving up control to gain control but I am not buying lose of speed is due to age. Sounds like the younger wants use to believe that so we don't keep practicing and hit the ball further than them. :)

alan_edwards

Nov 27, 2022

Replying to

I am always down for a good conspiracy 😉

My Golf Quest

Nov 24, 2022

Though I am younger I lost swing speed which I was atrributing to aging closing innon 50. I used to belong to Clay Ballards Top Sped golf and he had a program where you start over speed training. To give the short version I took on over speed training but not with weighted clubs. Using a swing soeed radar you warm up then take 5 to 10 swings as fast and hard as you can and record the swings soeeds. Then do 4 more sets recording the peek swing speed each time. In all itook about 20 minutes 3 times a week. Using this program I went from 94 mph to 99 in one session. After 2 weeks my baseline was 103mph. After 4 weeks I was peaking at 118 mph with a play speed coming in at 108mph. The finny thing is I found the harder I swung the club the straighter I hit it.I moved to the orange whip light speed trainer which is for this type of training I use it now just to maintain. Not trying to sell anyone anything but thought I would share.

Fun thing was I was always still trying to beat the last sesions peak speed. Just be careful and remeber if it hurts back offf.

Tom Saguto

Nov 25, 2022

Replying to

Great stuff, @My Golf Quest - thanks for sharing!!

alan_edwards

Nov 26, 2022

Replying to

Interesting...I was also a Clay Ballard student last year. I worked his system over the winter indoors but it just was not a good fit for me - and I put in the work too. It's just one of those things where the golf swing is NOT one size fits all. You need to find a swing methodology that works for you and S&T works for me a lot better. I had amazing results very quickly with very little effort from watching just one of Tom's videos versus the TSG method.

That said I also tried Clay's speed training program too and had similar results. When I mentioned my improvement in my post it was using the TSG speed training system. I ended up aggravating an old injury during the process though pinching a nerve in my neck and had to stop, but I do plan to go back to it next spring now that I am past the pinched nerve issue. I won't go into the details of why it works, but it can work regardless of how you swing the club since it is all about using the proper muscles and activating them to increase your max and normal swing speeds as you pointed out.

I have not found any other way to make as dramatic a change in club head speed as you can from using a speed training program. Yes you can eek out a few mph here and there with some changes in your setup and swing mechanics, but to achieve any real significant gains you need to activate those muscles that have gone dormant over time. The science of how and why speed training works is very well documented and makes complete sense. Still does not explain why it diminishes so quickly - unless it's just a more gradual process when you start to swing more easy as you get older so you stop using those muscles? I don't know for sure, but I plan to rectify the situation.

I have thought about investing in The Stack System since it works off these same principles and really formalizes the process with a swing trainer and app to help you work through the training program. It's very pricey though but one huge advantage is you do not need to hit golf balls and you can use it indoors over the winter months too. Who knows maybe Santa will set me up.

Anyway, thanks for the comment it helped to validate the one thing that did seem to work for me.

Tom Saguto

Nov 23, 2022

Hi Alan,

Though not in your age group, I do know that @Ian "Twiggy" Jones and @Russell Hogue, PhD are working on speed training and may have some suggestions for you in this regard.

Beyond that, a few of my recent YT lessons have focused on using the bigger "power" muscles instead of micromanaging the hands, wrists, and arms. If we pre-establish the connections properly in the setup and have a foundational base that facilitates a full centered turn without restriction, then we can entrust the motion to the big muscles and allow the arms, wrists, hands, and club to simply go along for the ride and respond accordingly as if on autopilot. The power accumulators (reference the school's Power + Distance Course) will naturally load and fire with no contrived manipulations or precise timing necessary, thereby returning the face to its pre-set position established at address. It's called "giving up control to gain control", and it's the formula for consistently blissful ball striking and seemingly effortless power.

alan_edwards

Nov 23, 2022

Replying to

Thanks Tom I will look into it.

I just watched a video by Rob Cheney regarding weight forward with the driver where he expanded a bit on some ideas you showed in your driver videos too. I will check out your suggestion as well and look forward to hearing from other members.

Ian "Twiggy" Jones

Dec 01, 2022

Replying to

Superspeed training is a great training programme which is golf specific and quick and easy to do with instant results.

I personally gained around 10mph after only completing around 10 weeks of the programme. I aim to start again now in the off season and hope to regain that 10mph and a little bit more.