Smash Factor - Hit it Longer

Welcome back to another edition of Chapman's Chapters!

It's been a while since my last post but will be more regular with posts throughout the rest of 2013 and in to 2014. In this blog I am going to talk about Smash Factor. Primarily what it is and how this can help you hit it further.

For example with a driver clubhead speed (CHS) of 100mph and a ball speed (BS) of 140mph equals a smash factor (SF) of 1.40 (140/100).

With a driver a SF of between 1.47 to 1.50 is what we are ideally looking for. Another way of looking at this is how efficiently we are hitting the ball; the higher the SF the more BS we are getting from our CHS.

To give you an idea of how much impact the SF has on distance let's take a look at an example:
100mph CHS
140mph BS
1.40 SF
If we increase the SF to 1.48 (which is achievable with a driver) then this would increase the BS by 8mph and in turn this could translate into as much as an extra 24 yards of carry! That's another 24yards of carry without swinging the club any faster. With a well fitted driver this could increase carry distance with a CHS of 100mph from 225yds to 249yds!

 As you can see from the above Flightscope data that by having a higher SF we can achieve greater distance even with lower CHS - e.g. shot 1 compared to shot 3

And how about irons? Well, with a 6iron if we can increase the SF by 0.06 this would be an extra 5-6mph BS resulting in an extra 8-9yards carry. Almost a whole club longer just by being more efficient.
Let's take a look at ways of maximising your SF. There are two main ways to do this.
1) A centre of gravity (COG) strike - hitting the sweetspot
2) Reducing the Spin Loft (SL) which in turn reduces the spin rate (SR)

The first way is fairly self explanatory - if you strike the ball in the middle of the club you will get more distance by increasing your efficiency of SF.

Now let me explain the second way. At impact the energy from the CHS is primarily transferred in to two things; 1) ball speed and 2) spin. The higher the SR then the lower the BS.Which is why we see a higher SF in a driver than say a 9iron. 9iron has more spin therefore less CHS gets turned in to BS. To reduce the SR then we need to have a lower SL. Spin Loft is the difference between the Angle of Attack (AoA) and the Dynamic Loft (DL).

The lower this number is then the lower the SR and the higher the SF. Most club golfers with a 6iron achieve a SL of around 30-33' whereas a tour player is around 23 to 25' which even at the same CHS would produce up to 18yds difference in carry.

In short....focus on hitting the middle of the golf club on each shot! By doing this rather than just swinging harder you can optimise your distance with the swing you currently have.

Next week I will look at optimising your driver distance.

And in case I don't see you before then...Good afternoon, good evening and good night

Happy golfing

Ed

Current book I am reading: The Big Miss by Hank Haney

Ed Chapman is a Class AA British PGA Professional
Teaching Professional at Al Badia Golf Club by InterContinental, Dubai Festival City
Email: ed.chapman@ichdfc.ae
Twitter: @edchapmanPGA

PGA Certificate in Golf Psychology Coaching - May 2012
UKCC PGA Certificate in Golf Coaching Level 2 - October 2007

Bibliography
Trackman University Level 1 Workshop