How To Increase Your Golf Swing Speed

Among a number of enjoyable moments players look forward to during a game of golf, hitting a long distance is the most enjoyable. As a golf player, hitting a long drive confirms your superiority, communicates dominance and proves your power at the game, regardless of what your score is.

At a point, you might compare yourself with a pro as you have fun watching your ball float through the sky off in the distance, then slowly descends to the ground.

Swing speed is a vital component to consider when it comes to how far your golf ball goes after hitting it. However, you can’t achieve this overnight.

You need time, lots of golf drills and a lot of practice to achieve a fast club head speed. What exactly is golf swing speed, what’s its importance and what are the best ways to increase your golf swing speed? Let’s find out…

How Important Is Golf Swing Speed?

The speed of a golf head is the most important factor you must study if you want to hit your driver further. It can also help irons be compressed more and this is what almost every golfer wants.

Your ball will be able to travel further if the club moves faster because the latter gives the ball the energy to move forward. The speed of the club head determines the quality of energy that will be transferred into the golf ball.

The higher the energy the golf ball gets, the faster it goes off the club face.

This is why the golf head is an important determinant of your golf swing speed. You will be able to hit the ball farther when you increase the speed of your golf head and the center (sweet spot) of the golf club face makes contact with the golf ball.

Average Golf Swing Speed?

What is your current club head speed and where does it stand against other golf players? To help you get an answer to this, let’s look at the average golf swing speed.

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Average pro golfer swing speed

On the PGA Tour, the average swing speed of a golfer is around 113 MPH for drives. As earlier mentioned, one major contributing factor to the long distance achieved by PGA tour professionals is increased club head speed. This factor can also help you determine your golf ball speed.

Average Men’s Golf Swing Speed

The average club head speed for a male golfer is 90 MPH. This is the typical range for a man who plays golf as a hobby. A non-professional golfer like this is able to consistently carry the ball more than 200 yards.

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Average Golf Swing Speed For Women

On the LPGA Tour the average women’s golf swing speed is slower than on the PGA Tour. The average swing speed for women is 94 mph. Averagely, a PGA Tour player swings faster than an average LPGA Tour player by 20.2%.

According to Tom Wishon, a golf expert, and author, the average women’s golf swing speed for a beginner is around 65 mph. An average male golf player swings faster than a beginner female golfer by 40.6% on average. The power of men’s upper body is more than that of women.

This is an important factor in swing speed and it explains their reduced swing speed vs distance when compared to that of men. As further confirmed by these driver findings, there is a closer correlation between the major driving stats for LPGA and PGA tour players than for beginner male and female golf players.

Does Your Age Affect Your Golf Swing Speed?

Yes, your age does affect your speed. There are no specific data for the average swing speed by age because as you get older, your swing speed will get slower. This is why senior golfers need to invest in a certain driver for seniors in order to achieve optimal performance.

How Can You Increase Your Golf Swing Speed?

There are some major factors you need to consider if you want to get a swing speed of 120mph like the pro’s, which are:

Mobility
Technique
Equipment
Fitness

Mobility

If your mobility is poor, you are more likely to sustain injuries, which will reduce your athletic performance. You can increase your mobility by doing the right stretches. A specialist golf apparatus for mobility like Stick Mobility will help you know when you are doing the right thing.

Technique

Your technique is very important. If your technique is not right, your number of drills and wonderful equipment wouldn’t make any difference. Perfecting your technique gives you a solid foundation to increase your gold swing speed. Check out the following techniques:

Rotation: Make sure your rotation is a nice, smooth full rotation that focuses on the movement of your shoulders and hips. This will help you generate a really fast swing speed.
Downswing: Focus on the downswing. Using all your strength to hit the ball like most beginners in the golf game, will make you have a wild backswing and downswing. Note that acceleration is mostly generated between the downswing reaching hip-high to the real impact of the ball.

When choosing the best drills to increase golf swing speed, keep these elements in mind.

Equipment

For equipment, a great investment would be in either a launch monitor or a home golf simulator. The following tips can help you achieve better distance control and increase your golf swing speed:

Pick a great driver. Choose the ones that are specifically designed to help you achieve consistency and great distance. This is also a great addition to getting results from your drill practices.
Pick a great driver shaft. Go for the ones that are lightweight and more flexible than the shaft that your original golf driver has.
Measure your driver shaft length. This will help you have the correct length driver and boost your confidence.
Practice with weighted golf clubs. Combine this with an Overspeed training program.

Fitness

A good fitness level will help you to increase golf swing speed. Eat healthy and incorporate a workout routine into your diaries. While it is necessary to have an all round fitness, try to focus on building the following muscles as a golfer:

Forearms
Wrists
Glutes
Abdominals
Back

The reason that these are so important is because of the rotation that is required for the swing and then the power that this will allow you to generate on the downswing.

Golf Swing Speed Exercises

The following exercises focus on how important rotation is and can help you increase golf swing speed:

Bench press to develop your arms and strength
Rotational lunges to develop your glute, hips and back
Squatsto develop glute and back muscles
Bench Side Stepsto develop hips and glutes
Medicine Ball Ab Rotationto help you develop your abdominals

Golf Swing Speed Myths You’ve Probably Being Doing

There are myths about the best way to swing an iron. While they aren’t all wrong, a lot of them can be overdone or easily done the wrong way.

Not only can these myths restrict your swing ability, but they can also result in distance loss on your shots and inaccuracy. Here are a few of the golf swing myths:

Myth: There isn’t training for Golf Swing Speed

This myth lays emphasis on people being born fast or that it is either you have the speed or you don’t. Truly, some golfers are naturally fast. However, this doesn’t mean there is no way for you to up your game by improving on what you’ve got if you are slow. Anyone can get back lost yards and do better even if you are already fast.

Myth: Training Slow To Be Fast

This sounds logical but it is not that simple because some golf fitness trainers give their students exercises that imply otherwise. While the exercise may improve your strength, it may slow down your swing speed. When it comes to speed training, building fast-twitch muscles is more important than building slow ones.

Myth: Speed Kills Golf Swing

This would be better rephrased as ‘tension kills golf swing’.

Between a beginner who swings 90 mph at an average distance of 220 yards and a professional who 113 mph at an average distance of 290 yards, speed is obviously a key determinant factor in the distance difference.

In an effort to hit golf ball farther, many golfers make the mistake of swinging harder. Swinging hard and swinging fast isn’t the same thing. If you swing hard with rigidity and tension, it will be difficult for you to make good contact.

This is because there will be a change in the measurements to the ball and your balance will become vulnerable to getting thrown off. It can cost you about 20 yards if you miss the sweet spot on your driver.

It is easier to be consistent with the bodily motion that comes with swinging fast because it is fluid and supple and fluid. You don’t expect your speed to happen freely if you are busy getting in your own way.

Final Thoughts on Golf Swing Speed

There are lots of methods you can leverage to increase your golf swing speed. Whatever method you choose to use, be sure it is the one that suits you the best. While considering flexibility and great technique is an important factor, don’t forget that there are more things you can try.

Check out all these methods of increasing your golf swing speed and see how much it helps you achieve your goals. With these tips shared in this post today, implementing them should be able to help you hit longer drives with your improved drives and increased club head speed.