The Data Doesn’t Lie: Better Players Swing the Club FASTER!
We looked at more than 2 million registered swings by our deWiz users and one significant commonality among good players is that they swing the club faster.
THE STUDY
Faster swings should generate more clubhead speed, produce more distance and thus, lead to better scores. But, when you actually dig through the data, the correlation between full swing Start to Impact time and a player’s handicap is nearly linear!
deWiz Start to Impact measurement is fairly straightforward: the amount of time it takes from takeaway to impact. The Start to Impact data point is one of five different tempo measurements provided from deWiz, in addition to: backswing duration, downswing duration, the ratio between those two and measurement of a “pause” at turn.
Our studies show that a scratch player’s Start to Impact time is nearly 0.2 of a second faster than that of a 15-handicapper. While that may seem inconsequential, that difference can result in upwards of 30 yards off the tee!
HOW TO LOWER START TO IMPACT TIME
So, we know that we want to lower that Start to Impact time, but now the question is: how do we do so? In looking at the data, what really stands out is that the dispersion is much greater when looking at the average backswing duration compared to downswing duration.
The downswing duration for most golfers generally sits between 0.25-0.30 seconds, however when looking at the backswing duration - as is the case when looking at Start to Impact time - the better players swing the club faster in the backswing.
If we deep-dive we can determine that the differences in start to impact time can be attributed to faster backswings rather than faster downswings. You can see in the video here that the variance is more drastic for low handicap golfers than the overall variance in downswing times.
In conclusion, good players have several commonalities in their deWiz data. One significant factor is their start to impact time. So next time you want to hit it longer, take the club back quicker and swing the club faster.