How to Calculate Club Head Speed by Distance in Golf

The beginning of every hole of golf involves the golfer hitting the ball as far as possible towards the hole. The distance the ball travels is primarily dependent upon the size of the club and the speed at which the club strikes the ball. The faster the club is moving when it hits the ball, the farther the ball will travel. Based upon the distance the ball travels, you can estimate the speed at which the club was traveling when it made contact with the ball, assuming air resistance is negligible.

Things You'll Need

  • Driver
  • Golf ball
  • High-speed camera
  • Protractor
  • Tape measure
  • Mass of the golf ball and club head
  • Calculator
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Instructions

    • 1

      Swing the driver at the ball, like you would for a normal tee shot, while having the camera continuously take high speed photos of the swing directly perpendicular to the ball's flight path.

    • 2

      Using the protractor on one of the images taken shortly after contact with the driver, measure the initial angle of flight of the ball. If a camera is not available, you can assume the ball traveled at a 45-degree angle to get an estimated speed.

    • 3

      Measure the distance the ball traveled after being struck by the club using the tape measure. The distance should be in meters.

    • 4

      Multiply the distance by -9.8, then divide this value by the cosine of the flight angle times the sine of the flight angle. (If you are using 45 degrees, the cosine times sine is 0.5.) This result is the the velocity of the ball squared when it is impacted with the club. Use a scientific calculator to determine sine and cosine for angles other than 45 degrees.

    • 5

      Drop the golf ball on a flat hard surface, such as a heavy steel plate, and measure how high the ball bounces. Divide the height to which the ball bounces by the height from which the ball was dropped to get the energy transfer ratio of the ball.

    • 6

      Measure the mass of the ball and the golf club's head. Some manufactures will publish data about the club's head mass on their website or marketing materials. You can place just the head on a scale and prop up the end of the handle to make the handle level to get a close approximation to the mass of just the head.

    • 7

      Multiply the mass of the ball (from Step 6) by the velocity of the ball (from Step 4) squared times the energy transfer ratio (from Step 5). Then divide this entire value by the mass of the club's head to get the velocity of the driver squared.

    • 8

      Take the square root of the result in Step 7 to get the velocity (speed) of the club head upon impact with the ball.