Golf Equipment -
Swingweight
Swingweight is a factor
that casual golfers rarely concern themselves with and serious golfers
often concern themselves with.
But what is it, and is it something with which you need to be concerned?
In non-technical terms, swingweight is a measure of how the weight of
the club feels when it's swung. Why is it important? Because if your
clubs do not match in swingweight, they may not all feel the same to you
during your swing.
As for the technical definition of swingweight, here's how clubmaker
Ralph Maltby describes it: "The measurement of a golf club's weight
about a fulcrum point which is established at a specified distance from
the grip end of the club."
Michael Lamanna, Director of Instruction at The Academy at La Cantera in
San Antonio, Texas, puts Maltby's definition in easier-to-understand
terms: "Swingweight is a balance measurement and is the degree to which
the club balances toward the clubhead." If Club A has a balance point
closer to the clubhead than Club B, then Club A will feel heavier in the
swing.
So there are different ways of saying it, but it comes back to how the
weight of the club feels during the swing.
Swingweight and the actual weight of the club are different things, and
understanding the difference goes a long way toward understanding the
role of swingweight.
The actual weight of a golf club is expressed in grams. Swingweight is
expressed as "C10" or "D1" or some other combination of letter and
number (more on that in a sec). Those measurements are taken using a
swingweight scale, the contraption pictured at the top of this article.
Take a club, say a 3-iron. Imagine adding lead tape to the 3-iron. No
matter where you put the lead tape, the actual weight of the club will
be identical. That is, if the lead tape is on the clubhead, at the
middle of the shaft or on the grip, the club's actual weight will be the
same - the original weight of the club plus the weight of the lead tape.
Now imagine swinging that 3-iron with the lead tape on the clubhead,
then at the middle of the shaft, then on the grip. How much weight you
feel you are swinging will be different depending on where the lead tape
has been added - even though the total weight of the club is identical
in all three instances. That's swingweight.
The key application of swingweight is in matching the clubs within a
set. You want all your clubs to feel the same weight during the swing.
If you are replacing a club or adding one, you want the new club to
match the swingweight of your current clubs.
But how important is swingweight, really? Recreational golfers who fancy
themselves equipment "experts" - you know the type - might argue that it
is very important, and for many golfers, they are right.
But not everyone is convinced that swingweight is something most
recreational golfers need to lose sleep over.
Lamanna, for one, says, "In my experience, most players can only sense
large differences in swingweights, and even Tour pros have a hard time
telling the difference in swingweight between clubs with different
shafts."
Lamanna says the focus seems to be shifting back to total weight as the
key weight measurement. "It seems in the past 10 years there has been a
reduced emphasis on swingweight by club manufacturers. The overall
weight of the club - in particular the shaft gram weight - is these days
the measurement upon which they focus.
"Research indicates that lighter shafts are, in general, better for the
average golfer. Less weight produces shots of greater distance and
accuracy for beginning and intermediate players. The low handicappers
and pros have higher swing speeds, more control over the movements of
the club and they possess an acute sense of 'feel' for the head of the
club. The shafts best suited for them typically are higher in gram
weight and have heavier swingweights."
Perhaps the moral is that it is ideal to have a set of clubs that match
in swingweight, but for most golfers it is not critical, so long as the
swingweights of the individual clubs are close.
Swingweight is expressed with a letter and number; "C10," for example.
The letters used are A, B, C, D, E, F and G, and the numerals 0, 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Each combination of letter and number is
known as a "swingweight point," and there are 77 possible swingweight
measurements.
A0 is the lightest measurement, progressing up to the heaviest, G10. If
you feel your clubs are too light in the swing, then you'll want to go
up the scale; too heavy, down the scale.
The manufacturers' standard for men's clubs is D0 or D1, and for women's
clubs, C5 to C7.
Swingweight can be adjusted post-production by adding lead tape or
changing out components (i.e., going to larger clubhead, or a different
shaft or grip, or trimming the shaft). Custom clubmakers can also adjust
swingweight in some cases by adding different types of fill material
inside shafts at different points, or inside clubheads.
From:
http://golf.about.com/cs/componentscustom/a/swingweight.htm
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