The most important and at the same time the simplest part to understand what is the Swingweight of Golf Clubs is the term COMPENSATION.

If we go directly to its definition, it is nothing more than modifying something to maintain balance.

The heavy or light feeling of a golf club.

And does that mean that golf clubs are unbalanced once built?

The short answer is yes.

And what's more, can it happen that once they are assembled and balanced…they continue to be unbalanced?

The short answer is again YES.

Let's explain it in a deeper way.

The difference between a balanced club and one that is not, is the same difference that will exist in terms of the performance that we can get from the golf club.

It is also necessary to take into account that a golf club has a correct Swinweight for one player does not mean that it has it for all.

This means that, as a general rule, the 99% of the golf clubs that we can buy in a store, do not have the right balance, much less personalized for the requirements that each player will need... Each player has a swing weight with which his body can coordinate and he himself has a total perception of the club during the back and downswing.

….they simply carry a standard Swingweight, for all the same.

Sometimes you can even buy some clubs in a store and then they are not balanced as the manufacturer says.

How is swingweight measured?

With letters and numbers. Which are within a scale that Lucrum devised to be able to define how much weight a club had in reference to the weight of the head, length of the club, weight of the shaft and the weight of the grip.

A0 is the lightest feel of the club.

G9 the heaviest.

In this way, it goes from the letters A – G and from the number 0 – 9.

To serve as a reference, we have attached a series of images of different golf clubs with their standard Swingweight.

These are the data for a set of Wilson D7 forged irons.

This one for the new Taylormade Sim Drivers.

And what about the ladies…we haven't forgotten about you.

Here you have the Swingweights for ladies from a set of Ping Irons for women.

How do changes in the different parameters of golf clubs influence swingweight?

First of all, you should know that golf clubs as they come from the factory, as I said at the beginning, many times do not come with the specifications that the manufacturer and that is caused by the law of the average.

And you will say….

What is the law of the average?

It is something very simple, for example, for every 100 9-irons that they set and measure, they take the average and set it in the specification, and by that I mean that they are the following parameters:

• length
• loft
• lies
• swingweight

This is something that perhaps you did not know, but now I am going to explain to you what happens when you go to a store and they play the clubs and they do not explain what they play, and I am sure of this, you will have experienced the sensation of when you play the clubs and they are shorter, longer, another grip, etc.

The ball no longer comes out the same or with the sound it came out before. Well, you have a problem. Any parameter that is touched on the clubs causes its behavior to change, and often radically. Below I will explain clearly and schematically how a suit is altered with a change of parameters and what happens:

THE WEIGHT OF THE HEAD

When we change the weight of the head by 3gr, we alter the swingweight, and that will make the shaft a little harder or softer, altering the Smash Factor and as a consequence the trajectory (higher or lower).

THE WEIGHT OF THE GRIP

Many times we go to any business and ask them to change our grips for a grip model that we like and that's it. But do you know that the person who is in the business does what you ask but does not tell you, what influence can a different grip in weight and size have on the golf club?

If a grip is the same size but lighter, the swing weight will be higher over the head and the trajectory will be higher, because the shaft will be able to work more, resulting in a higher MOI.

In the event that the grip is heavier or, as is often the case, use a thicker grip (which usually weighs between 6 and 8 grams more than a traditional grip, which weighs between 48-50 grams) then the swing weight is more towards the flu. As a consequence of this, the shaft will be a little harder, the flight of the ball will be more penetrating or low, and the sensation that the player will have when raising the club is as if the head of the club was lost on the rise and then on. The descent.

THE LENGTH OF THE CLUB

I imagine that this factor is where it is most noticeable and I think the best way to explain it without talking about numbers is by giving an example that surely those of you who have children will have done it to you in a store with total ignorance of what they were doing and in order to help.

You buy some clubs in this case a driver for your son and the teacher tells you that the club is too long and that it should be made shorter. Two things can happen here:

• That you go to a business and they do the work for you, which is to cut the length that the teacher told you and if they put a grip on you, they put a junior grip. Which fixes something but everything (because the swing weight has been so altered that it's impossible for your son to lift the ball)
• That the teacher, who has a basic clubmaker course, take the driver and do it himself and with this he tries to make the client happy and have a loyal and dependent client. But the result is probably the same as in the store or maybe worse for having fewer resources.

Well, what both have been able to do is more I will explain if the driver is cut from how it comes original, for example -1 1/2″,

What does this mean?

Well then, that the change in swing weight is 9 points. In short a club that was balanced on D0 For a woman, as usually happens with children, cutting that 1.5″ less will mean that with the same grip weight the club will remain in C1.

RESULT? CATASTROPHE ……. Our son will have height problems, stability problems in the swing since to get distance he will try to move the club to the 120%, problems as a consequence of inconsistency and what bothers them the most as players LOSS OF DISTANCE.

THE WEIGHT OF THE SHAFT

I am going to try to make it clear to you, if we have a constant weight head, that is, the weight never changes, for example the weight of a Mizuno MP-20 HMB 9 iron head is 272gr. If we put a 130 gram shaft with a 36″ length (Standard) and a 50gr Golf Pride Tour Velvet grip, it will have a D2 swing weight.

If we keep all the components length, grip and head and we put a 60 gr shaft (Aerotech VOLANT FT600) the swing weight of the club will be lighter, and at no time do I want you to take into account the total weight of the club but the balance of the swing weight we will find that the same suit will have C6 of Swing weight.

With this I want you to appreciate that going anywhere to have the shafts of your clubs changed and doing it as I usually find, which is without taking into account the balance that each player should carry, that means that you invest on your part a money that later does not maximize the result that you are looking for, or as in my case, I maximize the result that I want to obtain with my player.

THE FACTOR THAT NOBODY THINKS ABOUT HIM AND AT HCC WE HAVE IT RECORDED IN FIRE

THE BALANCE POINT OF THE SHAFT

Very few fitters take into account a parameter that for me is fundamental, and not with it the most important, because if we do not have all the previous ones correctly controlled it is impossible that the last factor can be controlled later.

At Handmade Custom Clubs it is something that we always take into account when fitting and studying the player. What do I want the shaft with which my player is able to coordinate and have consistency to do?

If I had to explain what I have in my head when I work with a player and the movement scheme, Ball Height, Smash Factor, Spin, Angle of Attack, etc. I would need many pages to explain it.

But the balance of the shaft, as I have in my work philosophy, makes us PLAY WELL ON THE DAYS WE DO IT WRONG, that is, we have the ability to hit a few shots despite the fact that our swing is not as fluid as we usually do.

THIS IS A DIGITAL SWING WEIGHT MACHINE

THIS IS AN ANALOG SWING WEIGHT MACHINE

If someone is interested in me advising them regarding the doubts of the Swing weight, or, you have doubts or debate about it. Write a message and we will answer it.

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