In the industry of golf instruction, golf swing gets most of the glamorous coverage in popular publications and on social media, but there are many ingredients in the recipe of a well executed golf shot. One key ingredient is club head speed. Not in the traditional way of looking at club head speed as an indicator of distance but instead as an indicator of consistency. PGA Tour players have “stock” distances for each club with their “go to” shot, where they can deliver the club head with uncanny consistency. Amateurs on the other hand deliver the club head speed with much more variance. As their tempo speeds up and slows down and they chase longer shots on the range, it creates an environment of inconsistency. Instead, they should be working on finding, and grooving their “cruising speed”; a speed and tempo that is comfortable for them where they can feel like they can repeat it over and over with great balance. Then, work on finding and grooving that cruising speed with all of your clubs. In a game where consistency is hard to come by, we can create an environment that promotes consistency by controlling the things we can and letting go of the things that we can’t. We can control our approach to practice, our pre shot routine, setting up the right way every time and staying in balance on every shot. Here are some suggestions to help find your cruising speed, using a launch monitor in your practice can help dial in consistent club head speed, also just paying attention to your own balance, tempo and feedback from the golf shot can go a long way. Find your cruising speed and you will be one step closer to finding some consistency in an inconsistent game.
