The concept of swingweight was developed by custom clubmaker Kenneth Smith about 60 years ago. He was trying to figure out how to “match” clubs, and settled on balance point as a way to do so.
His swingweight scale had a “hook” to hold the grip end of the club, and a fulcrum 14 inches from the butt. He created an arbitrary scale of measure that consisted of letters A-F, each letter divided into 10 segments, i.e. D1, D2, D3, etc.
When he measured the clubs of the day, he found most of them to be in the D2 range, so that became recognized as the “standard” for men’s woods and irons.
The golf club industry quickly adopted this method of “matching” clubs . . . well, because they had no other way.
Because the longer the shaft, the heavier the head feels. Clubheads increase in weight as the shaft gets shorter, so that the swingweight will stay the same. The theory then, and now, is that if the swingweight is the same, the clubs will feel essentially the same in the golfer’s hands.
But let’s look at what has happened since Kenneth Smith invented the swingweight scale:
1) Shafts have gotten longer by at least an inch. In the 1940s, a “standard” driver was only 42-43 inches long – now most are 45 inches, if not more.
2) Shafts have gotten much lighter. Those old steel shafts weighed 150 grams or more, compared to modern graphite driver shafts in the 55-75 gram range.
3) Golfers have gotten stronger. While clubs have gotten much lighter overall, swingweights have always adhered to that D2 “standard.”
You must understand two very important factors about swingweight.
First, a “point” of swingweight – such as D2 to D3 – is not a unit of measure like an ounce or gram.
It takes much less weight to shift a driver one point, for example, than it does a wedge, because the shaft length is such an influence on this measure. Generally, the weight of a single dollar bill is a swingweight point on a driver – not much, huh?
Second, the overall weight of the club is at least as important as swingweight. Jack Nicklaus was noted for playing a driver in his prime that was 13-1/4 oz in overall weight – very heavy even for that time (most are about 10-1/2 oz now.), while his swingweight was only C9, considered very light.
Swingweight by itself is a rather worthless piece of information.
Steve Wozeniak is PGA Director of Instruction Bellevue/Lake Spanaway Golf Courses. He has taught more than 50 tour players and over 100 PGA and LPGA teaching professionals, including Jim Colbert, Rocco Mediate, Emily Klein, Jim Dent, Marco Dawson, Jim Mclean and Leonard Thompson. With his easy-to-understand, rid-yourself-of-the-nonsense approach to the golf swing, he is one of the top instructors in the country. Readers can contact him at swayne@premiergc.com or www.bellevuepgc.com.
