Swing weight is one of the most important factors in delivering consistent shots. It’s what connects your club specs to your personal swing dynamics, and if your fitter isn’t paying attention to it: you’re in the wrong place.
Join us as we run through all the different factors that affect swing weight, from shaft and head deadweight, to the often overlooked impact of grip size, and how these interact factors interact to make seemingly identical clubs feel completely different.
Ultimately, your fitter should be considering all elements to create a swing weight that suits your playing style, to execute consistent release times.
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00:00 Golf Swing Weight Explained
00:25 What is Club Swing Weight & Swing Weight Calculators?
02:11 Head Weight: Most Obvious Impact on Swing Weight
03:39 Shaft Dead Weight and Swing Weight
05:11 Shaft Length
05:58 Grip Weight: The Most Overlooked Factor?
06:45 Balance Point
08:04 Lie Angle & Head Weight Positioning
09:16 How is Golf Swing Weight Used in a Fitting?
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So today we’re going to start looking at swing weight. It’s something that lots of people talk about, mention, kind of know what the numbers are, but actually don’t have a clue what it actually means. So we’re going to talk you through what it is, what affects it, let you know what actually we do with it during a fitting. [Music] So question number one, what actually is swing weight? It’s something that we all know there’s a letter and a number attached to it. But what does that really mean and how do we measure it? Well, the how do we measure it bit is pretty simple. There’s a machine like this with a fixed fulcrum. It’s about 15 in. Uh and what you do is you put a club onto this scale buted up against the end, let it rest, and it spews out a number and a letter. So in this one, D0.8. So what that actually means is relative to this scale, it’s giving you a static balance of the club. So relative to this fulcrum, there’s a mass on the end. Pulling down on it exerts an upward force on that end creates a measurement. But it’s a static balance point. So there are a few flaws to this because it doesn’t take into account anything to do with the club. Doesn’t take into account what the components are. So head style, head weight, shaft type, weight, grip type, weight, doesn’t take into account length. Uh it’s just a ref, it’s ultimately it’s a reference point. Um so within a set of arms that are all the same components through that set, as long as they’re a fairly kind of stock standard progression of half an inch of club, it has a relevance club to club. Outside of that, it it doesn’t actually as a as a scale, D1, for example, does not feel the same to swing as you change the components. So, whilst it’s a reference point and start point, it’s actually very flawed. Now, we’re going to go through what affects that number and look at each element of it and give an explanation as to why it affects it, what it actually means to swing. So, first we’re going to look at head weight. So this is my own battle warden sixiron as you can see from the kind of the dents and the dings on it and little piece of lead tape that I’ve used to balance it for me. So head weight is the most obvious thing to start with because it’s measuring you people talk about swing rate as feel for the club head. That’s one of the terminologies people use for it or think that that’s what it gives you. So head weight will have a direct impact on swing weight because obviously it’s the mass it’s the heaviest mass of the club. You know, a standard 6on weights around 258 g. Shafts from 75 to 135 gram or actually slightly lighter and grips are from 3540 g. There are some up to 120 odd, but the heaviest part of the club is the head. So, we know cuz this is the one we tested earlier, D0.8. Doesn’t take much to change swing weight. So, I have a 1 g piece of lead tape. Now, if I pop that on the back of the head and put that back on the scale, we go from D0.8 to D1.3. So, the general conversion is for every 2 g on the head, you increase swing weight by a point. So, what that really means is that, you know, a slightly heavier head, obviously it moves the balance point within the whole club a little bit more towards the club head. the club swings a little bit heavier, but as you can see from this, it really doesn’t take much to change it. So, very finite changes in head weight, they’re going to have quite a big effect on how the club swings. So, the next thing we’re going to focus on shaft weight. So, I’m going to start with the KBS Tour 110 and then keep the same model in the KBS Tour 130 with that 20 g change. See how much that changes it. So, we’re going to start off with the KBS Tour 110. Now, these are the same series of shafts, same balance point within the shaft. So, the only change is dead weight. It’s the same grip, same head. So, on the TOR 110, this one’s D0.0. If we take this off, switch it around to the 130. So, the only change is the dead weight of the shaft is 20 g heavier. Same grip, same head, same length, same balance point within the shaft from a structure point of view. But, we go from D 0.0 0 D1.2. So that 20 g change in shaft weight, even though nothing else has changed, the swing weight’s changed. Now, actually with a heavier shaft, there’s more mass in this center section of the shaft. So proportionally, the head weight is lighter within the when you take into account the total weight that the club’s made up. Yet the swing weight’s gone up. But would that that would normally mean we’d think, well, you can feel the head more. Whereas in this instance, heavier shaft means you’re actually feeling the shaft weight more than the head. Because if you if you take a total weight of club of 500 g and the head’s 300 of that, you take 50 g out the shaft. Well, the prominence of the head weight’s even greater. So in this instance, a heavier swing weight actually means you feel the head less. So keep that in mind. So next thing we’re going to look at is shaft length. So if we keep the same shaft, same shaft type, same model, same flex, same weight, same head, and we go from 37 12 in to 38, that 1/2 in or so of length we can see at the top there, that would make this club go from D1.2 to D4.7. So that’s three and a half swing weight points. If that was pure head weight, that’s roughly seven grams, which is a heck of a lot. So which is why iron heads through a set generally progress by seven grams or so to keep it feeling the same to swing. But just by going longer, the mass is further away. So the force around the fulcrum is greater, the moment of inertia is greater, and therefore it swings heavier, and the swing weight goes up. So length has an effect on how it swings, too. So as you can see here, we’re now at D2.5. So what’s changed? This is the same 38 in shaft KBS Tour 130, the same ping head, but we’ve gone from standard size to valve at 360 at 50 g to a Ling Crossline midsize at 62. So that 12 g difference has brought that swing weight down by 2.2 points. So the general conversion is for every 5 g in the grip, it changes by a swing rate point. It’s massively overlooked this. Most players would think, well, it’s just a just a bit of rubber. It can’t make that much difference. But grip weights can go from 37 38 gram all the way up to if you take Bryson’s Jumbo Maxes, they’re 128 gram, which is heavier than most shafts. So you can have a massive effect on the balance of the club and the way it swings by just using the grip. So be very careful when you change it over. So one other thing that we use a lot in fitting and and influences what components we pick during the fit, but isn’t really talked about a lot is balance point in the shaft. We looked at dead weight, we’ve looked at length. They seem pretty obvious, but balance point is a real strong influence on how the club swings and what the swing weight is. So, we’ve got two 100 g shafts. We’ve got the KBS TOV in 100 g. We’ve got the dynamic gold mid and 100 g. So, in the TOV, the balance point is upper mid. It’s not a counterbalance shaft, but it’s higher up the shaft. And with this one, swing weight C9 12. With the dynamic gold mid, the balance points much nearer the bottom end. Now, actually, how far the balance point changes is not as much as you’d think. It doesn’t take very much to change the swing rate and change the way it swings. However, a more tip balance shaft like this down at Gold Mid is D2.7, whereas the upper mid, the sort of slightly counterbalanced version of a steel shaft, the TOV C9.5, that’s a three swing rate point shift. That is massive in terms of the way the club actually moves. So, it’s something that we really use to influence the way that the club swings for the player and how it suits their timing. So, the applications in the fitting, which we’ll come on to shortly, really strongly influenced by balance point in the shaft. So, two further small but still have an influence on swing weight. Two further things are lie. So, if we take an iron head here, you the flatter you make it, you’re actually moving that center of mass round slightly further away from the tip of the shaft. So the gearing around at the moment of inertia around the shaft is slightly more. Make it more upright. It actually pulls it closer in. It’s a narrower inertia around the shaft. Therefore, it swings a little bit lighter. So also you’re lengthening and shortening the shaft a little bit. Again, we know that has an influence on swing weight. The other one again is where the mass is oriented around the shaft. So you on this head the weight’s right at the back. So if you think if the center of mass was right here, the distance from the tip of the shaft is quite big and the angle’s more kind of geared around has a greater influence on how the club swings than if the weight’s right at the front. It’s a narrower distance, therefore there’s less force as the the smaller distance, the gearing is less, therefore has less of an influence on how the head moves. So it’s not necessarily as much on swing rate. a little bit on swing weight, but actually how the club moves and swings kind of goes into what people understand swing weight to be. But those two have a small but still an influence on how the club moves. So, how does swing weight influence the overall fitting process? Well, actually, because of all those different elements that go together to create swing weight and that can change it, ultimately the correct swing weight is a combination of the right shaft, the right dead weight, the right length, the right balance point, the right grip size and weight, the right head weight, the right lie. So, it’s a result of all the other elements being correct. But what does it mean when you’re swinging? Well, the weight distribution of the club and I would I would really call swing weight is a a number that gives you a depiction of the overall mass properties of the club. So I say everything about the club goes into that from from say the weight of the grip, the head, the shaft, the balance point, you it’s all part of that um accumulation of influences. So we’re looking at trying to get the player and the club to sync up. Ultimately, that’s really from a fitting point of view, that’s functionally what we’re trying to achieve. And we all put energy into the handle differently. So for some players, it’ll be a pull with the hands and arms. For others, it’s a it’s a drive with the lower body. But as you can see from just those two, the lines and the directions of force are totally different. So why would you use lighter or heavier swing weight? So, one of the key things here is going to be we want to get the club head arriving and squaring naturally down the players line and without compensation. Once you do that, you can get consistency. So, this is the KBS TOV. It’s a C9 and a half swing weight. It’s pretty light. So, what is it that’s going to make that likely to work? If you get someone who pulls hard on the handle and hits hard with the hands and arms, what you can see here, that club gets out in front of them easily, there’s no resistance to squaring the club head up. But if you have a strong move, what tends to happen is you overpower the balance and the mass of the club head and flip it over left. So essentially, you’re through the shot before we really intend to be. So who does it suit? Well, a higher balance club, a lighter swing weight club suits someone who doesn’t create a strong, most people call it release, but don’t have a strong pattern into the back of the ball. So, generally speaking, if you tend to have a right hand miss, you know, a lighter swing makes it easier to square the club head up. Now, these are broad generalizations. Everyone moves differently. You one of our fitters, Matt, who you may see in some of our other videos, who hits it a heck of a long way. the club gets behind, he flips it over. So, it’s not a a one-sizefits-all thing, but these are broad generalizations. We’d use a lighter swing weight for someone who doesn’t have a strong fetch of the club head, maybe a little less handsy and armsy, very much body turn, kind of quieter through the ball, where we’re trying to reduce the resistance to getting the club head through. So lighter swing, if I go very dead arm with this swing, a lighter swing rate helps me to just turn and collect it without having to be dynamic into the back of the ball. So it’s very easy to get through, but I’m not really going after it at all. I’m going to switch to the heavier swing weight club and go through what suits that. So switched into the dynamic gold mid, which we know is three swing weight points heavier. So balance points close to the club head, therefore it’s going to swing heavier. And ultimately what that means is I’ve got to put more energy into the club to fetch the club through. So that nice quiet move that I can make with a higher balance, lighter swing weight point generally not really going to work with this. It suits somebody who’s got a little bit more of an aggressive move. And because you’re accelerating, putting more energy in, you’re creating more momentum through the club and then the club head comes through. So, if I put that kind of quiet dead arm body turn swing on that I that worked with the tov, I’m not pulling on the club enough to fetch it. So, off to the right it goes. And so, there are going to be instances where for some players it creates a flip, but ultimately the club gets behind. So, the exaggeration is I move the handle. If I’m not fetching it enough, essentially exaggeration is the club drops in and stays behind and essenti either then I stall out and flip it or it carries on right, opens the face up and goes off there. So what suits a heavier swing weight from an action point of view? Well, as I said, a more aggressive move where I’m accelerating harder, putting more energy into the club, putting more momentum into the club, so it catapults it through more. So something where I’m shutting the face down a little bit more potentially, but getting that club head through, I’ve got to work harder. I’ve got to put a bit more speed into it. I’ve got to put a bit more aggression into it. Then it squares up. So ultimately, we’re using the weight distribution of the club to suit how I move. And you can both make or break someone’s consistency by getting it all elements other than balance point in the shaft or head weight or grip weight or dead weight. They can all break down that consistency. So what a skilled fitter is going to do is dial into all each of those elements, test them, but also see what is giving you the most natural timing. Because the best club setup for me, and then someone else with exactly the same club speed as me could be two very, very different specs based on how we deliver the club, which muscle groups we use to deliver it, the mechanics of the swing, ultimately the physics of how you move the club, and really you want the player and the club to be a team. If you get all those elements right, then the player and the club essentially move as one, which allows you to stay balanced, which allows you to deliver the head more consistently. But the swing weight bit and that balance point is about really getting that club head arriving squaring at the ball. So your low points consistent, the club face squares up more readily and it takes compensations away. So it’s that arrival of the club head. That’s a release timing is what a lot of people call it. I’ve never liked the term release because I think it makes people think about rolling the face over, but ultimately the timing of that club head arriving so it’s natural, freed up, and gives you as much consistency as possible. So, as you can see, there are lots of layers that go into what creates swing weight. and the right swing weight with the wrong components or the right components with the wrong swing weight both can mean that your consistency and ability to deliver the club on a repeatable way is compromised. So, it’s something that really does take a skill and a skill fitter to diagnose the correct shaft weight, balance point, head weight, and setup to optimize your game as much as possible. So, I hope that’s helped to demystify it a little bit. It’s probably complicated it slightly, but ultimately I hope it’s helped to understand why it’s so important within a fitting and what the influences are. So, if you like this video, hit the like button, subscribe. There’ll be some more tech info for you coming soon. [Music]
14 Comments
That was very informative. I have just swapped the grip on my driver from CP2 Pro standard (with a couple of extra layers of tape) to a tour velvet jumbo grip. Whilst I love the extra control the bigger grip gives me (I can now hit a draw with my driver!) the driver head definitely feels lighter. I am guessing that the change of grip has probably added c.8g to the grip weight.
How much lead tape should I try adding to the head to compensate for the extra grip weight or because it is a counter balanced shaft (Accra tz6 – you guys fitted me!) am I likely to make it worse
Great video. It’s clear from other videos you’ve published that people just don’t understand swing weight and the relevance it really is to each person.
Love this!! I'd love to see you do 3 SW changes on driver. Same shaft same head just swing 110mph with head weights set to C9/D3/D7. Would love to see what that change does to ball flight & specs
What does counter balance do for a driver ? And irons for that matter
Is that just pure feel ?
Expertly explained sir. That's why I will never buy another club that isn't fitted. Takes the guessing game out of it and stops you wasting hours searching on Ebay and market place 😂
Very good, Simon, and as ever explained brilliantly. I am looking forward to the winter ball video that you talked about following my question on Monday night's show.
Well explained Simon – however the introduction of the music as background noise is distracting, Don't know how others feel about that but IMO it doesn't add to the quality of the content.
Really well done video. I think most players benefit from going to lighter swing weight, many don’t want to admit it and that’s one reason why oversize grips have gained in popularity
Best and most comprehensive discussion about swing weight that I’ve ever watched! Really helps explain why the “I always play D3” doesn’t necessarily apply when you start changing components.
I ran into this a few months back when after changing to a slightly lighter and softer iron shaft. I reshafted and rebuilt my 7 iron at D3 because that’s what felt the best and provided best contact with the new shaft. After a couple weeks of testing I noticed my divots were toe deep and ball contact was predominantly toe side so I had the lie checked. The lie angle on my 7 iron was 4° flat, (2° flatter than I expected). I ended up at standard lie angle and when I measured the swing weight it was now close to D2 even though it didn’t feel any different. So I stuck some lead tape on it to test at D3. After about five swings the lead tape came off and I settled on D2. I now look at swing weight as a number to reference for a feel and combo that works after testing rather than a something to just target.
Thanks for this great education!
Why did the editor make the preposterous decision to add the background music?
The constant background music. Huh? This will cause me to unsubscribe if you keep doing it.
All this uncertainty around spec is causing me to hold off buying new clubs. I like a midsize grip, but have no idea if when ordered, they will actually be built with that in mind. The alternative is a custom builder but I’d imagine the costs are prohibitive. 🤷♂️
Thanks, this helps a bit, but i still have questions. In a fitting, how do you decide to add weight to the head or grip, vs swap out the shaft for a different weight?