Launch monitors have become a vital part of club fitting, teaching and practice within the golf industry. Understanding the data and numbers those launch monitors spit out, however, can be confusing, difficult to understand and often overwhelming.
They serve an important purpose, though, in improving your game; whether that’s in the form of getting into the right equipment or changing your swing.
So, understanding what that information means can make a big difference in the decisions you make and purchases you decide on.
“The three big ones when it comes to ball flight and distance are ball speed, launch and spin. Those are the biggest ones,” Carl’s Golfland fitter Brad Coffield said. “Ball speed can be relative to club speed, but optimizing your ball speed, launch and spin are the key things for distance and distance control. Those three are like the holy grail of ball flight.”
If you don’t understand what those numbers mean, they can’t help you get better or optimize the equipment you’re using. So, let’s dive into each category and what they mean relative to you and your swing.
Ball Speed
Ball speed is going to be dependent on each golfer and while the optimal outcome is fast swing speed, since that would hypothetically make the ball go farther, it’s all relative to the individual player and club they’re hitting on how fast the ball speed is.
A driver and a seven iron are not going to produce the same ball speed because of their makeup and how they’re used. But, the ball speed can help you determine what type of shaft you should be using, what type of club fits you best, and in some cases, what type of golf ball optimizes your results.
“If you’re hitting a seven-iron, the 120 mph range, that would fall into an extra stiff shaft,” Coffield said. “105 and above would be stiff, 90 mph and above would be regular, 75 and above would be senior and anything less than that would be ladies. That’s a simplified way of looking at it.”
Ball speed and club speed are related, but both independently don’t always tell the whole story. If a golfer swings hard, but misses the center of the face, that would impact ball speed. That’s partially why another category exists called smash factor.
Smash factor is ball speed divided by club speed, which gives a good look at the type of impact that was made on the face.
“I look at it as how well did they hit it. It’s a quality of strike thing,” Coffield said. “Without me physically asking or knowing anything, if I didn’t hear the actual strike, I can just look at the data on the screen.”
For smash factor, based on USGA regulations on clubs and balls, 1.5 is typically the maximum and most optimal smash factor you will see if you hit a driver. The number will go down as you work your way down your set of clubs, into irons and eventually wedges. A good smash factor with a seven-iron would be around 1.35 to 1.4, and a good smash factor for a wedge would be around 1.1.
Spin Rate
The spin rate on your golf ball matters because it could impact the shot shape and ultimately the distance on your shot. It measures how much spin the club is producing on the golf ball, which then affects where the ball goes.
Typically, a higher spin rate will create higher launch and a lower spin rate will create a lower trajectory. Getting too much spin can work against you if it causes your ball to soar too high in the air.
The idea is that you want to find the optimal trajectory that launches your ball out at the right angle with the right speed to maximize distance. If you were to throw one rock high up in the air, one really low to the ground and throw one somewhere in the middle all at the same speed without any other factors impacting the rock, the one in the middle will likely travel the farthest.
It’s the same thing with a golf ball, which is why you want to optimize your spin rate.
“In a driver, we’re talking about trying to get that ball to plateau at its apex,” Coffield said. “We don’t want it to keep climbing up in the air because your descent angle is going to get too steep and that ball is going roll like 10 feet when it gets to the ground. Seeing that plateau or rainbow trajectory will the help the ball not only carry the right distance, but then tumble and roll down the fairway.”
If someone is hitting a driver with low spin, a fix might be to add more loft. That would theoretically help them launch the ball higher to optimize the trajectory, but it’s also going to produce more spin.
The golf ball can have an influence on spin, as well. Different brands produce products to create more or less spin depending on what you’re looking for and the trajectory you’re trying to see.
The spin rates will vary by player and by swing, but a general rule of thumb is to see driver spin in the low 2,000 to 3,000 range. For irons, you will typically multiple 1,000 by the number on the bottom of the club. So a seven-iron should be around 7,000 rpm.
Launch Angle
Launch angle and spin rate can be intertwined and fixing any issues with launch angle can be diagnosed through the spin rate.
If a player has high spin that’s producing a high launch angle, a fix could be a less lofted club which would help with both categories. The diagnosis can be dependent on the player, though, and how they deliver the club to the ball.
“The laws of physics are the same for every golfer, you want to launch it at the right angle and spin low and that’s going to give you the most distance,” Coffield said. “Players that hit down on the ball, you’re creating a glancing blow to the ball and the ball is sliding up the face and that’s what’s creating the spin. A player that hits up on the ball with driver is kind of pushing the ball off the tee so the ball is coming off with less spin.”
A player that hits down on the ball need to spin it more because they typically don’t get the ball up high enough. The loft they would need to get the ball in the air will create too much spin, though, because of the nature of their swing. So, those players need to lower the launch but spin it higher to help get the ball in the air without losing distance.
“It’s basically a window based on club head speed,” Coffield said. “A regular flex golfer, we’d like to see upper teens, maybe 20 degree of launch with a seven-iron. That stiff flex player is going to be more like mid to upper teens with 16 to 18. Then you get to your tour player speed that’s going to be more in the 15 to 17 window.”
