What is Golf Swing Weight?

Do you know that feeling when you first entered a new golf club and somehow the club feels extremely heavy or light? Let’s explore that feeling together to solve the mystery of, What is Golf Swing Weight?

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If you’re just starting out in your golf journey, you might get easily overwhelmed with all the new terminologies that are unfamiliar or foreign to you.

You might even encounter these terms for the first time and one of the terms might be swing weight.

If we are to take the word literally, we might easily jump to the conclusion that it simply means the weight of the golf club.

However, the definition is more than that.

You might even have heard other golfers mention terms like, “Oh this is probably D3”.

While the golf swing weight is not a major concern of beginner or casual golf players but professional ones do take it seriously.

So, what is golf swing weight, what is swing weight in a golf club, and why should it matter to you?

Contrary to what we first think about the term golf swing weight, it is simply the measure of how the gold club’s weight feels whenever it is swung.

It cannot be expressed in a weight metric like pounds or kilograms. Basically, golf swing weight is clearly different from the total weight.

So, what are swing weights in golf clubs?

Most golfers define golf swing weight as simply the measurement of its weight at a point away from the grip-end of your golf club when you swing it.

There are certainly numerous ways to define this but all of the explanations point to this — it is the feel of your golf club’s weight while swinging.

A lot of people are easy to dismiss learning about golf swing weight.

However, choosing the best swing weight for your golf clubs is actually:

Critical to your performance
Consistently doing perfect shots
Increasing the speed of your club
Aiming for the highest shot accuracy

Another way to say this is that if you don’t take swing weight into consideration whenever you are out buying sets of clubs and just focus on brand, you are going to miss out on the opportunity of achieving better performance in your games.

You are selling yourself short with all those possible capabilities you could have obtained.

So, what is golf swing weight in the actual games?

It is known that there is actually a direct relationship between the golfer and how they are able to do their swings in terms of timing, tempo, and rhythm.

You can think of it like a dance that the whole body sways with the golf club.

All golfers change the combination of how they swing over time, so taking the time to find the right swing weight for you at the moment might not work for you the next time.

Thus, finding an ideal swing weight is not an absolute but instead, it changes over time as you develop into a more mature golfer.

To some people, this might become very tedious and not worth the effort but we can assure you that the process is definitely worthwhile.

What factors impact golf swing weight?

Now that we know what is golf swing weight – the feel on how weight is distributed and balanced in a golf club.

We need to know the factors that impact it. It is a representation of how the weight of a part of a golf club balanced and compared to its other part.

Here are four factors that can impact swing height:

Weight of the clubhead
Weight of the grip
Weight of the shaft
Length of the golf club

These factors precisely correspond to the amount of weight in the top one-third of the club when compared to the bottom part.

Adjusting each part’s weight, even for a little, will drastically change the swing weight of a club.

If any of the four factors are changed in a golf club, the swing weight will also change.

This means that whenever you are going to buy a new club with a different grip weight, length, etc., you will have to determine all over again what is its swing weight and check whether it complements your characteristics and techniques as a golfer.

The main application of knowing golf swing weight is whenever you are matching or pairing your golf clubs in a set.

Your goal is to have all of your golf clubs somewhat similar weight whenever you swing them.

If ever you are going to change any of your clubs in a set, you will then have to rematch everything.

So if you are a golfer who constantly changes the features of your golf clubs, you will then have to measure the swing weight from scratch every time so you can match it in your sets well.

Ideally, you would want all of the swing weights to be exactly the same but not all golfers are that critical, so some golfers just choose to have the swing weights somewhat similar or close to each other.

By knowing what are swing weights in golf clubs, you’ll be able to know what factor impacts it.

How is the golf swing weight measured?

Since we’ve already discussed what are swing weights in golf clubs, let’s now see how they measure it.

To measure the golf swing weight, we can use a weight scale which is a code containing letters A, B, C, D, E, F, and G and numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.

There are over seventy-three golf swing weight measurements and the combination of each of the letters and numbers is called swing weight points.

In the factory, the golf swing weight is adjusted accordingly by adding lead tape and other types of components that can be used to fill up the shafts or the golf club heads.

It is important to know that the lightest golf swing weight is denoted by A0 and the heaviest golf swing weight is denoted by G10.

So, what is swing weight in a golf club that makes it ideal for each gender?

There are ideal golf swing weights for each gender, but note that this does not mean the other genders cannot use the other weights.

With males, my recommendation is to use swing weight ranging from D0 and D2 on your golf clubs. Meanwhile, females are more comfortable using golf clubs ranging between C5 and C7.

Golf swing weight is measured with a Swing weight which has a fulcrum and a sliding weight. This was invented by Robert Adams who is a clubmaker.

To measure your golf club’s swing weight, place it at a top of the scale and gradually adjust the sliding counterweight to make your club balance.

At the point where the counterweight stops, that is how heavy the swing weight of your golf club is.

Can Swing Weight Affect Performance?

We know what are swing weights in golf clubs. Let’s now dive deeper and check if this can affect your performance.

Since the swing weight is about how heavy the club will feel when you swing the golf club, it will definitely affect your performance.

Depending on how heavy or light the swing weight is, the effect will be recognizable.

For some players, when they use a club with a heavy swing weight, it gives them leverage and they acquire faster ball speed.

Thus, they are able to make longer shots than with a lighter club with the same swing.

It is also important to know that other players displayed longer shots with just a light swing club.

Here are some ways that swing weight affects performance:

Club and Ball Speed

There was previous research on how swing weight affects the club and ball speed.

What is golf swing weight’s impact on club and ball speed?

In that study, they significantly saw a difference with how their speed dropped as they moved from a lighter all the way to a heavier golf swing weight.

On average, they lost about 2.75 MPH which is highly significant and can definitely change one’s gameplay.

Launch and Spin Speed

In the same research, it also showed that indeed the launch and spin were significantly impacted by the golf swing weight.

However, whether it increased and decreased the speed of the launch and spin was entirely dependent on the golfer.

There were four participants of the research that had their highest launch and spin at D9 and lowest launch and spin at D0, while the other three participants garnered the opposite result.

Accuracy

This should come as no surprise to everyone that the golf swing weight indeed impacts how accurately a golfer takes the shots.

What is golf swing weight’s impact on accuracy?

On average, when a golfer moves from a different level of golf swing weight, the shots could go an 18 yards difference from their target shot.

Some people hit more accurately with a much lighter swing weight while others are hit more accurately with a heavy swing weight.

Distance

The distance was one of the biggest impacts by the golf swing weight as it can easily change a shot’s distance from 7 yards to even go as far as a 39-yard difference.

The majority of the golfers are able to do a longer distance with heavier golf swing weights.

However, it is important to note that just with the launch and spin, everyone has their own scale of swing weight so that they are able to maximize the distance of their shots.

Angle

From the previous points that golf swing changes accuracy and distance, we can easily conclude as well that it changes the angle of attack.

This is because our body adjusts according to the swing weight of the golf club and the angle can be shallow or steep depending on the player itself.

So, what is swing weight in a golf club and how does it affect performance?

At this point, you might already have noticed that it always depends on the player on how swing weight will affect your performance.

You have to keep in mind that just because a club is heavy does not mean it will produce a heavy swing weight.

There are times that a heavy golf club can give a light swing weight, and it is the same with some light golf clubs that can give heavy swing weight.

You can always fix the swing weight by adding lead tape or taking your golf club to a club-fitter and ask for help to make your golf club fit with your optimal swing weight.

Final Takeaways

In this article, we were able to answer the following questions: what is swing weight in a golf club, how is it measured, and how does it impact performance?

We should always remember that the golf swing weight and the total weight are completely different, or simply mutually exclusive.

A light golf club may have a heavy swing weight, while a heavy golf club may have a light swing weight.

This is because a golf’s swing weight is all about the feel of where the club balances and it is not the metric weight of the club itself.

The rule of thumb is that stronger golfers should make use of heavier swing weights while weaker golfers should use lighter swing weights.

If you still haven’t found the ideal swing weight for you, you can simply try out different types of golf clubs and over time, you will be able to find one that feels just right.

In no time, you will be just like most golfers that have a favorite pair of golf clubs because the reason why they love it so much is that it gives them the right balance to do the things they want to do.

So, we encourage you to go explore and try out different golf clubs with various swing weights.