When you go in for a custom golf fitting, the technicality of the information can be a bit much for the average golfer to understand. It makes sense to do a bit of research before your fitting so that you can understand the data that you are getting from the launch monitor and master fitter. One of the most critical fitting statistics to consider is Efficiency. This can also be called Smash Factor, but Efficiency is a much better way of describing exactly what this number will tell us. Let’s look at what efficiency is and how you can ensure your equipment is helping your Efficiency.
What Is Efficiency?
Efficiency is the ball speed by the club speed. This helps to give us a number that explains how much energy is transferred from the club head to the ball. For instance, if you have excellent Efficiency in your golf swing, the most amount of energy from the club will transfer to the ball. If you are a player that is struggling with Efficiency, the moves you are making in your swing or your equipment can cause a lack of transfer of this energy.
How Can A Golf Fitting Help Increase Efficiency?
A True Spec golf fitting will help to test your Efficiency rates and see where your issues are. Sometimes these issues are very obvious to see, and others may come as a surprise to a player. The good news is that a master club fitter can analyze these efficiency rates and then make adjustments to the equipment they recommend. Some of these adjustments will include…
- Length
- Loft and Lie
- Weight
- Shaft Stiffness
- Club head type
The tweaks that a golf fitter can make will help increase the Efficiency rates, so players see more distance and better accuracy from their shots.
How Is Golf Swing Efficiency Decreased?
There are several reasons that your golf swing Efficiency may not be exactly what it should be. Of course, things like swing speed and plane will play into this, but the main reason is that the location where the golf ball strikes the club head is not good.
Strike location is the most important factor in determining that the golf swing is Efficient. The strike location is easily impacted by things like the length of the club and the loft and lie. This is why True Spec master fitters will first focus on this area of the fitting process before moving onto other more complex fitting parameters.
What Are Good Efficiency Ratings for A Golf Swing?
Typically speaking, the higher the Efficiency rates, the better the energy transfer from the club head to the golf ball. The higher efficiency rates will help increase the overall distance players get and improve the dispersion rates.
On the PGA Tour, the Efficiency rates are typically over 1.48 for a driver and 1.37 for an iron. The rates may be closer to 1.41 on the driver and proportionality lower on the irons for average golfers. Although these may not seem like extreme differences, a small change in the Efficiency rate will be a significant change in your golf game.
