The one thing you're probably missing when trying to hit the golf ball farther

Golf Digest senior writer Alex Myers is on a one-year mission to see how good he can get at golf through daily training, practice and playing. Read more from his “Late Scratch?” series here.

The best Christmas gift of my life came when I was 41 after a colleague hooked me up with the Stack System. The popular speed training aid had helped Matt Fitzpatrick win the U.S. Open the year before and within a few weeks, it helped me gain 10-plus yards off the tee. The best part? Each time I open the box, I feel like I’m unwrapping even more potential distance off the tee. But after about two years of using it, I had to face the fact that I was getting diminishing returns.

This was to be expected. And it’s part of the reason I knew I needed to put more of an emphasis on fitness—particularly, strength training—if I was to continue making gains off the tee. But it was through talking with my trainer for this project, Mike Carroll, that I was introduced to another key aspect of speed training that I had been previously missing. And it’s something anyone can start doing right away.

Speed training is great

Let’s back up and say that any golfer of any level can benefit from any kind of speed training. Again, Fitzpatrick was already one of the best players in the world when he seriously got into it and it wound up taking him to another level. Why? As a study by Arccos Golf’s Lou Stagner in 2022 determined, every 10 yards of added distance leads to a player’s scoring average decreasing about one stroke. So, longer hitters are starting with a big advantage. It’s literally science.

The good news? As Fitzpatrick showed, swing speed is a skill you can improve upon. During the first two rounds at Brookline on his way to winning his maiden major, the 5-foot-10, 155-pound Fitzpatrick turned heads by routinely outdriving playing partner Dustin Johnson—something that would have been unfathomable for both a couple years prior.

Of course, the Stack System isn’t the only way to improve swing speed, but it’s certainly an effective one (Our Sam Weinman wrote about it more in detail). And I’ve found it to be a nice way to scratch your golf itch during the offseason. In case you’re unfamiliar with it, here’s me using it in my house:

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Users are taken through various programs that usually take weeks to complete and consist of 20-30 minute sessions several times per week using different weight combinations. And every swing’s speed is tracked via radar and recorded through the Stack app so you can actually see your progress. Here’s a look at part of my report after finishing the Full Speed Spectrum program I recently wrapped up:

But when I first told Mike that my expected swing speed wasn’t quite matching up to the speeds I saw on a simulator, he said that’s common. And then he made an important suggestion.

Bring a radar to the range

As an ambassador for The Stack System, Carroll is well aware that it’s a tremendous product that has helped a lot of golfers.

“Removing the ball and providing a singular goal of 'swing this stick fast' gives them a chance to develop a swing that has some speed, without the fear of ball contact,” Carroll writes in his Swing Speed Training for Golf guide. “This generally leads to a much more athletic and dynamic swing that has a lot more long-term potential.”

However, he points out that swinging that stick isn’t the same as swinging your driver. And it’s a lot different than actually hitting golf balls.

"The Stack, with its focus on overspeed and overload training, is a great supplement for building more horsepower," Carroll adds. "View this more as 'training,' and doing speed training while hitting drivers as a hybrid between training and practice, as it’s really both."

Carroll began having me bring my Stack radar with me to the range and simulator (during the winter) to do speed-training sessions. (He also has me pairing this with strength training as I previously wrote about.) I do these speed sessions at the end of my range sessions when I’m completely warmed up, usually hitting 20 to 30 shots a max effort. And, yes, I sometimes feel like a lunatic swinging as hard as I can, sometimes grunting as loud as Monica Seles in her prime.

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But then I remember that video of Bryson DeChambeau doing something similar on the range at Augusta National:

Hey, it seems to work for him.

What numbers you should track

Whereas Stack sessions focus on clubhead speed, hitting actual balls allows you to track ball speed. Why is that important? Well, you could be swinging really fast, but if you’re not making good contact with the ball, it’s not going to mean much. (Smash factor measures the efficiency of energy transfer from the club to the ball and is calculated by dividing ball speed by club speed with a max ratio of 1.5.) Making faster swings at the range gets you used to actually hitting golf balls outside of your comfort zone.

“It’s like going down a hill on a bike at 30 mph vs. 20,” Carroll tells me. “It’s going to take a few runs to get used to it and keep from crashing.”

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At the range, it doesn’t matter where the ball goes—to a point. The goal is to get used to making better contact with the ball at higher speeds, something that will be reflected with better ball speeds even if you’re swinging the club at the same speed. And in case you’re worried about becoming more erratic off the tee, don’t be. In fact, your accuracy might improve because to swing faster, your body has to be working more efficiently. Steve Buzza, a Golf Digest Best Young Teacher, noticed this while working on his master's thesis in biomechanics. "Of the 28 elite golfers I studied," Buzza writes, "those who emphasized distance over accuracy not only hit it longer, they hit it straighter."

After a speed session, I record my clubhead speed, ball speed and carry distance into Carroll’s Fit For Golf App. The progress has been easy to see—and the clubhead speed has transferred to real results. In December, I shocked my colleagues by finishing second in a long drive contest at the company Christmas party with a poke of 295 yards. And less than a month later, I touched 160 mph ball speed for the first time.

Why is that such a big deal for me? Well, when I started this in late October, I would have been thrilled with any ball speed over 150. As a general rule, every extra mile per hour of clubhead speed equals and additional 2.3 to 3 yards of carry (the difference is based on the quality of contact) while every mile per hour of ball speed equals two yards. So going from low 150s to 160 is a huge deal or, potentially, about 20 extra yards of carry. I also should mention that the idea isn’t to swing at max effort on the course, but that by doing speed training, you raise your floor speed as well.

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After a few months of this, my old "fast" swings are now the same speeds as my new "normal" swings. You can track these important numbers in other ways, but I like how Mike’s app is organized so you can compare to your old sessions—and how it lets you know when you’ve set a new personal best. Here’s a look at an early session from October:

And then one in January:

You can see that while my average club (swing) speed in that second session went up about three mph, my average carry went up at a much higher rate due to a six mph increase in ball speed as I’ve gotten better at making good contact while swinging faster. Thus, a 17-yard-plus improvement in average carry. I don’t care what people think about how I look at the range if I’m getting results like that.

Speed training should come in various forms

As Carroll explained, it’s common for people to have a discrepancy in how fast they swing The Stack or other speed training aids vs. how fast they swing on the range or the course. The goal with speed training with using golf balls—Carroll even suggests using foam balls first—is to bridge that gap. But it doesn’t stop there.

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Carroll suggests going back to the Stack once you’ve done that in order to progress to the next level. And then repeating the process with hitting golf balls in order to make sure the increased speed is transferring to the course. This is your best chance to avoid plateauing for long periods. (And, yes, fitness, specifically, strength training, helps as well.)

So I’ll continue to speed train both ways and I'd strongly suggest the same to others. If anything, I’m now swinging my driver faster than the Stack, which feels weird, but is obviously a better situation than before. It's taken a lot of work, but making yourself swing harder—especially with a golf ball involved—is work anyone can do. And considering how statistically valuable an extra 10 yards has been proven to be, this seems like a surefire strategy to trim strokes off your handicap. In other words, go grip it and rip it.

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