How to Increase Club Head Speed [15 Tips For Immediate Results]

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How to Increase Club Head Speed Take it From A Scratch Golfer.

Hitting the ball farther makes it easier to shoot lower scores. Plain and simple. 

If you’re hitting the ball longer off the tee and requiring less club for your approach shots into greens, you’re going to drop strokes off your handicap quickly, but how do we get there?

The most uncomplicated way of boosting your distance with every club in your golf bag is by increasing your club head speed. 

Many amateur and recreational golfers share a bit of fear about increasing their club head speed, worried about potential injury or changing their swing mechanics by accident.

This breakdown will show golfers of all skill levels our favorite tips that are fun to practice, pose no threat to injury, and most importantly, work quickly to increase your club head speed.

Make sure you stick around until the end of our breakdown where we answer a few of our readers’ most commonly asked questions as well as share a few bonus tips to help golfers develop more club head speed!


10 Best Ways to Increase Club Head Speed

1. Tee The Ball Higher

Teeing the golf ball higher does wonders for golfers struggling with distance and a lower, spinny ball flight.

Teeing the ball higher changes your angle of attack (the angle the club face reaches the golf ball) and forces your swing path further to the right (for right-handed golfers, lefties should inverse this thought), resulting in a higher likelihood of a draw with more height, less spin, and more roll-out once it hits the short grass.

2. Move the Ball Further Forward in Your Stance

This tip is more for tee shots and fairway woods, but moving the ball slightly farther forward in your stance does a few things to increase your club head speed naturally and instantaneously. 

By moving the ball slightly further forward (with your driver, think forward 3 inches or 2 ball lengths up from your standard position) you allow the clubhead more time to generate speed and increase the amount of loft your club face is providing to the golf ball for more height on your ball flight. 

3. Turn Your Toes Outward for Greater Hip Mobility and More Speed

Turning your toes outward by a few degrees enables the human body to have more flexibility and mobility in their hips. 

By turning your rear toes outward, you allow yourself to make a more complete backswing with a full rotation. By turning your front toes outward, you allow yourself more ability to rotate through the downswing and follow through for more clubhead speed naturally. 

This tip will require a moderate amount of experimentation by the player at the driving range but works immediately and helps the author tame his once nasty hook caused by limited range-of-motion!

4. Take Your Pre-Round Stretching More Seriously!

If we had a dollar for every time we played with a beginner golfer and they came straight from the car to the first tee with no stretching or warm-up, we’d have enough money to retire!

Stretching works wonders for increasing a player’s range of motion and club head speed!

By stretching for 10-15 minutes before a round or extended practice session, you’re reducing your likelihood of muscle strain or tear drastically while simultaneously activating the muscles, tendons, and joints that you’re expecting to perform at their best while you play!

*Quick Note* If a golfer performs these stretches routinely, they will increase their range of motion and ability to generate force without injury, resulting in way more club head speed. 

The three best stretches to get your body ready pre-round are:

  • Overhead Shoulder, Elbow, Tricep Stretch
  • Bending Alternating Toe Touches
  • Lunge and Twists

Overhead Shoulder, Elbow, Tricep Stretch

Setup: Golfers should grab their longest club and position both hands on either end before extending the club overhead and as far above and behind their body as possible.

This stretch loosens a lot more parts of golfers bodies than just its title tells. 

Overhead Shoulder, Elbow, Tricep Stretch

Performing this stretch for a few minutes loosens the rear deltoids, trapeziuses, elbow tendons, triceps, forearms, and wrists at the same time. All areas that are injury prone to golfers and quick to tighten from stress and other daily factors.

Bending Alternating Toe Touches

Setup: Position your feet wider than shoulder width and take turns alternating the opposite hand towards as close to the opposite foot’s toes as possible while primarily bending at the waist (keep a generous amount of knee bend to avoid overstretching).

Bending Alternating Toe Touches

This stretch combines a bending movement with a twisting motion to loosen the back, shoulders, hips, hamstrings, and obliques simultaneously. 

This is a perfect stretch for the dynamic moves required for a great and powerful swing!

Lunge and Twists

Setup: Alternate lunging with each leg. Once you’ve made it to the lunge position, use both arms to assist twisting in the same direction as whichever leg is bent (as illustrated above). 

This stretch warms up a golfer’s leg muscles, ankle/knee/hip joints, and actively prepares the spine and neck for the torque and force that’s created during the swing. 

Lunge and Twists

5. Build Up Your “Golf Muscles”

If you want to take your club head speed more seriously, pumping some iron and building the “golf muscles” is a fantastic way to help. 

We define the “golf muscles” as the legs, shoulders, and core. 

While the goal isn’t to be bulky and immobile, having more muscle mass and endurance in these crucial areas of the body allows players to generate more force during the swing, resulting in greater speed and more distance. 

If you want more in-depth golf workouts, check out our list of the 11 Most Effective Golf Exercises.

6. Use a Lighter Shaft

While we understand many beginner golfers are using older or gifted equipment that might not be fit for their specific swing, having properly weighted shafts is a sure-fire way of increasing your club head speed to your swing’s full potential.

In its easiest form, heavier shafts require more force to be created during the swing, and if you can’t generate that force, the shaft will often force a lower ball flight with less spin and speed. 

A properly weighted golf shaft for your swing will allow you to maximize the amount of speed you can generate during your swing. 

7. Use a Longer Shaft

I play with a friend that is 6’9” but golfs using standard length clubs. This harms his posture and limits his ability to make a full backswing, decreasing his speed drastically!

Even if you don’t have “freak of nature height” like my friend (sorry Blake), increasing your shaft length will help you generate more speed naturally. 

A longer shaft increases the width of your swing’s arc and backswing naturally, resulting in more ball speed. 

Changing the length of a shaft can take time to adjust, so if you’re not a person that loves to practice with new clubs, this tip may not be for you.

8. Shorten Your Backswing

While it might sound preposterous to shorten your swing to increase your club head speed, many golfers can trick their mind into compensating for this shortened backswing by putting more force into the golf ball. 

With a long backswing, golfers with imperfect swing mechanics have more time to decelerate before impact, slowing their club head speed down. 

By focusing on speed at impact rather than making a full backswing, many golfers can generate more clubhead speed. 

Our favorite ways of shortening the backswing are gripping down on the shaft or thinking about not letting the club get anywhere close to our back and shoulders at the top of the backswing. 

9. Use Clubs That Cater Towards Ball Speed

Although only a select few beginner and recreational golfers will be able to afford the new $900-1100 MSRP Stealth 2 Plus driver, there are many options for newer golf equipment designed to generate more ball speed for their users. 

For example, the new Cobra AeroJet driver was designed with a more slim and aerodynamic club-head shaping that encourages the fastest ball possible for all players.

If you’re still using golf clubs from previous technological generations and feel like you’re not reaching your full speed potential, consider an upgrade to some newer clubs.

10. Use A Swing Training System Or Tool

Professional swing trainers and golf coaches around the world realized players want more clubhead speed but don’t know how to train themselves properly to do it alone. 

This is where tools like the “Stack System” have helped people from the beginner skill level all the way to golfers like Matt Fitzpatrick generate more speed in a safe and certifiable way. 

“TheStack,” is a golf club shaft with a series of weights that are attached to where a club head would normally be. By following your provided “training sessions” and alternating swinging with the varying weights that are included, golfers are effectively “speed training” like long-drive competitors and increasing their body’s ability to generate club head speed. 

11. Focus on Center Contact

While it’s easy to think, “If I swing harder, surely the ball will go further.” This doesn’t help most amateur golfers. 

That is a technically true line of thinking, but consistent center contact provides players much more repeatable distance than focusing on swinging harder alone could ever do!

(Take 5 minutes to check out what your golf club distances mean to play and become a smarter golfer right away)

On top of more reliable distance, center contact gives golfers the ability to maintain distance control and much greater levels of precision and accuracy. 

12. Get a Lesson from a Qualified Professional Golf Instructor 

Unlike 15 to 20 years ago, qualified professional golf instructors are much more common in metropolitan areas and online instructors are getting more skilled by the year as technology advances.

A professional golf lesson with an instructor will help all aspects of your golf game, including boosting your club head speed. 

A coach will have the knowledge to evaluate your swing as a whole and tweak areas that can lead to drastic results.

For example, a coach could notice a slight issue with your backswing or rotation that might feel like little to no change at all to your swing but unlocks much greater club head speed when performed properly. 

While often one of the more costly and time-consuming answers to players searching for more club-head speed, there are few things better than an expert in any field helping you reach your goals.  

13. End Range Sessions with 5-10 100% Full Speed Swings

Many amateur’s are told to never swing at 100%. 

While this advice is true for the most part, you never know how fast you can swing comfortably until you test your limits. 

We suggest golfers hunting for more club head speed should end their range sessions (once all their muscles and body are fully warmed up) with 3 to 5 swings with the driver as fast as they can. 

Don’t worry about where the ball is going, just focus on *attempting* to make center-adjacent clubface contact and swinging as fast as possible while maintaining balance to get your body used to the feeling and force needed to swing faster. 

By ending our sessions this way, we’ve seen increases in our on-course clubhead speed!

14. Relax Your Lead Arm

One of the most common mistakes we see beginner golfers make in the golf swing is having too rigid and stiff of a lead arm during their backswing. 

While this is one of the most commonly shared pieces of advice for amateurs, we find it a little misleading.

Having too straight of a lead arm develops tension in the back and shoulders, which restricts your swing and slows you down tremendously.

By focusing on keeping a softer lead arm with some slack or slight bend in your leading elbow, your upper body “golf muscles” are more relaxed which allows them to activate to their fullest through impact creating more club head speed. 

15. Experiment with Different Size Grips

This is a tip that nobody mentions, but one this author believes helped him gain 10 more yards with his long irons. 

While many golfers have heard bigger grips will take unwanted hand motion out of the golf swing, many golfers haven’t heard that smaller grips can help them gain the ability to close the clubface more consistently at impact, resulting in more center contact and more ball speed at the same time.

As an experiment, I switched from midsize Lamkin grips to standard-size Lamkin grips this year after years of playing with the larger size. 

I immediately noticed more control on my scoring irons and more distance and center contact with my longer irons. 

Obviously, grip size is something very particular and unique to everyone, but most that play golf have never even thought to mess with this aspect of their equipment.


FAQ Regarding Club Head Speed

What is “Good” Club Head Speed?

A “good” club head speed is relative to a golfer’s age, physical ability, and skill level, but when looking at the Trackman Statistics Report for an “Average Male Amateur Golfer,” the average club head speed for most golfers ranges between 91 and 100 miles an hour, with the most common being 93.4 mph. 

That being said, Trackman found that an average club head speed of 93.4 will result in an average total distance of 214 yards. 

If you’re wanting to be a “good player” (for example, under a 5 handicap) you’ll likely want to see your club head speed closer to 100+ mph for greater total distance. 

The average swing speed of a scratch golfer is 105 mph. 

How Much Can Someone Increase Their Club Head Speed?

Some golfers struggle to gain a single mile per hour of speed while other golfers, like Matt Fitzpatrick for example, have gained 5-6 miles per hour between 2020 and 2022. 

The primary tip we hear from speed-gaining experts like World Long Drive Champions Martin Borgmeier and Kyle Berkshire is to have consistency with your speed training.

Regardless of the tips you choose to follow from our list, you won’t see the results you’re searching for if you don’t exercise these tips with a lot of consistency. 

Why is “Increasing Club Head Speed” Such a Big Topic?

In what is now often referred to as “The DeChambeau Effect,” many golfers in both the professional and amateur golf space began seeing the insane speed and distance advantages Bryson DeChambeau built himself by drastically changing his body and golf swing between 2019 and 2021. 

By gaining nearly 40 pounds and making adjustments to his golf swing, DeChambeau’s clubhead speed went from 118 to an astronomical 132 mph in just two years!!!

In addition, DeChambeau had the fourth-best overall scoring average on the PGA Tour in 2021 despite being ranked 178th in off-the-tee accuracy. 


Despite his inaccuracy, his enormous distance gains led him to multiple victories and inspired players like Matt Fitzpatrick and Rory McIlroy to follow suit and chase more clubhead speed. 

Through the trickle-down effect, amateur golfers and beginners everywhere are focused on getting as much speed as possible!


The Verdict: Improving Your Club Head Speed

As you can clearly see, there are tons of things the beginner or average golfer can do to increase their clubhead speed. 

It would be unwise of us to suggest a golfer try every tip we’ve mentioned in one session, but after experimenting and finding tips that you enjoy practicing you’ll develop a routine that inevitably leads to more speed. 

Before we go, we’d like to reiterate a message that we hear over and over from the fastest golfers in the world like Bryson, Kyle Berkshire, and Martin Borgmeier: 

When chasing speed, there is no substitute for hard work. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t see results right away!

If you continue training and follow the advice we’ve laid out in our guide of how to increase club head speed, you will see more speed, distance, and fun when on the golf course! 

While you’re here, you might want to check out these other helpful articles on Golf Leap

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Author
ScramblingTom is a writer for Golf Leap and has been playing golf competitively for the last 13 years. He loves to dive deep into different subjects within the game to further his knowledge and help others along the way. Currently, he is hovering around Scratch.

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