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Originally Posted by ubizmo But you can't make that assumption, Simon. It's because of the conservation of angular momentum, the same thing that makes a figure skater spin faster when she draws her arms or leg closer to her body. When you say "same speed", you mean RPMs or degrees of arc per unit of time. When you swing a club, you apply a force to it. If that force is the same, then when you swing a longer club it'll move at fewer RPMs, so even though the club head is moving a greater distance, it's traveling a bit slower. |
Actually, after re-reading what Simon was saying, he's right. IF (and that's a big, big if) you can generate the same swing speed, then longer
clubs will be longer than shorter
clubs.
In actuality, our swings all swing at about the same speed. How many times do you swing the driver on a launch monitor, and get a bunch of speeds at around the same speed? Then swing a 5 iron (or any other club). The number drops, but the numbers are all clustered together. If we found a way to just look at the butt of the club, and measure that speed, I'd be willing to bet that
it's speed would be pretty consistent, no matter what club you had in your hands.
To be honest, I don't know off the top of my head why
clubs are stepped in 1/2" increments, besides trying to keep swing weight constant. Assuming this is the reason, I could keep swing weight (or feel, or heft) constant, there would be no reason to shorten the
clubs. Again, we're assuming the stepping is to keep feel constant, as head weight goes up in the shorter
clubs.
Now, to further Simon's argument (and I think I said this earlier), if all
clubs were the same LOFT, then length would be the determining factor in distance. But then, looking at the roughly 36 MPH difference between 1W and 5i, (in a conventional setup) the math is as follows: 1" = 2 MPH (for arguments sake). The 5i is swung at 70 MPH, and is 37", with 26º of loft. So to get the driver swinging at 105 MPH, we'd need to add 18" (more or less). So your driver is 55", and the same loft as your 5i, just to get the SS up. And I doubt that you'd get the same distance as your 'regularily sized driver' due to control issues.
Thankfully,
clubs are made up of different lofts, and length is almost immaterial.