How Sweet is Your Sweet Spot?

By Master Clubmaker, Tom Wishon

I know you’ve seen and read it many times in advertisements for the latest and greatest new driver designs. “Expanded Sweet Spot” “Virtually the Whole Face is the Sweet Spot”. To be honest with you, there is actually a bit of disagreement among golf club companies as to what they really mean when they talk about the sweet spot, or the expanded version thereof.

Letting physics guide us, the sweet spot is a single point on the face, no bigger than the size of a pinhead, which is in direct alignment with the center of gravity (CG) inside the driver head. The CG is the intersection of all the possible balance points of the head; balance the head on top of a small rod on its face, sole, top, back or anywhere else you can get the driver head to sit still on a small object, and the CG resides where all those balance points intersect inside the head.

Hit the ball on the face directly in line with the CG and you’ll get the highest ball speed you can generate for your swing speed. However, hitting the ball on the sweet spot is not necessarily going to deliver your greatest driving distance. Huhhh?? Ever heard this other comment, often uttered by less knowledgeable golf telecast commentators? “The ‘hot spot’ of the driver is just above the center of the face.” Whaaat?? Hot Spot? Sweet Spot? You just want to hit the ball and not have to think about this stuff, right?

Hitting your drives on the upper half of the center of the face generates the greatest distance for most golfers because most golfers buy a driver with the wrong loft for their swing speed and what we call their angle of attack, a.k.a. whether you hit the ball on the upswing, or with the head traveling level or slightly downward into impact.

All driver heads are designed with a horizontal and vertical curve across and up and down the face. Because of the vertical curve on the face, the loft at the upper part of the face is higher than the loft anywhere else on the face. The reason most golfers achieve better distance when they hit the ball higher on the face is because this is where the driver has the correct, optimal loft for their swing speed + their angle of attack into the ball, not because this is the “hottest” part of the face.

Expanded sweet spot means the company has done something to try to decrease the loss of ball speed when you make contact over toward the heel or toe side of the face. How do you know if they are telling you the truth? Well, you can saw your driver head in half and look at the back of the face; if you see that the middle area of the face is a little thicker than the outer surrounding areas of the face, you’ve probably got an expanded sweet spot in your hand. . . er, ahh, sorry, in both of your hands!

Don’t want to saw the head in half to get the best driver for YOUR individual play? Ahh, in this case, go find a good, knowledgeable custom clubmaker who cares about you and your game. Oh and one other thing – when you’re properly fit for the best driver length, shaft, swingweight and grip size, you probably won’t hit the ball off center as much so you won’t need that expanded sweet spot as much!

Tom Wishon

Visit our clubmaking section and learn more about what we do. We have also just started offering Mitsushiba Rayon shafts. More

Biography

Tom Wishon is a golf club designer and researcher. Tom Wishon is a former member of the PGA of America who chose to pursue a career in golf equipment design and clubfitting research. While he has been offered the chance to head up golf club design for some of the largest golf club companies in the world, he has chosen to remain within the lesser known segment of the golf equipment industry that focuses on fitting golfers one at a time and building their golf clubs from high quality clubhead, shaft and grip component designs.

During his career he has designed more original golf clubhead models than any other person in the 500 year history of the game. He is also author of two best-selling consumer-oriented books, The Search for the Perfect Golf Club and The Search for the Perfect Driver.

He is Premium Golf Consultant and visits the UK regularly to train professionals in custom fitting and clubmaking.