I've got my nose back into Jorgensen's The Physics of Golf, second edition, and was curious about the action of the wrists.
The plots he provides suggest that the wrist to club shaft angle opens up in the downswing at a linear rate -- not, for example, being delayed until the last moment when the wrists can snap and send the ball off at some fantastic speed.
I also took my club head speed unit with me. This is a couple of years old and sits about 3 feet behind the ball. You give the club a swing and it will report a club head speed. Accurate? Don't know, but it's probably more important that it be consistent.
I was curious if I could just let the wrists open as they do from the torque delivered by the arms and if that would increase or decrease club head speed.
What I learned is: 1) that I don't think it matters much, 2) I cannot swing a club over 100 MPH. Oh, I saw 100 a couple of times, but it was more likely to be 93 than 100. I never saw any 96, 97, 98, or 99 speeds - curious!
More later, we are off to eat.
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Updates:
One of the interesting things I found was that the speeds between clubs was not that different.
I usually start with a 9 iron, move to a 6 then 3 wood, then sand wedge, and then driver. The speeds for these were about 80, 84, 90, 93 - I never got to the sand wedge. I would have thought the speed differences would have been greater. Note that each of those numbers was fairly variable and they often overlapped.
I also found that some of the most solid iron hits were with the slower speeds. Imagine that!
So tomorrow I'll concentrate on swinging smoothly, as trying to hit anything hard did not result in a higher club head speed.
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