Understanding Golf Ball Spin Rate (Video) - by Pete Styles
Understanding Golf Ball Spin Rate (Video) - by Pete Styles

Now if we can understand the term spin rate, quite often you will hear the guys talking about it on the TV, you know that player has got a really good spin rate and certainly if you go for a club fitting, the club fitter, the professional that carries that out, will talk to you about spin rate, spin rate simply the amount of times the ball rotates in a minute, so its classed as an RPM figure. Or we might see with different clubs, that RPM altering between around about 2000 revs per minute and nine, 10,000 revs per minute. Generally the lower spin rate figures are going to be generated with your lower lofted clubs. So for example a well struck driver might have around about 2000 to 3000 revs per minute of back spin. And then the higher lofted clubs, the sand wedges, the pitching wedges, that sort of thing struck well, might have eight, nine or even 10,000 revs per minute of back spin.

And as a golfer it’s important we understand when we want the back spin, and when we don’t want the back spin. Now understand if you have no back spin on the golf ball, the ball does not fly very well at all, it will pretty much just nose dive and fall out of the sky. But you will very rarely if ever have seen that in any of your golf shots, because any time you’ve had a lofted club face and hit the ball in the air, you have imparted some back spin. Its impossible to top spin a golf ball, it would just fall out the sky straight away. So all of the shots you’ve ever hit, have bit of back spin, even those big duck hooks, and everyone says, “Oh your top spin that one.” And it really came down quickly. Generally that still got some degree of back spin just not enough. Likewise the big ballooning tee shots that shoot really high up in the air, comes down with snow on it and doesn’t travel very far, that probably had too much spin. So the spin rate of a driver we measure these things with you know the TrackMan’s, the Flight Scope’s, the GC2s, they are the launch monitors that will measure the spin rate to the point of impact and it is in correlation with your club head speed and it is in correlation with the loft that you launch the ball on. So their isn’t one defined figure that we are trying to hit, it’s a figure that can change and alter depending on the ability of the golfer and the club that they are using. So it’s impossible for me to say you must spin it at to 2500 revs with that club and 3500 revs with that club, it alters for each individual golfer, but these machines that we now use, this dopers radars and that sort of thing they are very clever, they work that out that for us, and as club fitters gives the great opportunity to fit somebody for exactly the right club. So loads of spin with your driver is what we want and – sorry little spin with your driver – sorry little spin with your driver is what we want and loads of spin with your wedges is what we want. And now if you are struggling with the right amount of spin and you feel you are flying it too high or your not spinning it enough with your wedges that's going to be a technical issue, so we can start to work on the technique that can increase and decrease the amount of spin that you put on the golf ball. 2015-11-03

Now if we can understand the term spin rate, quite often you will hear the guys talking about it on the TV, you know that player has got a really good spin rate and certainly if you go for a club fitting, the club fitter, the professional that carries that out, will talk to you about spin rate, spin rate simply the amount of times the ball rotates in a minute, so its classed as an RPM figure. Or we might see with different clubs, that RPM altering between around about 2000 revs per minute and nine, 10,000 revs per minute. Generally the lower spin rate figures are going to be generated with your lower lofted clubs. So for example a well struck driver might have around about 2000 to 3000 revs per minute of back spin. And then the higher lofted clubs, the sand wedges, the pitching wedges, that sort of thing struck well, might have eight, nine or even 10,000 revs per minute of back spin.

And as a golfer it’s important we understand when we want the back spin, and when we don’t want the back spin. Now understand if you have no back spin on the golf ball, the ball does not fly very well at all, it will pretty much just nose dive and fall out of the sky. But you will very rarely if ever have seen that in any of your golf shots, because any time you’ve had a lofted club face and hit the ball in the air, you have imparted some back spin. Its impossible to top spin a golf ball, it would just fall out the sky straight away. So all of the shots you’ve ever hit, have bit of back spin, even those big duck hooks, and everyone says, “Oh your top spin that one.” And it really came down quickly.

Generally that still got some degree of back spin just not enough. Likewise the big ballooning tee shots that shoot really high up in the air, comes down with snow on it and doesn’t travel very far, that probably had too much spin. So the spin rate of a driver we measure these things with you know the TrackMan’s, the Flight Scope’s, the GC2s, they are the launch monitors that will measure the spin rate to the point of impact and it is in correlation with your club head speed and it is in correlation with the loft that you launch the ball on. So their isn’t one defined figure that we are trying to hit, it’s a figure that can change and alter depending on the ability of the golfer and the club that they are using.

So it’s impossible for me to say you must spin it at to 2500 revs with that club and 3500 revs with that club, it alters for each individual golfer, but these machines that we now use, this dopers radars and that sort of thing they are very clever, they work that out that for us, and as club fitters gives the great opportunity to fit somebody for exactly the right club. So loads of spin with your driver is what we want and – sorry little spin with your driver – sorry little spin with your driver is what we want and loads of spin with your wedges is what we want. And now if you are struggling with the right amount of spin and you feel you are flying it too high or your not spinning it enough with your wedges that's going to be a technical issue, so we can start to work on the technique that can increase and decrease the amount of spin that you put on the golf ball.