I was chatting to a customer of ours over the weekend (Mike) that has really been struggling to hit his Irons properly for the last couple of months. After checking out his swing,  which appeared to be fine, we then had a good look at his clubs. After taking a few measurements we checked the swing weight, and found the problem.

The longer irons had an average swing weight reading of C9 and the shorter irons in the set had an average of around C8. These swing weights are much too light for the average golfer and I was not surprised that Mike was hitting the ball badly.

Mike and I chatted for a while, and he remembered he bought new grips a few months before and this was around the same time the problem started. I took one of the new grips off, replaced it with a lighter model (15 grams lighter) and then Mike went out to the range. Within minutes he had a smile on his face as he could now feel the club properly and get back to enjoying his golf.

How did this happen?

When a company designs a new golf club everything is planned out so that the swing weight will end up at specific figure. Swing weight was originally created to compare the “feel weight” of one club to the next. Club makers use it to work out where the weight is in the club, head or grip for example. It also represents a feel type reading, whether you will feel the weight in the head or not during the swing. Effectively you could swing weight the Eiffel Tower to D1 but you would never be able to pick it up. It is a separate measurement to the overall weight of the club. Nb – Not easy to explain! Ultimately you can also use it to check your whole set and see if they have the same balance or if any of them are out of spec to the rest.

Anyway,  clubs are designed and manufactured with a specific swing weight in mind. By changing the grips from a 55g grip to a 70g model the club’s swing weight became lighter and therefore Mike was struggling to feel the head through the swing and his golf started to fall apart.

Keep in Mind!

Be aware,  anything you change on a golf club has an effect, when you next need to order new grips check with the shop or club maker that the weight of the new ones are close to the weight of the old ones or you could end up with problems like Mike!