I’m a relatively new golfer, and am also interested in building clubs. I’ve got a scale to measure both the total weight of the club and the swingweight, but I’m not sure what the swingweight measurements mean, or how to tell if the values are correct for my swing.
I would recommend starting with your club pro ( or a club pro if you don’t golf at a specific golf club), or a golf shop that you feel comfortable with. I assume you are simply talking about “fitting” the clubs to your swing length, etc…
If you are actually making your own clubs, please be aware that there are quite a few regulations to make the club ‘legal’ in the eyes of the USGA (if you expect to play in tournaments of ANY sort, your clubs MUST be legal in this sense). This is defined in the Rules of Golf, Appendix II.
The rules are on the web at:
The swingweight is a way to express the balance of the club. It determines whether the weight is more toward the handle or the clubhead. There are advantages and disadvantages to every weight distribution - for example, more weight toward the head (to a point) allows you to generate more clubhead speed, but it increases the odds that the head will twist open or closed.
It all boils down to preference, and a meeting with a good clubfitter can make a world of difference in your game.
Swingweight is a measurement of the weight distribution of a golf club. A golf club that has more of its total weight distributed at the “clubhead” end will “feel” heavier during the swing and have a higher swingweight than an otherwise identical club that has more of its weight distributed at the “grip” end.
A higher or lower swingweight is often a matter of preference - but you want all of the clubs in your set to have as close to the same swingweight as posible so that they all “feel” the same.
I’m not aware of any USGA rules concerning the swingweight of your golf clubs (a web search of their site using that keyword came back empty), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any.
Learn something new…
I appreciate the explanation of the term.
In that context, I doubt there are specific regulations as long as the club length + head themselves conform. But there again, a good clubfitter would know the specifics.