Would have liked to see you start with a 10g weight and add another weight each time to see what the optimum weight is for you, instead of too light and too heavy. Give it another shot if you get a chance and post the results...also optimum length, 44", 45" 46", 47" and 48" would be interesting for he who has a boatload of demo clubs....keep up the good work.

You just made pxg jealous with all those weights across the bottom

The thing is force = mass times acceleration. If a person can accelerate a heavy club as fast as a lighter club, then the heavy club will impact the ball with more force and the ball will go faster and farther. But people can't always do that. In James' test, he went way past that point. A club is only around 200 grams, so adding 90 grams is a huge amount. HUGE!!! His swing speed went way down. But maybe a person can add a little weight and increase force because the loss in acceleration is less than the gain in mass. It's worth trying it to find out. Most new drivers support replacing weights on the bottom. So you can replace the standard weight with a lighter weight for one test and then with a heavier weight for another test. Then see how far the ball goes for each one. Everybody is different.

I found out by accident that TM makes 'fitting' weights which you can buy in the aftermarket. Added 16 grams to the 'spin' track and used the original weights in the Draw/Fade track. While club speed only dropped about 2 mph my dispersion and carry improved. I set the D/F weights in the centre of the track, and the new weight in the most forward position to lower spin. I cranked the loft to 12.5 degrees and get about 265 off the tee. Gets me to 8i on par 4 approach shots, and on par 5's the driver and 2h I carry can eat up 500 yards in two swings. Not bad for knocking on the door of 60 years old.

Mate what if you just go for an additional one or two and no quite so extreme? Bit more realistic. Would definitely be interested in seeing this.

Did not expect that! Great vid James

Finaly!!! Thanks for this one James... oh, and FIRST!!

Well James you have answered my question with out me asking it lol, I have thought of doing this with my M3 driver and now I know not too. Keep up the great content mate

Very cool idea James, that's the type of things I do wonder sometimes

My guess weights out: clubhead speed up, efficiency down. weights in: clubhead speed down, efficiency up

Nice video! Always fun to watch. You should try the driver with 4 weights instead of packing it full. That way you would subtract 20g and then add 20g from stock. That way it would be a more true comparison

Interesting video. It's similar results to what I thought. Though the weight in was a larger drop than I expected. Thanks for the great content as always James! Cheers mate

Now thats my kind of testing...wow Loving this new contents

Interesting that TXG just did a test on a Cobra F9 Driver changing weights in the Head (which changed the swing weight from D1 to 4-5) in their test the heavier SW added 20 yards to the drives. Your test added far too much weight, (it would have been interesting to know what SW you ended up at) so that the increased weight reduced your clubhead speed. What your test did show is that Golfers have an ideal SW for their clubs and if they then go too light or too heavy it will reduce the distances.

Great vid... played Fixby today. Windy. Fixby Rocks!!

You should do a comparison of all the top drivers and what the club head alone weighs and how that affects your club head speed. Nice video thanks!

That studio setup is kind of what I imagine my house would look like if I won lotto...great video

I really like your swing, the way you slip into the slot from the top is really pretty. Best you tuber swing in my opinion.

I’m catching up on your content, having only recently discovered you. Loving it! One of the most informative and entertaining channels I’ve found. This one was particularly interesting as I’ve done something similar myself for different reasons. I played off 4 before having two strokes, and after 2 years of rehab I got a new handicap of 34. Decided that I needed to really focus on rebuilding right hand strength and coordination between both arms, so...dug out an old 5-iron and wrapped about 750g of lead around the top of the hosel. Try swinging that with any effort and you’ll dislocate an arm! But it helped with rehab and I eventually rejoined a local club and got a handicap. Stage 2 was to reduce the handicap, if possible. Lessons from a good teaching pro and loads of range balls made no difference for a whole year. In year 2 I added a Ping G400 driver with three 16g weights to my range practice. I won’t claim it’s a silver bullet, but hit 50-100 balls with that and then go back to your normal driver and feel the incredible difference! One summer of practice and tuition later and and my handicap is in touching distance of breaking 20. It would be closer if I hadn’t let it go to my head and taken a break from the routine, so I’m back to it now. Definitely not something to try on the course, but I’m convinced it’s an essential training aid to build strength, rhythm and speed.

Great vid, I wonder about stuff like this too and love to tinker.

James, just don't think you took this test far enough! Keeping your data gathered so far & now put a 44" Playing length shaft in & repeat your shots with all the weights I or to bring it to standard [closer] go with only 4 weights... Try it & I think you & your reader s might be surprised & PLEASED @ the same time !!

Many years ago I had a set of Mitsushiba woods, which had a small equation on the shaft, d=mv2, or distance = mass x velocity squared. I stand to be corrected, but this may be the reason for the results. There is a payoff, increase the mass and it is much harder to maintain the same velocity. Decrease the mass and the increase in speed is squared. However, when all is said and done, this is only true if all other variables are constant. You are going to gain a lot more distance by hitting the sweet spot, with the club face square to target and the club moving on a line as close to the target line at impact as possible.

It's weird. It's almost like club designers know what they are doing...;-p Great video James. Love when you question the norm to find out what actually happens. Keep bringing the great content! Cheers mate!

I would like to see you try it with a weight in the front,weight in the back and one in each corner, interested and fun video and I would love to know how long it took to put all those weights in

Great video!

If it ain’t broke........ 😂 really good video James 👍👍

Good thing I'm only planning on trying this at the driving range 🤣😜

I actually had a M1 head that was built too light by TM when I was fitted at Club Champion a few years ago. CC added a second 10 gram weight to it for a total of 3 weights. Even though I don't play it anymore (due to new swing and fitness plan) I kept it as a memento so I too have a "Frankenhead".

Quite interesting, Worth the effort for us.

Thanks I ordered lighter weights for my m5 tour and couldn’t figure how to get the old ones out and new ones in !!!

Really interesting I would like to see wt lil added weights to see if it would get more distance

Guessed right but got to try it with one or two extra weights as efficiency goes up with weight depending on your swing etc. Surely next vid? I know cobra offer at least four weights for this reason cheers for vid James

Adding/taking away one weight might have been interesting though.

It would be really interesting if you just did one or two extra weights. What would spin rate and ball speed be then?

Third year physics , force = mass x acceleration . So assuming your speed doesn’t drop of the heavy one should go further

I like this Format👌

As has been pointed out in many of the comments, there is an equation that determines the force applied to the ball at impact. Without a doubt, you want as much weight in the clubhead that YOU can swing sufficiently fast enough. "Tinkering" with this ...clubhead weight vs swing speed ... is an aspect of club fitting that is as "personal" as it could get ...but worth doing. "End of round fatigue" ...complicates matters!

James let's see you try out your driver with a 50 inch shaft against a standard length now this would be interesting specially the numbers

Mr. Robinson- Perhaps the ability to add weight might allow a shorter shaft to be installed, to the benefit of shorter golfers or for those who have more challenge consistently hitting the club's "sweet spot" with a long shaft.

I have had 3 weights in my m5 since the day I got it 44.5” 60tx tensi orange, best driver I’ve had!

You poor bastard screwing in all those weights hahahahaha. You really will do anything for your subs :) much love chap

Hi James was thinking of adding weights, can you do a vlog with 3 10gram weights and compare against 2?

Just wondering what would happen if you notched down the loft on the no weights head. Would bring spin down and with that added club head speed 🤔

Is there a maximum legal driver weight as I've felt that a bit more weight in the club head might actually help. Its the reason we all should get fitted for one.

It would be interesting to see an incremental increase to see the ‘sweet spot’ of mass times acceleration equals power to distance.

To James Robinson You were at 2.37 yards per MPH of clubhead speed for the super heavy clubhead At 2.38 yards per MPH of clubhead speed for the super light clubheead At 2.53 yards per MPH of clubhead speed for the standard factory clubhead weight. Try 2 experiments: Try setting about 1 extra weight in the clubhead (3 weights total). Then try just one (one weight total) in the clubhead. I would guess that the slightly heavy clubhead will give you maximum yards per MPH of clubhead speed, maybe 2.6 yards per MPH of clubhead speed, and your total distance will go up by a couple of yards. You can always try 4 weights and see what that does too, just to be sure you've covered all the possibilities, but I'd guess 4 weights will be getting too heavy for a "stiff" shaft, and you'll need to go to X-stiff.

I'm 6'6" and I'm a "power hitter" when I play baseball/softball so I like to go with a heavier bat to slow my swing speed down and still demolish the ball. While I only just started playing golf about a month ago my driver swing speed is somewhere between 120 and 130 mph so if I could use a heavy club I think I would end up with the same result. I'm currently working on practicing for long drive competitions and I know that the pro players have a much faster speed than I do but I think using a heavier club would benefit me in the long run.

Shocked with all weight in thought would be longer. Quick question James just been down to our local pro shop as wife needs a new driver, was recommended the m6 great no problem but was told she does not need to be fitted is this right seems to me wants to sell club but no work really need your advic mate🤔🤔😉

I have been hitting superlight clubs for the last year ... very inaccurate, stayed out to the right (TS 2 -6 gram weight). I was just fitted for the Mavrik with a 14 g weight in the back, and it's a major difference ... long and relatively straight. Your results confirm my results that light isn't necessarily better.

Good add for tmag. I'd just use lead tape. I once filled a head to the brim with #8 lead shot (yes for shotguns) let's just say it was better suited for pounding in railroad spikes!

Added 90g(secret grip) weights to by changing grip on my Old Cleveland Driver & Nike 5 Wood. Feels much better and hitting ball longer and seems spin rate is down ! Your thoughts?

Hit 50 shots a night with the super heavy version and watch your speed with a standard driver gradually go up.

I also would love to see what it does if you added just one more weight to it🤔

James, I have a Mizuno MP600 driver. It is 18 years old and the swing weight is D9.5. Too heavy? not for me. In those 18 years I have tried dozens of drivers and few even match my driver, let alone beat it. I have just bought the new Mizuno ST x and I am having trouble matching any of the stats you showed. Did you notice that the Smash Factor was best with maximum weights? My smash factor with my old club is usually 1.48, spin rate is only 2,300 but on the Optimiser (on Trackman) I get 25yards more than I should. I don't understand it but it works.

James what brand is your belt? Liking the content!

Iv'e done this as well James for a strong player like you the magic number I found for my m1 is 220 total 15 extra yards.

My question would be, what does it look like with 3 weights in the back vs just the one standard. That would be a beneficial and more realistic test to us club twiddlers out there

I had to add weight to my TM r15 driver. Has a Motorola f1 regular 65g shaft and the stock head weight was 193g. My reason for weighting is I was consistently heel striking! I bumped it up pretty much 9 7g increments until I can now get center and toe strikes! Total addition of 28g and I centered the heaviest weights then evenly distributed the remaining on either side. Bumped my total head weight to 222g!

Try it with a little shorter extra stiff shaft then just swing as hard as you can. Like a long drive player

p = mv, this is all about how much momentum you can impart to the ball. too little weight, you swing faster but not enough mass. too much mass, kills the swing speed. there's definitely a sweet spot - my question is, is one weight that sweet spot? or is it maybe more? Great test.

i play my drivers with 30 extra weight at 43 inches. it feels heavy and i like it. another 50g on top (plus normal shaft length) must feel like it still has the head cover on!

Were you trying to swing the club at the same speed in all 3 settings or were you purposefully swinging slower due to feeling the shaft would break? Loved this my friend

If you play 44.5" length adding 1 additional weight is money.

Like many have said, taking weights out, faster swing speed, weights in, slower. It's also going to depend on hitting the ball in the center, but my feeling, the weight of the club as normal is optimized for most people, the force you hit a ball with is still based on a calculation of weight(mass) * Speed(acceleration), so you are going to need to increase the speed of the club to make up for the weight loss, or not lose as much speed as the weight gain to make a difference. I would assume that these companies have done massives studies and found the relative general sweet spot compromise for most people. So most people would find that adding weight slows them down more than the added weight helps, and removing weight does not speed you up enough to overcome the lose of the weight.

Perhaps swing weight and MOI measurements as weight increases? Gradually increasing clubhead weight and looking for improvement in centredness of strike is one of the accepted ways of searching for your optimum club MOI. Note...club MOI, not clubhead MOI. Would love to see youtubers start to look at club MOI customisation and MOI matching...rather than swing weight matching...does it really work as well as Tom Wishon suggests?

The importance of proper SW'S for each individual player

i added another weight to a sldr driver it made it bomb them with 2 weights made sweetspot twice as big

I just want one of those bad ass hats !

Nice video

Can you test what counterbalance shaft does to the driver. What happens?

I hit pause because I didn’t want to see the outcome before commenting. There really shouldn’t be any impact on the one with all the weights off. I took the weights off of my R7 years ago and actually liked it. As for the one with all the weights, my guess is probably bad push or pulls because it’s going to be harder to control face angle not to mention that you’re probably going to have low ball flight because that head is going to take a while to catch up. Let’s see how I did. 😂

Interesting , I play the cobra f-max superlite driver how is it that it still get out there ? Why not try

I kinda wish you added one at a time then swing

Cool test. Put a steel shaft in it and go for it.

From extreme to extreme. If you want to test and show how weight impacts swing. Take time and add 1 weight for each swing test. That would be something many would be interested in.

Xander Schauffele has a driver you need to try.

You could have used sticky weights used in balancing alloy wheels. They are either 5 or 10g, I was tempted to stick one on the sole of my 10 year old cobra, would that be illegal?

This vid is old but the general mechanics using a prov1 as the standard if your driver club head speed is below 108 you need to add a bit of weight between 10 and 25 grams and you will benefit if not from a further drive but more consistency due to a bigger faux sweet spot (however the additional weight could drop swing speed anywhere between 2-12 mph so its not for everyone). I've never seen extra 90 grams added to standard weight though thats alot. also adding them all in the middle might effect the balance. the weight should distributed more evenly. but thanks for showing doing that. i'm gonna get some lead tape.

Before you put the weights away, what about one in each corner? Inc MOI from the rear, less spin from the front. If this works maybe they should think about making square drivers?......... 🙄

Add one or two extra weights. That would be very relevant.

i would like to have seen just 3 weights in the back track see if that would help i thought about getting me a weight to do this make the whole face a hammer..put one each side at back an one up front middle see what happens

I did this experiment and found that even just 10 grams can slow down my swing speed 3-5 mph, BUT that was only initially. When I got warmed up both with and without the 10 grams added I was swinging the same and got my longest carry of about 295 with the weight added. I went the reverse direction to -14g from stock (-24 from the heaviest) when I started getting tired and swing speeds jumped back up to 110 and distances rose back with it (but not quite in the 290 area). It’s interesting what the body does. Smash factor was about the same between stock and added weight at a solid 1.49 but with the weight felt easier to feel the club head and time. I’m going to game the extra weight for now and see how it does. I’ll probably get heavier weights for swing speed training. In conclusion it’s largely going to depend on you and the day. You definitely feel every one of those extra grams. (My max swing speed is around 120 but my shortened gaming swing is around 110).

Curious what a difference in 1 or 2 weights or extra grams in non std weight.. would do..

Is that a screwdriver in your pocket, or are you happy to see ... ? Oh, wait, you answered that at 7:33 .. really excited.

Add 1 weight so you still feel comfortable swinging fast so a total of 3 weights

Did you experiment with perhaps one added weight in the front - or back?

Club head speed multiplied by affective weight equals the force applied to the ball. Lowering speed and increasing weight by the same relative amount would give you the exact end result (same is true for the reverse). Thing is... There's a human swinging the club. Our bodies also have an optimal performance window. It's no good removing half the weight if you can't swing twice as fast regardless, etc.. The trick is to find the optimal balance of the most weight possible before disproportionate speed loss occurs. (Then there's human "feel and feedback) Tldr; those engineers know what they're doing, and get fitted.

Where did you get these weights??

Looks like PXG gone mental

Put an x flex in and SWING!

Would that be legal with all those extra weights 🏌🏿🏌🏿???????

hahah. this is awesome!!!!! i'm going to guess it makes no difference. haha

Right, so here is the thing. Shot and head/face being the same, the distance is pretty much a function of a. Speed b. Weight of the mass interacting with the ball. Obviously with added weight, you add weight, but you remove speed. And vice versa. But, these relations are not only both not equal, but also different per golfer. So maybe for you the ideal is 20g weight. Or 10 or 30. But for your mid-handicap tester, maybe it's 40. OR 40 or 30 for you and 10 or 0 for him. OR you are the same, but the local senior is out there. THAT would be really interesting to see. Of course, you have the added complication... weight affects strike. You talk about how hard one is to control and how hard the other is to get up to speed. That's also going to be different per golfer. SO much things to look at.

How many weigts can you add and still be USGA approved?

They're engineered for averages... Some players would benefit by adding weights... Just look at Matt with txg... Added both 20g weights to the cobra and it went NUTS!!!

Actually you should do this - but not at the extremely level you have done. For young teenagers, it is common to fit them in driver heads with weight(s) removed in combination with a lighter shaft and lighter thinner grip - very common in fact. The reverse is also true at the pro level for tour guys that like either heavier counterbalanced shafts (Tensei Orange as an example) - but you would be adding the equivalent of about 1 extra weight (or almost 1 weights) to give you that D5/D6 swing weight. Lighter modern heads, such as the Cobra F9, sell a weight kit that is very commonly used by club fitters to up the mass of the head to trade off slightly slower club head speed for higher ball speed (and either a higher MOI weight in the rear to increase MOI or a higher weight up front (or both) to slightly lower spin) and also to get the desired swing weight (D4-D8) that many stronger faster swinging players desire (and it puts more MASS behind the ball increasing efficiency and ball speed)

Looked like fun but from an engineering point of view rather predictable. Would love you to do this with lead tape on your Irons? How's the zero iron going?

Try shorter and stiffer with full weights

taylormade engineers : Am I a joke to you?

Some just don’t have the manhood to swing that much weight