Welcome to I Tried It, a GOLF.com series about golf items — apparel, gear, accessories, etc. — that we’ve recently taken out for a spin. We’re here to give our honest, no-frills takes on the latest and greatest golf or golf-adjacent items. So, scroll down to read about what we love about golf’s newest (or new to us) products.
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Let me preface this piece by saying that I am not the target market for speed training — but Super Speed Golf’s new Speed Sticks Pro still yielded some significant gains for me anyway.
I grew into speed during college, going from low 100s clubhead speeds in high school to upper 100s and eventually low-110s. This winter, though, things seemed really flat. I was doing conventional golf training and was in good shape. I had even clocked 120+ mph on Trackman the previous winter, but this winter I was back down to 110 mph.
I tried the original Speed Sticks a few years ago, but I honestly struggled keeping track of the program without an app and fell off after just one season. Not only does Super Speed have a new app now, they also have the updated Speed Sticks Pro, which came out earlier this year, featuring loads of advancements from the previous generation.
I started using the new program in April and after completing the first two levels and first cycle of overspeed training, I’m excited to have a real offseason with the Speed Sticks Pro.
Speed Sticks Pro (NEW!)
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What’s new with the Speed Sticks Pro?
For those unfamiliar with the SuperSpeed system, it’s a form of overspeed training that trains your body to break mental speed barriers and move faster than normal. It uses three weighted clubs, which you swing for different drills. The clubs are progressively weighted with Green being about 20 percent lighter than your driver, blue 10 percent, and red about five to 10 percent heavier.
Perhaps the most notable user is three-time major winner Padraig Harrington. Harrington has been the longest player on the PGA Tour Champions the past four seasons, including averaging over 308 yards off the tee this season.
Major champ says this is the biggest key for adding swing speed
With the new Speed Sticks Pro, Super Speed has made four enhancements to the design.
Refined aerodynamics: Gone are the cylindrical weights at the bottom of the clubs, replaced by a more aerodynamic weight tip with 3 air flow modulators to help players swing faster.
Inertia match system and travel set: The Speed Sticks Pro come standard with 40g weights in each tip, but they also send you with a weight kit including 20s and 30s so you can match your set to your driver’s approximate swing weight. There’s also an 80g travel weight that can be used to create a travel set with the middle-weight blue club. Instead of switching clubs, you can take the weight out of the blue club to simulate the green one, or add the travel weight to simulate red.
New Shafts: The new Speed Sticks Pro have redesigned shafts with a stiffer section toward the top to promote more aggressive loading during the swing and a more flexible torque zone at the tip to promote optimal release.
Bigger, textured grips: Super Speed has found a correlation between grip strength and speed, so they created new, larger grips on the Speed Sticks Pro to encourage the use of muscles in the hands and forearms. Some sections are softer and smoother to promote optimal pressure points with the lead and trail hands.
Using the new Speed Sticks Pro
My first reaction to using the new Speed Sticks Pro was how my forearms felt after the first few sessions. I could tell I was using muscles that I hadn’t activated like that before and I can probably chalk that up to the larger grips.
Initially, I didn’t feel like I was making all that much progress with the right-handed swings, but I was able to cross the 135 mph threshold with the green club after about a month and a half, but that was only a few miles an hour increase with the lightest club.
Where I could really feel the improvements were my timing and sequencing on my left, non-dominant side. As I did the drills more, specifically the ones that involve either stepping forward with the lead foot, or back with the trail foot, allowed me to get closer to the speeds I was putting up with my dominant side.
I did these protocols in consultation with my fitness trainers at my gym, which I highly recommend, as they incorporated it into my workout routines. I typically do the protocols BEFORE working out and after warming up my body, but I’ve also done them before playing, just give your body some time to recover before going back to the range or course.
Using the Super Speed app to guide and record my sessions was super simple and it let’s you track your progress easily, while suggesting other training methods through the assessments.
My results
I went into using the new Speed Sticks Pro with a caveat that I was already a relatively fast player and I didn’t really expect to pick up 10 mph of clubhead speed, but not only did I regain what I lost last winter, I actually picked up 3.8 mph of clubhead since I started in April.
I completed the first two training protocols, which take about six weeks each at three sessions a week. Each one takes about 15 minutes and involves two to three different drills where you swing each club three times on both your dominant and non-dominant sides.
For my first speed assessment before my first session, I was averaging 114.4 mph over five shots, having already gained back most of what I had lost in the winter. That led to average ball speeds of 165.8 mph and average carry of 290.4 yards. I used Super Speed’s PRGR launch monitor which is included in the Speed Sticks Pro bundle.
After completing the first two protocols in June, I did another Speed assessment. Much to my surprise, not only I had gotten all the way back to where I was last year, I was faster than ever before. Now I was averaging 118.2 mph with a max of 120 mph clubhead speed and 174.2 mph average ball speed with a max of 175. If you do the math, I was also more efficient with a smash factor of 1.47, up from 1.45. All this boosted my average carry during the assessment to 300.7 yards.
Using a grip strength measurement from a few months before I started, I increased my maximum grip strength by 14 lbs of pressure on the right arm and 6 lbs on the left. It’s interesting my trail side picked up so much more, but I’d like to explore some of Super Speed’s other products to maybe help that lead side.
These certainly aren’t eye-popping gains, but an extra 10 yards off the tee means about one club less for my approach shots. The extra speed allows me to hit those approach shots higher while keeping my carry distances the same with my irons and stop them faster. While DataGolf has written that it’s tough to quantify exactly how many strokes gained 10 yards of distance is, they peg the number somewhere around a half shot a round. As a competitive amateur, that can be the difference of making a cut for a state am or not, making match play in a club championship, winning the finals, etc.
PRGR Portable Launch Monitor (HS130A)
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Since June, I’ve been in the maintenance phase of the system, which is doing the Level 2 Protocol once a week and I’ve seen my numbers go down a bit. I used to be able to swing the green club 136 mph, but now it’s down to 132. Probably just because of the time of year and my body not playing as much golf. That said, I haven’t noticed a distance loss on the course.
But after a move this month, I’ll be ready to ramp back up this winter and see if I can squeeze out and more yards.
My goal was initially to raise my floor so I don’t need to feel my best to hit as far as I need to, but now I want to see how much farther we can go!
Speed Sticks Pro (NEW!)
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